Known for their innovative approaches to all things Internet−related, the Silicon Valley aficionados at Google have broadened their horizons into the world of art. Their latest endeavor, the Google Art Project, is now up and running. With the help of a branding company called Schematic, Google has now provided the world with virtual access to 17 of the most internationally renowned art museums on the planet.
The masterminds behind the operation drew inspiration for the Google Art Project from another one of their projects, Street View. A downright stroke of genius for the Google Maps and Google Earth technology, Street View allows a user to dive into the map and see photos of the area of interest. The technology even allows the user to virtually "walk" down the street, seeing everything as if he or she were actually standing on the physical street.
The same technology has been applied to the Google Art Project. Visitors to the site can now transport themselves to famous art museums in an instant and find themselves standing in some of the most prestigious art galleries in the world. Patrons can walk forward, turn around, and zoom in on paintings of interest. Currently, 1,000 images are available on the site, representing the works of 486 different artists.
A select contingent of art museums partnered with Google on the project. Many of the institutions involved are household names, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Other museums represented, like the Museo Thyssen−Bornemisza in Madrid or the Museum Kampa in Prague, are less well known and are therefore receiving incredible exposure by involving themselves in Google's project.
An interesting aspect of the site is the "Create an Artwork Collection" feature. With this tool, online visitors can select paintings they enjoy from the various museums and arrange them in a personal art gallery. This gallery can then be shared with other users, allowing visitors to make their experiences personal by seeing works together that would otherwise never be in the same room.
The technology involved in bringing the world's greatest pieces of artwork to the Internet is exhaustive and extremely advanced. Via the new "gigapixel" method, those who worked on the project were able to digitize many works of art as they have never been digitized before.
The process involves putting together individual high−resolution images to make an incredibly detailed image. With the gigapixel process, virtual viewers can see individual brush strokes and textural variances up close. According to Amit Sood, Google Art Project's director, each gigapixel image contains over seven billion individual pixels.
As exciting and innovative as Google's work on the Art Project has been, art and art history scholars have had mixed views about the intentions and consequences of the project. Elizabeth Merritt, the director of the Center for the Future of Museums, was intrigued by the prospect, but was not sure who the target audience was. Brian Kennedy, the director of the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio, praised the advancement of the gigapixel technology, yet remained confident that no matter how detailed the image was, it could never supplant the real work of art.
Kennedy's point is valid: Obviously, seeing an image of a famous work of art online is no substitute for seeing the original in person. However, the Google Art Project can certainly serve as temporary solace for those wanderlust−stricken art enthusiasts who simply can't make it to their dream museums just yet.
