Screenshot of the Art Project website, showing Ivanov's Apparition of Christ to the People |
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| Developer(s) | Google Inc. |
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| Initial release | February 1, 2011 |
| Website | www.googleartproject.com |
Google Art Project is an online compilation of high-resolution images of artworks from galleries worldwide, as well as a virtual tour of the galleries in which they are housed. The project was launched on 1 February 2011 by Google, and includes works in the Tate Gallery, London; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City; and the Uffizi, Florence.[1]
The "walk-through" feature of the project uses Google's Street View technology.[2] The project includes 16 images over one gigapixel in size (over 1 billion pixels); the largest, Ivanov's The Appartition of Christ to the People, is over 12 gigapixels. By comparison, a typical digital camera takes pictures at 10 megapixels, or about 1000 times smaller in area.
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Seventeen galleries and museums were included in the launch of the project. The 1,061 high-resolution images (by 486 different artists) are shown in 385 virtual gallery rooms, with 6,000 Street View-style panoramas.[3][4] Each institute contributed one item of gigapixel artwork[5] (all images shown are actual images from Google Art Project):
Google described the inclusion of Holbein's The Ambassadors as "tough". This was due to the anamorphic techniques used in a portion of the artwork. Google stated that the effect was still apparent in the gigapixel version of the painting, but was less pronounced in the "walk-through" function.[4]
Director of the Center for the Future of Museums, Elizabeth Merritt, described the project as an "interesting experiment" but was sceptical as to its intended audience.[2] Julian Raby, director of the Freer Gallery of Art, expressed a belief that rather than stopping a person viewing artwork in galleries, the project increases the person's desire to view the actual artwork.[2] This view was shared by Brian Kennedy, director of the Toledo Museum of Art, who believed that academics would still want to view artwork in three dimensions, even if the gigapixel images provided better clarity than viewing the artwork in the gallery.[2] Similarly, Amit Sood—the Google project leader—said that "nothing beats the first-person experience".[4]
Beyond Google Art Project, other high definition digitalization programs exist, such as the ressources of the French Center for Research and Restoration of the Museums of France, with Mona Lisa, by Leonardo, and other paintings by Raphael, Watteau or Van Gogh, etc.
Romania: Virtual tours for Bucharest Natural History Museum Grigore Antipa[22] and for Museum of the Romanian Peasant.[23]
Already in January 2009 Google had launched its The Prado in Google Earth project, containing photos of 14 Prado paintings with the largest having 14 gigapixels.[24]
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