Google Art Project goes live

Google showed the fruits of one of its 20 percent spare time projects today by starting up Google Art Project. The approach uses the indoor technology recently added to Street View to let users walk through certain wings of especially famous museums, such as MoMA New York or the Palace of Versailles. Viewers can zoom in on individual paintings and other art pieces at a seven-gigapixel resolution, in many cases getting as close as the individual brush strokes.

Every piece visible in the project has a description and quick links to jump to the artist's other works or matching videos. Options exist to make "playlists" of favorite paintings. The art isn't locked to within the special site and is both accessible from regular Street View as well as through links shared with the rest of the web.

The unique mapping is available today and is being treated as the "first step" in widening the accessibility of art.

By Electronista Staff