Google digitizes art works in new project

After digitizing books from libraries all over the globe, Internet giant Google has turned its eye on the art world with a new initiative it unveiled on February 1 dubbed the Art Project. The project is a collaboration with some of the world’s most acclaimed art museums to allow people to view more than a thousand artworks online in extraordinary detail. Over the last 18 months, Google worked with 17 art museums, the result of which can be explored at www.googleartproject.com. The undertaking involved taking a selection of high resolution images of famous artworks, as well as collating more than a thousand other images into one place. It also included building 360 degree tours of individual galleries using Street View ‘indoor’ technology. With the project, anyone anywhere in the world will be able to learn about the history and artists behind a huge number of works, at the click of a mouse. Each of the museums has worked in extensive collaboration with Google, providing expertise and guidance on every step of the project, from choosing which collections to feature; to advising on the best angle to capture photos; to what kind of information should accompany the artwork. Works of art included in the project range from Botticelli’s ‘Birth of Venus’ to Chris Ofili’s ‘No Woman, No Cry’, Cezanne’s post impressionist works to Byzantine iconography. From the ceilings of Versailles to ancient Egyptian temples, a collection of Whistlers to Rembrandts all over the globe. In total, 486 artists from around the world have been included. Each of the 17 museums selected one artwork to be photographed in extraordinary detail using high resolution or ‘gigapixel’ photo capturing technology. Each such image contains around 7 billion pixels, enabling the viewer to study details of the brushwork and patina beyond that possible with the naked eye. Hard-to-see details suddenly become clear such as the tiny Latin couplet which appears in Hans Holbein the Younger’s ‘The Merchant Georg Gisze’. Or the people hidden behind the tree in Ivanov’s ‘The Apparition of Christ to the People’. In addition, museums provided images for a selection totaling more than 1000 works of art. The resolution of these images, combined with a custom built zoom viewer, allows art-lovers to discover minute aspects of paintings they may never have seen up close before, such as the miniaturized people in the river of El Greco’s ‘View of Toledo’, or individual dots in Seurat’s ‘Grandcamp, Evening’ The ‘Create an Artwork Collection’ feature in the site allows users to save specific views of any of 1000+ artworks and build their own personalized collection. Amit Sood, head of Art Project at Google, said initiative started as “20-percent" project by a group of Google employees. “Together with our museum partners around the world we have created what we will hope will be a fascinating resource for art-lovers, students and casual museum goers alike — inspiring them to one day visit the real thing," said Amit Sood, the head of Google's Art Project. — Newsbytes.ph