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Google App exploring partner museums From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Google Arts & Culture (formerly Google Art Project) is an online platform of high-resolution images and videos of artworks and cultural artifacts from partner cultural organizations throughout the world, operated by Google.
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 Screenshot of the website, showing different themes. | |
| Developer(s) | Google Cultural Institute Google Inc. |
|---|---|
| Initial release | February 1, 2011 |
| Stable release | 10.20.6
/ 28 October 2024[1] |
| Platform | Web, Android |
| Website | artsandculture |
It utilizes high-resolution image technology that enables the viewer to tour partner organization collections and galleries and explore the artworks' physical and contextual information. The platform includes advanced search capabilities and educational tools.[2]
A part of the images are used within Wikimedia, see the category Google Art Project works by collection.
The platform emerged as a result of Google's "20-percent time" policy, by which employees were encouraged to spend 20% of their time working on an innovative project of interest.[11] A small team of employees created the concept for the platform after a discussion on how to use the firm's technology to make museum' artwork more accessible.[12] The platform concept fit the firm's mission "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."[13] Accordingly, in mid-2009, Google executives agreed to support the project, and they engaged online curators of numerous museums to commit to the initiative.[14]
The platform was launched on February 1, 2011, by the Google Cultural Institute with contributions from international museums, including the Tate Gallery, London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York City; and the Uffizi, Florence.[15] On April 3, 2012, Google announced a major expansion, with more than 34,000 artworks from 151 museums and arts organizations from 40 countries, including the Art Gallery of Ontario, the White House, the Australian Rock Art Gallery at Griffith University, the Museum of Islamic Art, Doha, and the Hong Kong Museum of Art.[16]
The team leveraged existing technologies, including Google Street View and Picasa, and built new tools specifically for the platform.
They created an indoor-version of the camera system to capture gallery images by pushing the camera 'trolley' through a museum. It also used professional panoramic heads Clauss RODEON VR Head Hd And Clauss VR Head ST to take high-resolution photos of the artworks within a gallery. This technology allowed excellent attention to detail and the highest image resolution. Each partner museum selected one artwork to be captured at ultra-high resolution with approximately 1,000 times more detail than the average digital camera.[3] The largest image, Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov's The Apparition of Christ to the People, is over 12 gigapixels. To maximize image quality, the team coordinated with partner museums' lighting technicians and photography teams. For example, at Tate Britain, they collaborated to capture a gigapixel image of No Woman No Cry in both natural light and in the dark. Tate suggested this method to capture the painting's hidden phosphorescent image, which glows in the dark. The Google camera team had to adapt their method and keep the camera shutter open for 8 seconds in the dark to capture a distinct enough image. Now, unlike at Tate, from the site, one can view the painting in both light settings.[17]
Once the images were captured, the team used Google Street View software and GPS data to seamlessly stitch the images and connect them to museum floor plans. Each image was mapped according to longitude and latitude, so that users can seamlessly transition to it from Google Maps, looking inside the partner museums' galleries. Street View was also integrated with Picasa, for a seamless transition from gallery view to microscope view.[12]
The user interface lets site visitors virtually 'walk through' galleries with Google Street View, and look at artworks with Picasa, which provides the microscope view to zoom in to images for greater detail than is visible to the naked eye.[3] Additionally, the microscope view of artworks incorporates other resources—including Google Scholar, Google Docs and YouTube—so users can link to external content to learn more about the work.[18] Finally, the platform incorporates Google's URL compacter (Goo.gl), so that users can save and easily share their personal collections.[18]
The resulting platform is a Java-based Google App Engine Web application, which exists on Google's infrastructure.[18]
Luc Vincent, director of engineering at Google and head of the team responsible for Street View for the platform, expressed concern over the quality of panorama cameras his team used to capture gallery and artwork images. In particular, he believes that improved aperture control would enable more consistent quality of gallery images.[3]
Some artworks were particularly difficult to capture and re-present accurately as virtual, two-dimensional images. For example, Google described the inclusion of Hans Holbein the Younger's The Ambassadors as "tough". This was due to the anamorphic techniques distorting the image of a skull in the foreground of the painting. When looking at the original painting at the National Gallery in London, the depiction of the skull appears distorted until the viewer physically steps to the side of the painting. Once the viewer is looking at the shape from the intended vantage point, the lifelike depiction of the skull materializes. The effect is still apparent in the gigapixel version of the painting but was less pronounced in the "walk-through" function.[19]
As New York Times art reviewer Roberta Smith said: "[Google Arts & Culture] is very much a work in progress, full of bugs and information gaps, and sometimes blurry, careering virtual tours."[3] Though the second-generation platform solved some technological issues, the firm plans to continue developing additional enhancements for the site. Future improvements currently under consideration include: upgrading panorama cameras, more detailed web metrics, and improved searchability through meta-tagging and user-generated meta-tagging.[4] The firm is also considering the addition of an experimental page to the platform, to highlight emerging technologies that artists are using to showcase their works.[20]
Seventeen partner museums were included in the launch of the project. The original 1,061 high-resolution images (by 486 different artists) are shown in 385 virtual gallery rooms, with 6,000 Street View–style panoramas.[19][21]
Below is a list of the original seventeen partner museums at the time of the platform's launch. All images shown are actual images from Google Arts & Culture:
On April 3, 2012, Google announced the expansion of the platform to include 151 cultural organizations, with new partners contributing a gigapixel image of one of their works.[2]
The museum image redirects to the museum's official page on the Google Arts & Culture platform, the Google Street View logo indicates that the museum has an adapted version of Street View
The Google Art Project was a development of the virtual museum projects of the 1990s and 2000s, following the first appearance of online exhibitions with high-resolution images of artworks in 1995. In the late 1980s, art museum personnel began to consider how they could exploit the internet to achieve their institutions' missions through online platforms. For example, in 1994 Elizabeth Broun, Director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, spoke to the Smithsonian Commission on the future of art, stating: "We need to put our institutional energy behind the idea of getting the Smithsonian hooked up to the people and schools of America." She then outlined the museum's objective to conserve, protect, present, and interpret exhibits, explaining how electronic media could help achieve these goals.[22] The expansion of internet programs and resources has shaped the development of the platform.[19][23]
Google Books affected the development of the platform from a non-technological perspective. Google faced a six-year-long court case relating to several issues with copyright infringement. Google Books cataloged full digital copies of texts, including those still protected by copyright, though Google claimed it was permissible under the fair use clause. Google ended up paying $125 million to copyright-holders of the protected books, though the settlement agreement was modified and debated several times before it was ultimately rejected by federal courts. In his decision, Judge Denny Chin stated the settlement agreement would "give Google a significant advantage over competitors, rewarding it for engaging in wholesale copying of copyrighted works without permission," and could lead to antitrust issues. Judge Chin said in future open-access initiatives, Google should use an "opt-in" method, rather than providing copyright owners the option to "opt-out" of an arrangement.[24]
After this controversy, Google took a different approach to intellectual property rights for the Google Arts & Culture. The platform's intellectual property policy is:
The partner museum staff were able now to ask Google to blur out the images of certain works, which are still protected by copyrights. In a few cases, museums wanted to include artworks by modern and contemporary artists, many of whom still hold the copyright to their works. For example, Tate Britain approached Chris Ofili to get his permission to capture and reproduce his works on the platform.[17] But the Toledo Museum of Art asked Google to remove 21 artworks from the website, including works by Henri Matisse and other modern artists.[25]
 | This section contains a pro and con list. (July 2024) |
 | This section contains weasel words: vague phrasing that often accompanies biased or unverifiable information. (July 2024) |
| This section contains a pro and con list. (July 2024) |
| This section contains weasel words: vague phrasing that often accompanies biased or unverifiable information. (July 2024) |
All of these museums have an adapted version of Google Street View designed to photograph building interiors.
| Release date | Major locations added |
|---|---|
| February 1[38] |  Freer Gallery of Art, Frick Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA Tretyakov Gallery, Hermitage Museum Alte Nationalgalerie, Gemäldegalerie Museo Reina Sofia, Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum Museum Kampa National Gallery, Tate Britain Palace of Versailles Uffizi Gallery Van Gogh Museum, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam |
| August 16 |  National Museum of Iraq[39] |
| Release date | Major locations added |
|---|---|
| March 22 | State Russian Museum[40] |
| April 3 |  The Israel Museum[41] J. Paul Getty Museum[42] Museum of Fine Arts, Houston[43] Nationalmuseum[44] |
| April 4 | Museum of Fine Arts[45] De Young Museum[46] The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art[47] |
| April 6 | Pushkin Museum[48] |
| April 7 | Indianapolis Museum of Art[49] |
| May 29 |  National Gallery of Denmark[50] |
| June 23 | Computer History Museum[51] |
| December 17 |  Ateneum[52] |
| Release date | Major locations added |
|---|---|
| March 27 |  Museum of Applied Arts[53] |
| April 4 |  Mudam[54] |
| April 8 | Corning Museum of Glass[55] |
| April 29 |  Larco Museum[56] |
| May 20 |  Beyeler Foundation[57] |
| May 21 |  The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design[58] Thorvaldsen Museum[59] |
| May 22 |  Kunsthistorisches Museum[60] |
| October 7 |  National Museum of Korea[61] |
| October 21 |  Museum of Islamic Art[62] |
| October 31 |  National Library of Ireland[63] |
| December 6 |  Inhotim, Iberê Camargo Foundation, Instituto Moreira Salles, Museu da Imagem e do Som[64] |
| Release date | Major locations added |
|---|---|
| January 30 |  Museum of Contemporary Art of Bogotá[65] |
| June 23 |  Slovak National Gallery[66] Ernest Zmeták Art Gallery[66] Stredoslovenská galéria[67] |
| August 20 |  The Royal Ontario Museum[68] |
| September 16 | Pueblo Grande Museum[69] |
| September 29 | Deutsches Museum[70] |
| October 27[71] |  National Museum of Western Art National Museum of Modern Art Ohara Museum of Art Kobe City Museum Kobe Fashion Museum Saitama Prefectural Museum of the Sakitama Ancient Burial Mounds Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art Shizuoka City Tokaido Hiroshige Museum Shohaku Art Museum |
| November 25 |  Brukenthal National Museum[72] |
| Release date | Major locations added |
|---|---|
| January 28 | The Vancouver Art Gallery[73] |
| February 15 | Liptovská galéria Petra Michala Bohúňa[74] |
| March 2[75] |  Queensland Museum Australian War Memorial National Museum of Australia National Portrait Gallery Powerhouse Museum, Australian Centre for the Moving Image Public Record Office Victoria |
| March 3 |  National Museum of Indonesia[76] |
| March 21 |  The Barjeel Art Foundation[77] |
| April 24 |  Robben Island Museum[78] |
| May 21[79] |  Hong Kong Museum of Medical Sciences
|
| June 18 | National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art |
| July 6 | National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum[80] |
| July 14 |  Museo Dolores Olmedo[81] |
| September 19 |  Hubei Provincial Museum[82] |
| November 12 | The British Museum[83] |
| Release date | Major locations added |
|---|---|
| February 15 |  Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki[104] |
| March 25 | Art Research Center in the Ritsumeikan University[105] |
| June 5 |  National Museum of Archaeology[106] |
| June 6 | Museu Nacional de Belas Artes[107] |
| June 8 |  Ixchel Museum[108] |
| June 12 | Imperial Museum of Brazil[109] Museo del Traje[110] Design Museum of Barcelona[110] Museum of Arts and Popular Customs of Seville[110] |
| June 13 | The Hepworth Wakefield Museum[111] |
| June 14 |  ModeMuseum Antwerpen[112] |
| July 8 |  Malacañang Museum[113] |
| July 20 | Bunka Gakuen University[114] |
| September 20 | Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilizations[115] |
| October 24 | Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum[116] |
| November 13 | Gran Teatre del Liceu[117] |
| November 24 |  Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya[118] |
| December 30 | Partition Museum[119] |
| Release date | Major locations added |
|---|---|
| January 5 | Papalote Museo del Niño[120] |
| February 27 | Musée des Confluences[121] |
| March 7 | São Paulo Art Biennial[122] |
| March 13 | Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo[123] Korea International Cooperation Agency[124] The National Museum of Scotland[125] |
| March 22 | Korea National Maritime Museum[126] |
| May 23 |  Lithuanian National Museum of Art[127] |
| May 27 | Frida Kahlo Museum[128] |
| June 21 | China National Silk Museum[129] Gyeongju National Museum[130] Sookmyung Women's University Museum[130] National Palace Museum of Korea[130] |
| July 23 |  Centro Costarricense de Ciencia y Cultura[131] Museo del Jade[131] |
| September |  American University of Beirut[132] |
| October 2 | Biblioteca Sormani[133] Museo delle Culture[133] Museo del Novecento[133] Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Milano[133] |
| October 10 |  National Museum of Kraków[134] |
| November 13 | Dumfries House[135] |
| December 3 | Mauritshuis[136] |
| Release date | Major locations added |
|---|---|
| February 21 |  Museu do Douro[208] |
| March 10 | Berlin Musical Instrument Museum[209] |
| March 11 | École Polytechnique[210] |
| March 26 | Song Art Museum[211] |
| March 29 | Gloria Steinem's Historic Manhattan Apartment[212] |
| April 26 | São Paulo Metro[213] |
| April 28[214] |  African Artists' Foundation Rele Art Gallery Terra Kulture |
| May 18 | Sydney Jewish Museum[215] |
| June 18 | Villa-Lobos Museum[216] |
| July 12 | Bayerische Staatsoper |
| July 23 | Palazzo del Giardino[217] Castello dei Burattini - Museo Giordano Ferrari[217] Sala Baganza Wine Museum[217] Casa della Musica (Parma)[217] Fondazione Museo Glauco Lombardi[217] Museum of Parmigiano Reggiano[217] Museo Ettore Guatelli[217] The Office of Arts and Culture in Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University[218] |
| August 22 | Tonhalle Zürich[219] |
| September 19 | MUCHO Museo del Chocolate[220] |
| September 28[221] | Mattress Factory The Clemente Museum Pittsburgh Glass Center |
| October 6 | Wits University Origins Centre[222] |
| October 8 | Yemisi Shyllon Museum of Art[223] |
| October 14 | Simatai Great Wall Tourist Area[224] |
| October 20[225] | Royal Łazienki Museum Museum of Folk Musical Instruments in Szydlowiec Fryderyk Chopin Institute |
| October 21 | Bratislava Theatre Institute[226] |
| November 11 | Supreme Federal Court[227] |
| November 22 | Quirinal Palace[228] |
| December 3 |  National and University Library of Slovenia[229] Beekeeping Museum in Radovljica[229] Posavje Museum Brežice[229] |
| Release date | Major locations added |
|---|---|
| Release date | Major locations added |
|---|---|
| March 30 | Museum Tripods for Google Arts and Culture in Lesser Poland Voivodeship including Żupny Castle, Szołayski House National Museum, Zbaraski Palace[230] |
| April 16 | Daegu Concert House in Daegu[231] Ca' Granda at University of Milan[232] |
| June 17 | Tripods in San Antonio, Texas including Casa Navarro, Ruby City, Briscoe Western Art Museum, Witte Museum[233] |
| Release date | Major locations added |
|---|---|
Many museums and arts organizations have created their own online data and virtual exhibitions. Some offer virtual 3-D tours similar to the Google Arts & Culture's gallery view, whereas others simply reproduce images from their collection on the institution's web page. Some museums have collections that exist solely in cyberspace and are known as virtual museums.
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