‘Googling’ Museums!

I remember very well how excited I was to see my first 3-D movie ‘Chhota Chetan’ (My Dear Kuttichaathan) in 1985. It was India’s first 3-D movie ever and for most of the movie goers, this experience was simply ‘unbelievable’. This was my very first ‘technology shocker’. Later with adequate intervals (like many other fellow Indians born before the ‘90’s’) I received a regular dosage of ‘technology shocks’, the first TV my father brought home, the first PC I got to use ‘personally’, the first encounter with the internet, the first cell-phone etc…. whew! What excitement! And have the ground breaking inventions taken a break? No way! Here comes the absolutely mind-blowing thing called the ‘Google Art Project’.

While I thought Google was busy shuttling my e-mails around the globe, they had in fact teamed up with world’s 17 most acclaimed art museums to create this magnificent online walk-through. (MoMA in New York, Uffizi Gallery in Florence, The National Gallery in London and Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam are a few among these) Now what can I say about this?
Well, a heartfelt Thanks to the Google guys! :)

Here is what the Samaritans from Google have been saying about the project on their blog.

To summarize for artists and people generally interested in art, what we get is this,
• We get to ‘see’ the works of great masters like Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Rembrandt, Hans Holbein, Sandro Botticelli, Caravaggio and El Greco, just to name a few!
• For the first time, we can see some of the very important paintings like the ‘Starry Night’ in a very minute detail. This is thanks to the ‘Gigapixel Scanning’ technology employed to scan one painting from each of the museums. This, I feel, is one of the most important attributes of the project.
• We can get a ‘feel’ of these 17 museums which are some of the most important art centers on our planet!
A lot of good reasons to drop by to the site and see the magic. So happy museum hunting to you guys, while I go back to ogling my favorite El Greco at ‘The State Hermitage Museum’!

Have fun! :)