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Ever wished
you could see Van Gogh's sunflowers, but didn't have the cash to fly to the
Netherlands? Or maybe you wanted to see Rembrandt's famous Night Watch, but
Amsterdam was a little far to go. Now you can see both paintings - and
thousands more - without ever leaving your home - or at least your internet
connection. As of this week, 32,000 works of art from 151 art museums can be
seen online in Google’s Art Project.
Dutch art
is well represented in the project: the Van Gogh museum allowed all of its 161 paintings to be photographed by Google’s high-resolution camera; the Boijmans
van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam included 112 works; the Hague’s Gemeente Museum added 52. There is a virtual tour of the architectural treasures in Amsterdam's Royal Palace and 25 works from the city's Rijksmuseum (there would
be more Dutch masters online if the museum was not in the middle of a
large-scale refurbishment).
The cost of
copyright
Not
everybody has been quite so eager, however. Galleries with more recent work, such
as the Kröller-Müller, may face copyright issues. A Kröller-Müller spokesperson
explained to de Volkskrant, “We have to pay for the rights for a lot of works.
For a Mondrian for instance we have to pay a fortune to the copyright holder in
the United States.” The gallery has only given permission for 15 works so far.
Nevertheless,
the museum’s website features a positive message from director Lisette Pelsers:
“Participation
in the Art Project is a logical step for the museum, as it fits seamlessly with
our view on public outreach: to bring as many people as possible – nationally
and internationally, physically and virtually – into contact with the museum’s
collection. Kröller-Müller worldwide; that was already the case for the
visitors to our foreign exhibitions. With Google Art it now applies to all.”
Zooming in
- 1000x
Martin
Pronk of the Rijksmuseum attended Tuesday’s launch of the official Art Project
website at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. “Look, here you see our Night Watch by
Rembrandt online. Let’s zoom in.”
He points
to the screen, “Can you see the man with the eye and that cap behind the
riflemen? They say that is Rembrandt himself.” You can hardly see the little
chap on the real painting, but these images have a resolution of 7 billion
pixels, creating images with about 1,000 times more pixels than an average
digital camera.
“You can
even see a patch of light in his eye. And see the brush strokes around the eye.
It’s larger than life. Fantastic. Here you can see what you can’t in a museum.”
Making art
available to everyone
The Art
Project began a year ago as a pilot. At first there were just 1000 works of art
from 17 museums, most of them in the United States and western Europe. Now 40
countries are involved, from National Museum in Tokyo to the Hermitage in Saint
Petersburg and from the British Tate Modern to the MoMa in New York.
“What we
are doing is using technology optimally to promote culture and make it
visible,” says Nelson Mattos, one of Google’s top technological people. “But we
also want to make art available to everyone. From a flat in Tokyo to the slums
in Rio de Janeiro: anyone with an internet connection can see the world’s
masterpieces for free.”
And it's
not just art that's on view. Using Google's Street View technology, the
'walk-through' feature of the project allows anyone to take a virtual tour
through the Van Gogh Museum or the Royal Palace in Amsterdam.
No Mona
Lisa
But not all
art institutions are as enthusiastic about throwing open their doors. The
Louvre is refusing to join the project, but Mona Lisa is keeping her lips tight
shut as to the reason why. Other artists that are conspicuous by their absence
are Picasso and Piet Mondrian.
“That’s a
question of rights,” explains Amit Sood, who came up with the concept. “We have
nothing to do with that. We never tell a museum what we want. They choose which
art they want to show on the Art Project, but any museum that works with us has
to conform to the desires and demands of the copyright holders.”
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