Google's Art & Culture - Online Galleries

Now Google's Art & Culture is an really interesting and probably is the biggest of the on-line museum and art galleries catalogs out there. Maybe, because Google is a billion pound company or as they have started this project a long time ago and they have built it up to what it is today from there. Now I am not going to take a look at all about this amazing site has to offer, as this would be like reviewing the internet itself, a impossible task.

When the Art Project first started in 2011, the site had a huge collection of scanned works of art. For the first time you could take a close look at works of art and learn about the pieces; and the artiest who made them. You could see the artist brush strokes and the detail of the art work which you might have never been able to do at a art gallery. The project has evolved and now you can do and see so much more. 

At the moment I believe the site is a beta test and might be changed or updated to something even better than what's up at the moment but I see this as really unlikely.

You can take a look at articles, artefacts, art work, museum collection, Google Earth drop-in historic and museum/art galleries; historical accounts on events, people and so much more. 

Now with the artefacts, art work and museum collections you take a close look at individual objects with high detail. The site allows you to look close to objects for the first time. This makes you feel like you are looking at the object face-to-face or with a magnifying glass. Allowing you to see everything from the artist's brush strokes to every tiny detail.

Now there is a fabulous section of the site were you can digitally drop into a historic locations or museum/art galleries. In the same style as the drop-in setting of Google Earth, this allows to take a virtual tour of the location. This gives you idea of what the place it like and also allows to take a closer look of the highlights of the exhibits, giving you a taster of what you can see.

Now I could go on and on about this site as there is so much of it to take about.

The whole site is amazing. However, the only thing that I can say which is bad is the size of the collection they provide you. Now to many that's not a problem and it isn't but it is a problem if you can't search through all which they have. For example you have 1,692 of them. You get a search engine to search things, this is great if you know what you are looking for. However, can't possible know what they have to offer if you don't know and you are simply browsing. In my opinion it would be far easier with a filter system allowing you to select specific theme, century, topic etc. In the way they provide you, you would need to sieve through all what they have to find something you wish to take a look at. The other problem is the search engine itself as if you spell anything wrong, the search engine will not recognize it or give you alternatives search. So at the end you will turn up with your search with practically nothing.

Although it has some problems I must give Google a huge amount of credit. This site is what museums should inspire to with their own on-line catalog or gallery.