14 DAY TRIAL // A little over a year ago, Google debuted the Art Project, a website dedicated to housing and making available some of the greatest works of art in history in the greatest detail available online.
At the time, it had works provided by 17 museums and focused mostly on paintings by well-known historical figures.
Now, Art Project is getting a major update. With 151 museums from 40 countries working together, the site has become the largest online archive of fine art, one built with the modern web in mind.
"Today we’re announcing a major expansion of the Google Art Project. From now on, with a few simple clicks of a finger, art lovers around the world will be able to discover not just paintings, but also sculpture, street art and photographs," Google announced.
The new Art Project is probably the biggest undertaking of its kind on the web. Google has digitized 30,000 artworks all of which are available in high-resolution imagery. There are works stretching from ancient Mesopotamia to street art from Sao Paolo.
What's more, Google also managed to visit 46 museums with its "Street View cart," enabling visitors to take a tour of the museums and explore the art as it's laid out in the physical location.
But the site goes beyond just archiving the artwork, the important thing is presenting it, getting it in front of people and Art Project does a great job of that. Visitors have a number of ways of exploring the treasure trove, they can visit individual museums, look at works by certain authors or just search for what you want.
Even more interesting, you can create your own collection, of favorite works, authors or styles, any criteria you want, and share it with your friends and the world.