Dec
28
By Elodie Adams
A virtual art exhibit, including pieces from some of the world's most acclaimed art institutions, has 81 paintings created in British Columbia in it. These paintings, reproduced online as high resolution images, comprise works created between 1778 and 1960 that were selected from the vaults of the Royal B.C. Museum (RBCM) and its archives.
RBCM's CEO Jack Lohman said in a media release, Oct. 8, "We are thrilled about working with the Google Cultural Institute in the UK to make a significant part of our collection immediately accessible to the world."
The Google Cultural Institute Art Project is a unique collaboration that enables people to discover and view artworks online in extraordinary detail. Google reports that the art project involved working with over 250 institutions and putting tens of thousands of works of art online. This involved taking a selection of super high resolution images of famous artworks, as well as collating more than thirty thousand other images into one place.
The numbers may sound a little overwhelming, but the viewing process is fairly easy to follow once you get to the Google Art website. First, select Art Projects, then click on Collections, and a list (in alphabetical order) of all the participating museums will come up.
To find the works from our museum for example, scroll down the list of museums until you find the RBCM and click on it, or simply enter the name in the search bar at the top.
What comes up is a page with a short biography of the museum, and an image of the first painting in the virtual collection, a 1913 Emily Carr, "Tanoo, Q.C.I." This image is smallish, but by clicking on it, you can make it larger to accommodate the size of your computer screen. There is also an option to learn details about the artwork, such as the period or style, whether or not it is signed and dated, its size, provenance, art medium and a nice little biography of the artist (if available) or a link to the museum's database.
You can then just keep viewing other pieces by clicking on the arrows to the right.
Among the 81 paintings from the RBCM are twenty-six works by Emily Carr, four watercolour paintings by Sarah Crease (1860 street scenes in the young city of Victoria), First Nation artists Chief Nakapankam, Mungo Martin and Charlie George Sr. Xalxidi, and two works by Louis Comfort Tiffany of Tiffany lamp fame. The most recent image included in this project launch is E.J. Hughes "Above Okanagan Lake," a colourful oil on canvas from 1960.
The worldwide project has expanded dramatically since it first launched. More than 45,000 objects are now available to view in high resolution, an increase from 1,000 in the first version. Street View images now cover over 60 museums, with more on the way, its website tells us.
The Google Art Project allows users to build their own gallery that can then be shared with friends and family. A "compare'" feature allows examination of two pieces side-by-side to see how an artist's style has changed over time, for example.
It's a wealth of information for art-lovers, and a "surfer's paradise."