Google Art Project

[Jive Turkey]

This is really cool
You can view the collections of 17 museums in super high resolution. Zoom way in for stunning detail. You can even see the canvass peaking through on certain pieces

Art Project, powered by Google

 

[mama cass]

oh man, i'm sorry but as an art lover, art writer, and being very familiar with a few of those galleries, it's just not the same as the real-life experience... it's, well, just very flat and verging on the depressing LOL

even a book is better imo...

 

[coolian2]

one of the curators said that they were expecting it to add to the experience rather than remove actual gallery visitors.

it's basically a bit of free publicity for them while google got to do something they were going to do somewhere anyway.

 

[mama cass]

ahh ok... yeah i was imagining people clicking and looking and saying "ok, been there done that!" lol

i've just got a really bad aversion to artworks on the internet and worry people just take it as it is and think that's how deep the experience of seeing a piece of art goes... i love the sheer surprise and awe of walking thru a doorway, round a corner into a room and seeing it there in front of you in the flesh so to speak, especially an old familiar favourite, i love that... and i love watching people's reactions to pieces too, a synchronised tilt of the head, a smile... ha

 

[coolian2]

plus having just played with it, just using it to explore museums doesn't feel right. the eyepoint is way, way too high.

 

[The Sad Punk]

I found it a bit cumbersome to use, and Ian's right - the eye level seems to be coming from a dinosaur, but I definitely appreciate the effort gone into it. Rather than preventing people from attending galleries I feel it'll be quite the opposite - of course nothing compares to being there, just as watching concert footage on TV doesn't compare to cheering front row in an arena.

edit: Okay, I'm pretty much ignoring the museum walk-through feature now, but the hi-res collection is amazing. I don't know how you can argue when you can see every detail of even the most complex paintings so clearly.

 

[mama cass]

I don't know how you can argue when you can see every detail of even the most complex paintings so clearly.

what is the point of zooming in so close that the rest of the painting disappears from your eye view off the screen? the detail is then out of context surely? and nothing more than a meaningless blip of pixels!

you could always just take a magnifying glass with you to the gallery......

 

[Jive Turkey]

oh man, i'm sorry but as an art lover, art writer, and being very familiar with a few of those galleries, it's just not the same as the real-life experience... it's, well, just very flat and verging on the depressing LOL

even a book is better imo...

I don't think anyone is claiming it to be a substitute for seeing the galleries in person. As a matter of fact, it didn't even realize there was a 'walk through' option. But come on. How can you not appreciate documentation of the pieces at such high resolution? I take it as being completely separate from any sort of gallery experience. Just look at it for what it is

 

[Jive Turkey]

what is the point of zooming in so close that the rest of the painting disappears from your eye view off the screen? the detail is then out of context surely? and nothing more than a meaningless blip of pixels!

you could always just take a magnifying glass with you to the gallery......

It's not just a blip of pixels though, it's a completely reasonably resolutioned representation of the brush strokes and fine detail. Have you never leaned way in on a painting in a gallery to see the way the oil ungulates around the canvas? The rest if the piece is out of your field of view then. Surely you're seeing that detail out of context too, but that's sort of beside the point. The details are important in their own right. Isn't having the option to see that online better than no option to see it? I get what your saying about seeing things in the flesh. I felt that way when I saw Starry Night at Moma this year. Because the oil is so 3 dimensional, you get a better sense of Van Gogh physically painting it. He made those shapes in the paint a century ago, they're still there after all these years, and I'm standing right in front of it. But you're forgetting that there are millions of underprivileged children around the world who will never get that opportunity, but do have access to the Internet. I just don't see how this could be viewed as a bad thing

 

[mama cass]

Isn't having the option to see that online better than no option to see it?


But you're forgetting that there are millions of underprivileged children around the world who will never get that opportunity, but do have access to the Internet. I just don't see how this could be viewed as a bad thing

absolutely, from that perspective it is a very good thing!

i was just talking from my own fussy perspective and personal preference lol

yeah i love seeing paintings/sculptures close up, but even when you're up close with your face to the painting you still have a sense of its volume all around you, depending on its size obviously, whether vast or tiny... which i certainly don't get when zooming in on my computer screen... it's a different experience altogether...

plus it's very hard to gauge the scale of things on an internet image... i will never forget how surprised i was when i first saw Millet's Ophelia in real life, or when i saw Giacometti's Man Walking for the first time in the flesh after just seeing photographic images over the years... mind you, i still loved those pieces, two of my all-time faves, even though i had never seen them in the flesh - and when i finally got to see them it felt really special and familiar, almost like seeing an old friend...

 

[Jive Turkey]

I totally get you perspective too. If someone looks at these and claims to have seen the pieces, they should be slapped. In a way, it's similar to seeing a concert vs seeing a concert on DVD. There are cues, both conscious and subconscious, that you just don't experience unless you're actually there.

A bit of an aside for you. I mostly enjoyed my time at Moma, but thought certain exhibits were a joke. As someone in the art community who would be more informed, do you feel the same way? There just seemed to be so much pretentious pseudo art

 

[mama cass]

oh no, i don't think i am more "informed", i think it's a really personal thing... i really love art, kind of live and breathe it a lot lol

i kind of ended up specialising in art history up to the early to mid 1900s, mostly around the collections in Paris museums like the Louvre, Orangerie, Pompidou, Orsay and Versailles lol, and have grown to love them, some of those paintings and sculptures really come alive and i find them so moving... love a wide range of stuff really, from the ancient classics, thru to the more contemporary art... realism thru to abstract... i'm not fussy lol

but yeah i absolutely agree with you - sometimes i just can't get my head around things - i really really really hate the pretentious stuff, and a LOT of it is very formulaic - there's a lot of cynicism involved, especially by some of those in the industry who know how the formula works, so you end up with the nonsense with no depth or artistry behind it, just pseudo-intellectual money-making hoo ha lol sometimes it feels to me like the emperor's new clothes

out of some of the recent high-profile Brit artists, Tracey Emin for instance - well i just don't have time for that kind of self-indulgent crap, and i have trouble with Damien Hirst too as i feel he lacks draftsmanship - sure he had a good idea in the past, but he's certainly milked it and repeated himself endlessly, and his recent "paintings" have been quite an eye-opener, not in a good way lol

Banksy though i really like - i do like his humour - he did an amazing show at the Bristol museum not long ago - i didn't manage to see it but wish i had... i think it's nice he's been able to get some humour into the art world...

speaking of which, have you heard of the "Turnip Prize"? - it's a piss-take on the Turner Prize, which also annoys me sometimes... but the Turnip Prize is very funny - some of the entries are hilarious! the art world really does take itself too seriously sometimes, and i am guilty of that as well, so a bit of humour and irreverence is very welcome ha

ps- i just slapped my wrists, it's Millais' Ophelia, i got the spelling wrong - Millet is a different painter lol both wonderful though...

ok... enough of my rambling - i could rabbit on for hours spouting crap like this lol

eta: here's the link to the Turnip Prize - i swear i'm going to try and enter it one year haha

http://www.turnipprize.com/

lmfao!!!

The Turnip Prize
The Turnip Prize is the antidote to the Turner Prize, an art competition based in the UK which annually dazzles the public of the World with a dire tribe of pseudo artistic litter.

As the artistic press gasp and feign in awe as a line of what appears to be a line degenerates and fruitcakes queue up in front of the world to give verbose justifications about how their "piece" should be "appreciated" by everyone and what "inspired" it. The rest of us just stand gaping at the wanton peddling of crap and are then astonished as some "more money than sense" business man snaps up the winner's output for hundreds of thousands.

Lets face it, the Turner prize set out to be new, innovative and shocking, maybe even anti establishment. Now it is the establishment, if they wanted to be really shocking they should give it to someone who actually shows some talent and ability (and someone normal with no obvious outward psychological problems)....

Whilst the motto of the Turner Prize appears to be "We know its art, but is it shit?" the Turnip Prize clearly states its motto as "We know its shit, but is it art?"

 

[Bonoa]

It's too addictive!!