NEW YORK, NY.- The National Academy Museum & School has added 150 high-resolution artworks to the Google Art Project, enabling individuals across America to access and explore a sample of its rich collection of paintings, sculptures, new media and architectural drawings and models. The works available through the Google Art Project are representative of the wide-ranging collection of the National Academy. Among the works included are paintings by Samuel F. B. Morse and Asher B. Durand - the artists who founded the Academy in 1825 - as well as works by many of the iconic names in American art and architecture, all of whom have been members of the Academy and who contributed to its legacy: Cecelia Beaux, Thomas Eakins, Frank Gehry, Winslow Homer, Jacob Lawrence, Robert Rauschenberg, Cindy Sherman, Wayne Thiebaud and Frank Lloyd Wright, among many others.
The National Academy holds more than 7,000 works in its permanent collection, all contributed to the Academy by the artists and architects who have been elected as Academicians over the past 189 years. As such, the collection embraces works from the pantheon of 19th and 20th century American art and architecture, as well as contemporary masters such as Chuck Close, Ursula von Rydingsvard and Joel Shapiro.
The images of these works are of such high resolution that, coupled with a custom-built zoom viewer, viewers are able to discover minute details of the works that might never have seen up close before. In addition, using the Street View feature, visitors can move about the gallery virtually on www.googleartproject.com selecting works of art that interest them and clicking to learn more. The Street View feature was created by a specially designed Street View trolley that took 360-degree images of selected galleries at the Academy. The gallery interiors can also be explored directly from within Street View in Google Maps. Visitors to the Google Art Project can browse works by the artist's name, the artwork, the type of art, the museum, the country, collections and the time period. Google+ and video hangouts are integrated on the site, allowing viewers to invite their friends to view and discuss their favorite works in a video chat or follow a guided tour from an expert to gain an appreciation of a particular topic or art collection.
The "My Gallery" feature allows users to save specific views of any of the artworks and build their own personalized gallery. Comments can be added to each painting and the whole gallery can then be shared with friends and family. It's an ideal tool for students or groups to work on collaborative projects or collections. In addition, a feature called "Compare" allows you to examine two pieces of artwork side-by side to look at how an artist's style evolved over time,connect trends across cultures or delve deeply into two parts of the same work.
To date, more than 100,000 artworks are available in the Cultural Institute. Street View images now cover 500 museums in 60 countries, with more being added all the time.
The Art Project is part of the Google Cultural Institute, which is dedicated to creating technology that helps the cultural community to bring their art, archives, heritage sites and other material online. The aim is to increase the range and volume of material from the cultural world that is available for people to explore online and in doing so, democratize access to it and preserve it for future generations.
