183 pieces in the Museum of Fine Arts Houston’s collection are now online in intimate detail as part of Google’s expanded Arts Project. With the Google-powered ability to zoom in so tight you can see the sweat on the Virgin’s . . . well, you get the idea, it turns out there are lot of choice moments lurking in art you thought was familiar!
Send in your favorite up-close-and-personal detail from the MFAH’s online collection with a pithy caption, and the name of the piece the detail is taken from, to win two free tickets to the Bahamas and a Glasstire T-shirt (Bahamas cruise tickets may not be available in some areas), or something else.
There’s more to it than just big pictures- as usual, Google has, by doing something obvious, created a whole new way of experiencing the world, encouraging minute attention to pieces as if you were the artist or a conservator, with the intimate privacy and leisure of a curator locked in an underground store-room after hours. I haven’t frittered away this much time online since Google Earth!
Here’s one to start off on:
"Arsonist in Venice"
from Canaletto’s Entrance to the Grand Canal, Venice (c. 1730)
I've got my eye on you….
from Francisco De Goya, Still Life with Golden Bream, 1808-12
1 comment
It’s a great idea but did anyone else find the google site hard to navigate?