It used to be that the fastest , gentle way to view the paintings of Johannes Vermeer was a Google Image search . Now you’re able to just download an app and view the 36 works widely attributed to the creative person in an augmented world museum from the puff of your home .
The AR museum was created by Google Arts and Culture in partnership with some of the world ’s most famous artwork museums , including theMauritshuis , theMetropolitan Museum of Art , theFrick Collection , theNational Gallery of Artin Washington , theRijksmuseum , and theLouvre . In total , 18 museums and private solicitation from seven countries contributed gamy - resolution images of the Vermeers in their possession , which were then compile into a virtual museum by Google . It also includes an figure of “ The Concert ” , which was stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston in 1990 . ( There ’s areward of $ 5 millionfrom the FBI and the Gardner Museum if you have info about where it is — just sayin ’ . )
To view theMeet Vermeervirtual museum , you may download the free Google Arts and Culture app foriOSandAndroid . So long as you have a smartphone with a working camera , all you have to do is indicate your phone at a flat control surface , undulate it in a R-2 , and voila — you , too , can have a virtual museum float above your bed and nightstand . After that , you’re able to pinch and zoom on each of the seven rooms to “ enter ” the AR museum to view the paintings . Once inwardly , you may also tap on each painting to zoom in and regard info about each . The museum can also be visited on desktops , but it ’s not quite as cool , consisting of a series of practical rooms instead of an AR experience .
Nothing like taking in Art and Culture in your pjs.Screenshot: Victoria Song (Gizmodo)
While it ’s certainly novel to wander around an AR museum and see Art ( with a Washington “ A ” ) in your pajamas , it ’s also one of the only mode to view the entirety ofVermeer ’s verified worksat once . Barring a touring exposition , you ’d have to jaunt as far as London , New York , Paris , The Hague , and Amsterdam to view a majority of his publicly available employment . Other painting are lock in up in secret collections , some are too fragile to be transport , and “ The Concert ” is stillMIA 28 year later . Plus , it ’s unbelievable that all 18 museums would ever be willing to part with their entire Vermeer collection for an extended period of meter .
This is n’t by any means the first time we ’ve seen an AR - art mashup . It ’s just that most attempts have felt tacked on , frivolous , or the accurate sorting of thing that make people roll their eye . TakeSnapchat ’s clumsy plans for an augment reality artistry platformlast yr . It basically pinned gargantuan AR Jeff Koons sculptures to locations and get user know when one was nearby so they could … take … picture of it ? Meanwhile , the Meet Vermeer experience is licitly not bad . It ’s an elegant use of applied science that at the same time create an impossible experience while score highfalutin museum refinement accessible to everyone .
So yes , technically you could just google all 36 of Vermeer ’s picture . But at least this is a utile app of an emerging technology , rather of just another gimmicky stunt that feels like a solution in search of a problem .
[ New York Times ]
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