Google Art Project Expanded to over 30,000 images and 46 museums

The Google Art Project is a great resource for students and educators that I reviewed last year. It was originally a small collection of artwork from museums set up as a virtual art museum, where you could take virtual tours and even create your own "collections of art." It has now been expanded to include paintings, sculpture, street art and photographs from 151 museums in 40 countries.

The original Art Project was 17 museums, in 9 countries, with 1,000 images, mainly paintings. The new expansion brings the Art Project up to over 30,000 hi-res images and even Street View images for 46 museums from around the world.

Here are some of the new features:

• Using completely new tools, called Explore and Discover, you can find artworks by period, artist or type of artwork, displaying works from different museums around the world.
• Google+ and Hangouts are integrated on the site, enabling you to create even more engaging personal galleries.
• Street View images are now displayed in finer quality. A specially designed Street View “trolley” took 360-degree images of the interior of selected galleries which were then stitched together, enabling smooth navigation of more than 385 rooms within the museums. You can also explore the gallery interiors directly from withinStreet View in Google Maps.
• We now have 46 artworks available with our “gigapixel” photo capturing technology, photographed in extraordinary detail using super high resolution so you can study details of the brushwork and patina that would be impossible to see with the naked eye.
• An enhanced My Gallery feature lets you select any of the 30,000 artworks—along with your favorite details—to build your own personalized gallery. You can add comments to each painting and share the whole collection with friends and family. (It’s an ideal tool for students.) 

Here is a video on how to use the Art Project site:

For more information and future developments, follow the Art Project on Google+

This is a great resource for students and educators. Image being able to view such incredible works of arts and museums right from your classroom without the hassle and cost of airfare, TSA security, buses, cabbies, and the like! There is even an Education section on the site.