"The Art Gallery of Ontario is the first Canadian museum to join the Google Art Project, the search-engine giant announced Tuesday. The online project, which allows visitors to take a 360-degree virtual tour of a museum and its art, was launched last year with images from 17 international museums including London’s Tate Gallery, the Uffizi in Florence and the Palace of Versailles in France. Tours use the Street View option of Google Maps to show galleries and then let viewers zoom in on some individual art works using high-definition photography. The second phase, which launches Tuesday, will add 100 more museums, including Toronto’s AGO and 58 artworks from its 80,000-piece collection of European and Canadian art. Viewers will be able to click on such iconic images as Tom Thomson’s The West Wind and Paul Kane’s Scene in the Northwest – Portrait of John Henry Lefroy as well as paintings by such European artists as Paul Gauguin, Frans Hals and James Tissot."

AGO signs up with Google Art Project - The Globe and Mail

Tags: Art