The Art Project is a collaboration between Google and 151 acclaimed art partners from across 40 countries. Using a combination of various Google technologies and expert information provided by our museum partners, we have created a unique online art experience. Users can explore a wide range of artworks at brushstroke level detail, take a virtual tour of a museum and even build their own collections to share. With a team of Googlers working across many product areas we are able to harness the best of Google to power the Art Project experience. Few people will ever be lucky enough to be able to visit every museum or see every work of art they’re interested in but now many more can enjoy over 30 000 works of art from sculpture to architecture and drawings and explore over 150 collections from 40 countries, all in one place. We’re also lucky at Google to have the technology to make this kind of project a reality.

• Since last year, the Art Project has expanded its reach : 151 museums are now partners (compared to 17 in V1) providing over 30, 000 artworks, from 40 countries (compared to 9 countries last year). Partners cover a very wide range of types of art, from sculptures to architecture and drawings and represent a great diversity of institutions, from the White House in Washington DC to the Rock Art museum in South Africa and the Museum of Modern Art in São Paulo.

• Also, work has been done to provide users a rich experience through its interface and features. The discovery of content is easier by allowing users to refine, filter and view Artworks and Artists from across 100’s of collections. This allows you for example to instantly discover all the Rembrandts in the project and allows you to explore for example Artworks from this period from this collection. Users can browse the content through: the artist’s name, the artwork, the type of art, the collection, the country, city and user’s own galleries. Besides, users can enjoy the essence of the art works thanks to the slideshow mode.

• The Street View images and navigation quality are improved, we have built new technology to improve imagery across all collections, you can come come even closer to the physical space of these amazing environments

• An exciting new feature is User Galleries, which has expanded to allow you to create your gallery across the site. You can then edit, reorder, upload Youtube videos and more in your “My Galleries Section”. In addition, this new version of the Art Project has more social features. Google+ and Hangouts are integrated to the site and you can upload and share audio and video content to your collections.

• The Art Project also includes video content produced by third-party agencies, partners and an education section that provides ideas that can be used in various learning environments

In addition to the incredible artwork from collections around the world, such as paintings, drawings, sculptures, historic and religious artefacts, photographs and important manuscripts, there is a wealth of additional material. Expertly narrated videos, audio guides, viewing notes, detailed information, maps and so on provide an invaluable range of content for visitors to enjoy.

Google approached the museum partners without any curatorial direction, and each museum was able to choose the number of galleries, artwork and information they wanted to include, based on reasons specific to them. All content in the details panel pertaining to individual artworks was also provided by the museums.

Some of the paintings and features captured with Street View were required to be blurred by the museums for reasons pertaining to copyrights.

There are lots of factors that go into deciding which technologies could be used for particular artwork and partners. We would like to present as much artwork as possible with all our available technologies. We will explore expanding the use of all our technologies to include more artwork and partners in the future as the Art Project continues to grow.

You can now find your previously created galleries in the “My Galleries” section

The high resolution imagery of artworks featured on the art project site are owned by the museums, and these images may be subject to copyright laws around the world. The Street View imagery is owned by Google. All of the imagery on this site is provided for the sole purpose of enabling you to use and enjoy the benefit of the art project site, in the manner permitted by Google’s Terms of Service. The normal Google Terms of Service apply to your use of the entire site.

Yes, and we encourage you to do so! Some teachers have already been using the Art Project in their classrooms in our first version and there is now an Education section (link) where you can explore fun ways to use the Art Project. However, you cannot print the Art Project’s artwork images, except for the educational material provided.

A dedicated Education section has been created to provide simple tools to learn about the artwork featured on the Art Project. Dive into the Look like an Expert sections and test your visual acumen or get creative with the DIY projects. Want to learn more? “What’s Next” will point you to some of best art and art history tools on the web. Get started–but don't keep all the fun to yourself. Make your own quizzes, and share your User Galleries and your DIY creations on social networks.

In addition to expanding the project to more countries and Museums. We are also thinking of developing a experimental section, which will showcase how Artists are using new emerging technologies to showcase their Art. This is under development and please fill up the form below if you have some ideas for us.

We are looking forward to having more collections and partners. Here is a Sign Up form that you can use.