Bilbao Fine Arts Museum joins Google Art Project

Visiting the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum from anywhere in the world will be available thanks to Google's Art project, an initiative that enables Net users to explore art through new digital tools.

Art Project enables users to create their own galleries and explore contents by artist name, by artwork, by the type of art, museum, country, collections and eras.

Photographed in high resolution with a level of detail so extraordinary users can actually see the features of individual brushstrokes that otherwise pass unperceived by the naked eye. The Art Project platform also offers a range of tools to help people get far deeper insights into the works and share them with other users.

The Bilbao Fine Arts Museum has contributed 146 images for its collection, including its masterworks, ranging from the Romanesque to the present day, a selection of posters and artworks from the Orient.

Featured are the Masters from the Spanish school of painting, such as El Greco, Ribera, Murillo, Zurbarán and Goya, from Flemish and Dutch painting (including Gossart, Benson and Coecke, Mandijn, Vredeman de Vries, De Vos, Jordaens, Van Dyck, Grebber and Ruisdael) and an ample selection of Basque artists.

Museum director Javier Viar describes Art Project as “a valuable tool” from Google in the bid to publicise and divulge “the wealth of artworks in our museums.” He also sees it as favouring “the participation of a younger public who are already familiar with the new technologies. The Bilbao Fine Arts Museum is delighted to add to the huge potential of this virtual museum. It is a huge step towards universal access to art and culture.”

Other museums involved in the project include the Metropolitan in New York, London’s National Gallery, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum and the Reina Sofía National Museum and Art Centre, the latter two both in Madrid.