Finding your virtual way around art

Up above, a ceiling. Walls on every side. The elegant wood panelled floor under my feet. Bizarrely angled artworks adorn the walls. I feel slightly dizzy.

My first attempt at steering my way through the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York left me feeling slightly disoriented and claustrophobic.

Eventually, attempting self-navigation with the help of white arrows led me outside the museum to West 54th street, New York. Somehow stationary yellow cabs and inert pedestrians outside the museum seemed a relaxing sight after my spatially-challenging look at invaluable Henri Rosseaus and Paul Cezzanes inside the virtual museum. Welcome to the Google art project.

Path-breaking technology which brings priceless art from around the globe to all of us is commendable. But how I was supposed to make my way around a museum trapped inside my computer screen?

I resolutely turned back to re-enter the museum from the street. This abortive attempt was followed by a few more trial and errors, as I bounced my way through half a dozen galleries, my gaze freezing on fire extinguishers and stairways. 

On day two, I decided to shift continents, and ventured into the State Tretyakov museum in Russia. This experience left me in awe.

Meandering through the well-lit space, pausing and zooming into Siberian artwork restrained in gilded frames, period Russian furniture and pianos scattered around the gallery, it was a magical journey, made graciously easy.

The trick, as with all things, is a bit of patience. Instead of ‘explore the gallery’ option that left me lost, starting with the ‘view artwork’ option was a lot wiser.

This let me see artworks as I would in a folder of pictures, clicking and scrolling through them one by one. The information panel on the right side of the screen is crucial —– this gave me information on the gallery, artwork details, artwork history, related art work and even a media option, where I saw audiovisual presentation of the artwork.

I loved the museum floor plan — since not all the rooms are available to navigate, a visitor can click on the room they’d like to visit and look up information on artwork available in this room.

When walking through the galleries made possible by street view technology, I used the compass on the left hand corner of the page and referred to the floor plan.

A plus sign near some artworks gives the name of the artwork (it’s disappointing that this information isn’t available for all the works).

The Apparition of Christ to the People— 1837
Artist: Alexander A. Ivanov
Location: Room no 10, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
A must see is The Apparition of Christ to the People, at the State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow. The oil on canvas work was created by the Russian painter, Alexander A Ivanov.

The artwork is made available on the Google art project at 12 gigapixels, making it the largest of the 16 over-one-gigapixel images Google has made accessible via the art project. 

In 1833, Ivanov conceived it for his state-sponsored stipend to study in Italy, while the work on it commenced in 1837. The young graduate of the Academy was initially sent to Apennines for four years to “make advances in historic painting”. Still, he managed to extend his “internship” there for thirty-three years.

Starry Night—1889
Artist: Vincent Van Gogh
Location: Gallery 1, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, USA
In Starry Night, Van Gogh depicts the view outside his sanatorium window — the village of Saint Remy under a swirling night sky with a cypress tree to the left.

It’s fascinating to be able to zoom into Van Gogh’s vigorous brush strokes, so as to see the texture of the paint. You could also drop by the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam which has the largest collection of Van Gogh’s paintings in the world, also part of the Art Project.

Portrait of a young woman—Around 1470
Artist: Petrus Christus
Location: Room 4, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin
Petrus Christus’s portraits are the first in Netherlandish painting to show the subject in concrete spatial surrounding, as opposed to a neutral flat surrounding.

One of the last paintings completed by the Flemish artist, The Portrait of a Young Lady is speculated to be a depiction of Lady Talbot.

On the Art Project powered by Google, the portraiture executed in oil on oak panels can be magnified to see intersections of fine cracks that developed on the young lady’s porcelain skin over the course of 500 years.

Figures—1970s
Artist: Magdalena Abakanowicz Jan and Meda Mladek Collection
Location: Courtyard, Kampa, Prague Check out sculptor Magdalena Abakonowicz’s work at the Museum Kampa in the Czech Republic.

Abakanowicz who graduated from Warsaw’s Academy of Fine Arts in 1955 became the pioneer and leading exponent of sculpture made of woven fabrics, calling her three-dimensional weavings “Abakans” (from her surname).

She produced series of fabric forms called Heads (1975), Backs (1976 - 80), Embryology (1980), and Catharsis (1986). Figures, a clique of headless sculptures was created by the artist in the 1970s.