Today, on Google's blog, Amit Sood announced the launch of the Art Project, which features 17 art museums, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art and MoMA in New York, The State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Tate Britain and The National Gallery in London, Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid, the Uffizi Gallery in Florence and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.
Via the Art Project, users can navigate through these museums and check out more than 1,000 works of art by more than 400 artists. Obviously, Google didn't drive one of its oft-controversial Street View cars through MoMA -- instead, the team used a "trolley," which trucked through the halls to take 360-degree pictures of certain galleries. Google also created an annotation feature that lets you toggle between the museum's interior and particular works of art. Artwork is also supplemented with info panels and YouTube videos.
For those who like to linger in front of pieces, every museum chose one work to be captured using "gigapixel" photo-capturing technology. One can check out these pieces in "microscope view" using Picasa to explore brushstrokes -- an awesome addition for aspiring artists looking to learn.
In addition, you can create your own artwork collection, saving views of any piece. You can comment on these pieces and even share the selected works with friends. We can see tools like these being invaluable for students.