Do you want to see the frieze of the Parthenon in full detail or enjoy at least the view of the sacred hill from the third floor of the Acropolis Museum? To see the sword of Odysseus Androutsos exhibited at the Benaki Museum or enjoy the figurine in the shape of a 5.200-year-old violin from the Museum of Cycladic Art? Or maybe you want to know what is exhibited in the museum of Islamic Art in Qatar?
A click of a mouse is enough to see them on the computer screen and in detail invisible to the naked eye. Without paying for a ticket, without even getting up from you cosy sofa at home, but with a guide.
From today, admirers of ancient and modern Greek art will be able to virtually see the exhibits in three Greek museums. These are the Acropolis Museum, Benaki Museum and the Museum of Cycladic Art, which were included in the Google Art Project.
Among the vast collection of 693 exhibits, which is available to the virtual visitor, are the hall with the ancient sculptures in the Acropolis Museum and collections of works of Byzantine, traditional and island art of the Cyclades. Google Art Project visitors will be able to receive information about the exhibits in different languages.
During the virtual tour in the Acropolis Museum, they will be able to "move" to the different halls and in addition to the exhibits they will enjoy the view of the Acropolis. The Visitors will be able to see the exhibits in a view of 360 degrees while sitting comfortably at home. They will have the opportunity to "touch" very precise details thanks to the giant screens with a picture resolution of 2 GPixels.
"In the museum, visitors certainly would not be allowed to come that close to the exhibits," said one of the developers of the project Piotr Adamchik.
Director of the Acropolis Museum Dimitris Pandermalis welcomed the project. "We are looking for as many modes of communication with the audience as possible. The fact that the statues are three-dimensional on the screen allows the visitor to get a full picture of the exhibits."
The visitors can even create their own "museums" in which to place their preferred exhibits.
The improved edition of the project, which was launched just over a year ago, includes 151 museums in 40 countries, but offers virtual tours in only 46 of them with the help of the Google Street View technology. First, the visitors could see 1000 works from 17 museums in nine countries. Among them were the Tate Gallery in London, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Uffizzi Gallery in Florence and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.