Google Art Project

In its evil plan to own all the information in the universe, Google has done some amazing things. And some of them we don't all even necessarily know about. We can probably take a poll of random folks on the street and get the vast majority of them to identify Google with searching, but after that, everyone is on their own. Sometimes it's things that come and go (did anyone ever understand Google Wave?), and lately it's Google+, but put all that to the side for the moment. Watch this video:



The site is http://www.googleartproject.com/. Here's how they describe it (and you have to dig to find this):

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.

There is an enormous difference between seeing works of art in person and seeing representations of them, but that said, since we obviously can't see all of them, a representation like this is a pretty good second best. You can get lost in here for months.

Try it.