Studying for an art degree? Absolutely clueless about art? Just interested in art? Well, now Google can help you answer questions about them too.
“Starting today, when you search for art-related things, you’ll have access to more relevant results and the ability to dive deeper into topics of interest.” Google wrote. There’s also a feature in Street View -something akin to digital museum tours – that allows users to get more key insights about the artworks on your virtual museum visits.
Google Arts & Culture team joined forces with Google Search engineers to improve how the systems understand and recognise artworks, the places you can see them in person, the artists who made them, the materials they used, the art period they belong to and the connections among all these.
Now, when users search for an artist, an interactive Knowledge Panel will highlight ways you can explore on a deeper level, like seeing a collection of the artist’s works or scrolling through the museums where you can view the paintings on the wall.
For some pieces, you can click through to see high-resolution imagery right from Google Arts & Culture.
It’s a cheap and simple way to visit loads of museum around the world without needing to spend on flights to get there. The Street View functions will be available on desktop and Chrome browser on mobile. When walking through museums on Google Maps, you’ll see clear and useful annotations on the wall next to each piece. Clicking on these annotations will bring you to a new page with more information provided by hundreds of the world’s renowned museums. You’ll also be able to zoom into high-resolution imagery.
Google achieved this with their visual recognition software. The software scanned the walls of participating museums all over the world, identifying and categorising more than 15,000 works.
Google wrote that they receive over 500 million art-related searches on Google monthly.
