On coronavirus lockdown? The top online museum and art tours to enjoy from home

If you are in self-isolation or your local galleries have closed, here are the best digital initiatives to feed your need for art

Featured on theartnewspaper.com

As coronavirus (Covid-19) continues to spread and disrupt the daily lives of people across the globe, forcing many to self-quarantine, we are compiling the best online offerings from artists, museums and galleries. Whether you are staying at home or your local museums and galleries have closed, here are some of the best digital initiatives to satisfy your creative cravings.

Google Arts & Culture tours: international museums

Your first stop for online art tours and resources is definitely Google’s Arts & Culture platform: they have digital documentation of more than 1,200 international institutions. From virtual tours to high definition images of works from the collections, you could get lost for hours on this site. You can search by artist or art historical periods, or you can look at museums from a particular country or browse your local area in the map view. The institutions included on the platform include the big names like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Uffizi Gallery in Florence as well as smaller but well-loved spaces like Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum and the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon.

Google Arts & Culture tours: international heritage

If heritage is more your thing, Google also has a range of cultural sites you can explore online through its street view. You can choose from bucket-list locations like Stone Henge, Machu Pichu, the Colosseum and the Pyramids, to name but a few. If you are looking for more than just 360-degree views, the Arts & Culture platform recently launched the Heritage on the Edge project, which calls attention to five Unesco World Heritage sites under threat from climate change. The website and accompanying app includes 2D maps and high-resolution 3D models as well as accompanying texts with information about the endangered landmarks. There are also two “pocket galleries” on the app that allow users to explore a Nine-Dome Mosque in Bangladesh and a former Portuguese fort on Kilwa Kisiwani island, off Tanzania’s south coast, through augmented reality.

A whirlwind video of the State Hermitage Museum

Unrelated to the coronavirus outbreak but fortuitously timed nonetheless, this video is a five-hour-long cinematic journey through one of the world’s biggest and most visited museums. While it comprehensively goes through 45 galleries and 588 works of art in the Russian museum—with close ups and panorama views—as well as live performances, there is no audio or captions for explanation. The film is actually a promo for the iPhone 11 Pro, but it nonetheless offers an impressive wander through the palatial space.

Click here to read the full article.