Each month, Google sees more than 500 million art-related searches. And to help further refine those searches, the Google Arts & Culture team has partnered with Google Search engineers to improve how the company’s “systems understand and recognize 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.”
That means that when you search an artist (say Leonardo Da Vinci), you’ll be shown an interactive Knowledge Panel that highlights other information of note, like a collection of his (or her) work, or the museums where you can find their most revered pieces. For some images, you’ll be able to click through to see high-resolution imagery from the highfalutin Google Arts & Culture team.
Google has also improved its Street View tour for art aficionados, and has made it possible to virtually walk through a museum and check out various pieces, complete with annotations on the wall directly next to the artwork. If you click on the annotation, you’ll be able to explore more analysis still, provided by “hundreds of the world’s renowned museums.”
These latest features were made possible with Google’s visual recognition software, which scanned the walls of participating museums, and then identified and categorized the 15,000 works they contained. So if you’re looking to impress your date (or just yourself) with your vast knowledge of art, Google may be a good place to start.
