Earlier this month, Google launched its latest digitisation project, aiming to bring the touchstones of Western art to the web at large. What they have created, is Duke Nukem for gallery lovers. 
 

If you happen to be reading this online, why not have a play about at http://www.googleartproject.com before reading what I think? Let us know at the bottom of the page.

Some 17 of the world’s best-loved museums – including Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, the Palace of Versailles and New York’s Frick Collection – have collaborated with the ubiquitous internet giant to provide “Street View” style tours of their galleries, with the option to click particular paintings and view them in astonishingly high resolution. 

No longer is “Street View” just for cruising down the street outside your house or trying to spot Liam Gallagher in that pub in Camden: it’s the art history voyeur’s ticket to uninhibited access to the world’s greatest paintings. Or at least that’s what Google would have you believe.

Alongside the 1,061 strong list of works captured, each museum has selected a single work to be reproduced using ultra high-definition “gigapixel” technology. For me, these 17 paintings are the most captivating element of the Project, and it’s definitely worth taking the time to pour over them slowly, investigating the traceable expressions of artistic technique and craquelure acquired over time. In essence, this is the best of what the Google Art Project provides: a digital, open and wallet-friendly alternative to the coffee table book.

At the launch event held at the Tate, Google’s PR team encouraged the press to marvel at the newly visible minutiae on a seven billion pixel strong reproduction of Ivanov’s “Apparition of Christ to the People” hanging in Moscow’s State Tretyakov Gallery. In doing so, they inadvertently highlighted a technical hiccup. While paying so much attention to close detail, Google have failed to see the wood for the -admittedly stunning detail of mourners gnashing and wailing in the - trees. The digital tourist loses all sense of perspective. 

This is also true when attempting to navigate the museums, or “levels,” as I prefer to call them. Insofar as these museums are themselves carefully sculpted, investigable works of art, their 3D counterparts are travesties; distorted, clunky and infuriating. I can’t help but wonder, why take such great pains over a handful of works when the museum experience itself is rendered so crudely?

The interface on the website makes strides towards something constructive and user-friendly. There’s a visitor’s guide, concise introductions to painters and their work, as well as links to You Tube videos shot by resident experts from the museums. What’s more, the down-at-heel art lover can even start a collection of their very own and share it over Facebook.

Google’s democratic sentiment is highly laudable; the problem lies with its execution. The Art Project has the makings of a valuable tool, assuming the work continues (as it stands it’s only really a teaser); increasing the number of works, hi res pieces and improving the ghastly Amiga 4000 style shoot-em-up navigator. Secondary school art classes will be able to study close-up the surprisingly sparse application of thick paint strokes to Van Gogh’s “Starry Night,” while art historians will get the chance to hold a digital magnifying glass to works previously inaccessible without a stepladder and the fury of tourists whose vista has been obscured by a dangling corduroy-clad backside.

Who can predict how team Google’s continued efforts might impact the history of art? Will dense, technical patterning make a return to the spotlight? Will the focus on devices such as the tiny portraits of the murdered Stephen Lawrence in the teardrops of Chris Ofili’s “No Woman, No Cry” – notably the only post-War piece to grace the big 17 – and will the ability to skim across time and space have a homogenising effect on reception of the work, or does it herald a new dawn for a (conspicuously occidental) comparative collaboration, facilitated by Google as diplomatic intermediary? 

The procession online is in the stars and should be encouraged, as it represents a move towards increasing and universalising knowledge. My fear is that people might think a quick click around the Uffizi while checking emails has the potential to come close an experience of the real thing, which, for the time being at least, it really doesn’t.