Editor’s note: The National Gallery is an iconic art gallery in London’s Trafalgar Square. For its 200th anniversary, the gallery’s director introduces a new collaboration with Google Arts & Culture.
The National Gallery is celebrating its Bicentenary. To celebrate two centuries of bringing people and paintings together, we are undertaking a year-long festival of art, creativity, and imagination and today we’re thrilled to announce an inspiring new collaboration with Google Arts & Culture, The National Gallery Reframed. Building on more than 13 years of partnership, this exciting project brings 200 of our most treasured paintings to life in the digital realm, offering new and engaging ways to experience these works, including through music and AI with the National Gallery Mixtape.
Unprecedented detail
Explore 200 paintings in extraordinary detail, thanks to Google Arts & Culture’s ultra-high resolution digitisation, revealing nuances often invisible to the naked eye. Zoom in on Van Gogh’s Sunflowers (1888) to see the subtle texture of the canvas, the thick impasto strokes that give the flowers their dimension, and the artist’s vibrant yellow palette. Re-discover the mysterious scene in Van Eyck’s The Arnolfini Portrait (1434), from the inscription on the back wall to the figures reflected in the mirror. Or marvel at the delicate brushwork in Gossaert’s The Adoration of the Kings (1510-15), particularly the king’s gifts and the angels’ wings. Browse these iconic paintings by time or colour and gain a new perspective on artistic detail.
