Google Art Project Offers Access To The Art Institute

By Amy Cavanaugh in Arts & Entertainment on Apr 14, 2012 4:00PM

Everyone should have access to great art, but not everyone can travel to see the great museums of the world. Google Art Project, which released its second iteration earlier this month, is a cool way to explore museums you've never been to before (and also lose an afternoon at work). The Art Institute of Chicago is now on there, and you can see 155 works from the collection. The really famous ones (Nighthawks, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, and others) are there, but you'll also see sculptures, drawings, photographs, and other works you may not have seen before.

Choose the collection or artist you want to browse, and click on the painting to learn more. Just by clicking on Renoir's Two Sisters (On the Terrace), you can learn the painting's exhibition history, provenance, publication history, and other details you'd never discover by seeing the painting in a museum.

Among the museums represented, there are two others from the Midwest—the Indianapolis Museum of Art and the Toledo Museum of Art.