Now a Google virtual art gallery with 360 degree, VR support

All the world's art is now on your smartphone. Google has unveiled a new Art and Culture mobile application that has brought art collections from over a thousand museums from around the globe (70 countries)  under a single platform. It includes the National Archives of the United Arab Emirates.

Users will be able to search for any work of art using keywords, get details of the artist and sort them by collections, scroll through art by time and even have a 360 degree view of the museum using Google cardboard.

"We’re ready to pull off the dust sheets and introduce the new Google Arts & Culture website and app, by the Google Cultural Institute. The app lets you explore anything from cats in art since 200 BCE to the colour red in Abstract Expressionism, and everything in between," said an announcement by Google.

In what could act like a combination of Google photos with Wikipedia, the feature allows you to search for art using random keywords such as "red shoes," which will generate 120 results from 33 exhibits and 66 galleries.

Google is also allowing users to use the virtual reality feature to tour selected street arts and even go back in time to view ancient video monuments.

"With a virtual reality viewer like Google Cardboard, you can use the Google Arts & Culture app on iOS and Android to take a virtual tour of the street art scene in Rome; step inside a creation by famous street artist, Insa; or even travel 2,500 years back in time and look around the ancient Greek temple of Zeus," it said. 
Google also announced that it is experimenting with a new art recognition feature that will allow anyone to point their smartphone at a particular work of art and get details about the art and the artist.

The Art Recognizer is currently available only in three museums - London’s Dulwich Picture Gallery, Sydney’s Art Gallery of New South Wales and the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC. Google said the feature would soon be rolled out to museums around the world.

"We’re planning to roll this out to museums around the world—so stay tuned," it noted.

The app also allows users to get additional details about a particular museum including the timings and is working on a feature that could enable livestreaming of the day's activities.

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