|
Zoomable Pictures, the National Gallery's revolutionary online facility for viewing the world's greatest paintings in incredible detail has won a Museums and Heritage Award for Excellence. Winner in the 'Use of Technology' category, the Gallery's New Media department received the award for Zoomable Pictures at a ceremony hosted by comedian and writer Sandi Toksvig last night (Wed 12 May) at London's Cafe Royal.
Since the facility was launched last year, over four million visitors to the site have been able to marvel at the beauty and skill with which some of the world's greatest masterpieces were rendered. 'I am entranced by your zoomable pictures list. In particular, close-ups of portrait hands and faces is a very useful research tool.' said one, a professional artist. 'I am amazed at the whole idea of being able to see such detail. It made my skin come out in goose-bumps. I shall spend hours looking at your site. I can not get to as many of the Galleries as I would like to. It does not matter now as I can see so many beautiful works of art in such amazing, breathtaking detail.'
The high definition zoomable images were created using scanning technology developed by the National Gallery's Scientific and Photographic departments. Using a 'picture navigator', website visitors can scroll around these magnified images at their leisure, and zoom in to discover exciting and often surprising details not visible in smaller images. The aim is to make this feature available for every painting in the permanent collection. Zoomable Pictures, developed by the Gallery in partnership with Cassini Division Ltd, already allows visitors to explore in detail over 100 of the greatest works of art in the National Gallery's collection including Jan van Eyck's 'Arnolfini Portrait', Constable's 'Hay Wain', Botticelli's 'Venus and Mars' and Seurat's 'Bathers at Asnières'.
Zoomable Pictures builds on the success of the already immensely popular Collection Online facility, launched in the summer of 2000, which allows website visitors to view every painting in the Gallery's permanent collection. The Gallery has constantly sought to improve access to and understanding of its world-class collection; this has been greatly enhanced by the addition of this new facility.
May 2004
Back to 2004 Press Releases
|
|
