Glencairn Museum News | Number 5, 2020
A selection of “zoomable“ photos of Glencairn Museum objects now available on Google Arts & Culture.
The mission of Google Arts & Culture is “to preserve and bring the world’s art and culture online so it’s accessible to anyone, anywhere.” High-resolution, “zoomable” photos of objects in Glencairn’s collection, accompanied by detailed descriptions, bibliographic citations, and links to more information will be added regularly. New photography with state-of-the-art equipment is being created in-house at Glencairn in order to meet Google’s specifications. Works of art currently online include objects from the Museum’s ancient Egyptian, ancient Near Eastern, Roman & Early Christian, ancient Greek, and medieval collections.
Figure 1: Google Arts & Culture indexes objects in museum collections by material, provenance, style, artistic period, artist, and even by color.
In addition to the online web platform, the Google Cultural Institute has created a free, multi-featured phone app available as a free download for both iOS and Android. Viewers with Google accounts can also “favorite” works of art and group them into custom galleries by artist, type of object, or any topic they choose. Viewers with the phone app can choose to receive notifications when their favorite museums add new content to their online collections.
Figure 2: Each entry for a Glencairn Museum object in Google Arts & Culture includes a high-resolution, “zoomable” photo, a short description, a list of sources (including an external link to other online sources when available), and other information such as where and when the object was created, the physical dimensions, the medium/material, and the name of the artist if known. Click here to see this entry for Glencairn’s ancient Egyptian “spirit door” on Google Arts & Culture.
Access to high-resolution photos of objects is especially important to researchers. For example, even the tiniest details may now be seen by those who wish to study our 15th-century leaf from a Missal. (A Missal book contains prayers said or sung during Mass; see Figure 3.)
Figure 3: A Glencairn Facebook post from May 29th. Click here to see this entry for one of Glencairn’s medieval manuscript leaves on Google Arts & Culture.
Ed Gyllenhaal, Glencairn Museum’s Curator, serves as lead writer and editor for the project. According to Gyllenhaal, “One of the most useful features of the platform is the ability to link directly from Glencairn’s social media to zoomable photos and detailed descriptions of works of art. For instance, one of our 15th-century tapestries is eight feet tall, and includes many small details that are hard to see on photos we post of it on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Tumblr. Now, when we post a photo of that tapestry on our social media, we can include a link to our entry on Google Arts & Culture so that people can zoom in to see, for example, my favorite scene—two women weaving a wreath crown made of four-petaled flowers. I love this vignette because it reminds me of the Midsummer wreaths I saw being made at a maypole celebration in Stockholm last year.” (See Figure 4; view the tapestry on Google Arts & Culture here.)
Figure 4: A Glencairn Facebook post from May 23rd. This 15th-century Franco-Flemish tapestry in Glencairn’s collection, currently hanging high up on a wall in the library, can now be seen in detail on Google Arts & Culture (click here to see this entry).
Another useful feature of Google Arts & Culture is the ability to curate virtual exhibits based on objects in a museum’s collection. An exhibit, known as a “story,” can incorporate photos, audio narration, and video. Glencairn’s first “online exhibit” is based on our current temporary exhibition in the Upper Hall. To see the online exhibit on Google Arts & Culture, go here: Sacred Adornment: Jewelry as Belief in Ancient Egypt.
Figure 5: This Google Arts & Culture “online exhibit” is based on Glencairn’s current exhibition, Sacred Adornment: Jewelry as Belief in Ancient Egypt.
Possible future collaborations with Google Arts & Culture include creating ultra-high resolution images of selected works of art in Glencairn’s collection with Google’s “Art Camera,” and creating a tour with Google’s “Street View” feature (which will allow viewers to move around Glencairn virtually). Our hope is that this brave new technological world will help Glencairn more fully realize its mission to engage a diverse audience with universal spiritual concepts expressed in religious beliefs and practices around the world—past and present—through the interpretation of art, artifacts, and other cultural expressions of faith.
(CEG)
A complete archive of past issues of Glencairn Museum News is available online here.