Today Google launches the Prado layer in Google Earth allowing you to explore highly detailed photographic images of fourteen of the Prado Museum’s masterpieces. The Prado Museum in Madrid is one of Spain’s most visited destinations and via the Google Earth layer you can view and learn about its most famous paintings such as The Maids of Honor (Las Meninas) or The Three Graces (Las Tres Gracias).
The Prado Museum has become the first art gallery in the world to provide access to and navigation of its collection in Google Earth. Using the advanced features of Google Earth art historians, students and tourists everywhere can zoom in on and explore the finer details of the artist’s brushwork that can be easily missed at first glance.
The paintings have been photographed in very high resolution and contain as many as 14,000 million pixels (14 gigapixels). With this high level resolution you are able to see fine details such as the tiny bee on a flower in The Three Graces (Las Tres Gracias), delicate tears on the faces of the figures in The Descent from the Cross (El Descendimiento) and complex figures in The Garden of Earthly Delights (El Jardin de las Delicias).
The Google Earth Prado layer also includes 3D models which allow you to fly around the Prado buildings to experience the museum as if you were actually there.
To view the layer, select 3D buildings from the left panel and type ‘Prado’ in the ‘fly to’ search box. You will then be transported to the Prado Museum in 3D where you can click on the building to view the Masterpieces.
The Prado layer represents the latest initiative to make useful and educational information available in geographical context to Google Earth users everywhere. To learn more about Google Earth visit: earth.google.com/tour.html or www.google.com/prado.
Contact: Laura Scott at press-uk@google.com or 0207 031 3130
Labels: English (UK), UK news announcements
