Tag Archives: Arts and Culture

On World Art Day, try out this activity for the whole family

We could all use a little inspiration these days. For World Art Day Google Arts & Culture is launching Family Fun with Arts & Culture, a new collection to bring your family new ways to learn about art, animals, science, space, books and music. You can discover what's inside a black hole, hang out with a Jurassic giant in virtual reality in virtual reality, or even practice some Harry Potter magic. And for our little ones, why not follow a pesky penguin through virtual tours of museum galleries?

There’s a penguin loose at the Rijksmuseum!

Thanks to the help of our partners, we’re also making new treasures and stories accessible on Google Arts & Culture. 35 cultural institutions including the Atassi Foundation (UAE), Museum of Contemporary Art in Buenos Aires (Argentina), Palazzo Monti(Italy), the Yale Center for British Art (USA) have brought online more than 100 diverse online exhibitions with over 18,000 new artworks, artifacts and stories. The Nakamura Keith Haring Collection in Japan is the only museum in the world to exclusively feature the artworks of Keith Haring. Explore over 50 of his pieces of art—including the bright yellow angel spreading its great wings—digitized in ultra high definition.

  • Artwork Keith Haring The Angel.png

    One of Keith Haring’s signature characters, "The Angel". Explore it in finest detail thanks to the Art Camera.

  • Kiyoharu Art Colony Street View.png

    "Kiyoharu Art Colony" is a safe haven for artists to awaken their  artistic spirit and share their creativity with the world. Explore it on Street View. 

  • Edo, Antonia Showering at Palazzo monti.gif

    Explore the works of iconic  women artists of the Palazzo Monti.

  • Exhibit page what is art therapy.png

    Bangkok Art and Culture Centre contributes an exhibit about the prospects of Art Therapy.

  • Portrait of Friedericke Maria Beer by Klimt.png

    Go on an in-painting tour of Gustav Klimt’s colorful masterpiece, “Portrait of Friedericke Maria Beer” at Tel Aviv Museum of Art.

  • Artwork at Museo Dolores Olmedo.gif

    Museo Dolores Olmedoshares how this famous Mexican muralist copied other artistic styles before finding his own.

  • Artwork at ciputra artpreneur .png

    Ciputra Artpreneurshares a story of passion, intimacy, and heartbreak in this colorful in-painting tour.

If you’re looking for more, check out this list of ways to have fun with Arts and Culture at home, and for more armchair cultural travel, explore the wonders of Italy, France, Spain and the UK. 

Keep discovering on Google Arts & Culture, or download our free app for iOS or Android.

On World Art Day, try out this activity for the whole family

We could all use a little inspiration these days. For World Art Day Google Arts & Culture is launching Family Fun with Arts & Culture, a new collection to bring your family new ways to learn about art, animals, science, space, books and music. You can discover what's inside a black hole, hang out with a Jurassic giant in virtual reality in virtual reality, or even practice some Harry Potter magic. And for our little ones, why not follow a pesky penguin through virtual tours of museum galleries?

There’s a penguin loose at the Rijksmuseum!

Thanks to the help of our partners, we’re also making new treasures and stories accessible on Google Arts & Culture. 35 cultural institutions including the Atassi Foundation (UAE), Museum of Contemporary Art in Buenos Aires (Argentina), Palazzo Monti(Italy), the Yale Center for British Art (USA) have brought online more than 100 diverse online exhibitions with over 18,000 new artworks, artifacts and stories. The Nakamura Keith Haring Collection in Japan is the only museum in the world to exclusively feature the artworks of Keith Haring. Explore over 50 of his pieces of art—including the bright yellow angel spreading its great wings—digitized in ultra high definition.

  • Artwork Keith Haring The Angel.png

    One of Keith Haring’s signature characters, "The Angel". Explore it in finest detail thanks to the Art Camera.

  • Kiyoharu Art Colony Street View.png

    "Kiyoharu Art Colony" is a safe haven for artists to awaken their  artistic spirit and share their creativity with the world. Explore it on Street View. 

  • Edo, Antonia Showering at Palazzo monti.gif

    Explore the works of iconic  women artists of the Palazzo Monti.

  • Exhibit page what is art therapy.png

    Bangkok Art and Culture Centre contributes an exhibit about the prospects of Art Therapy.

  • Portrait of Friedericke Maria Beer by Klimt.png

    Go on an in-painting tour of Gustav Klimt’s colorful masterpiece, “Portrait of Friedericke Maria Beer” at Tel Aviv Museum of Art.

  • Artwork at Museo Dolores Olmedo.gif

    Museo Dolores Olmedoshares how this famous Mexican muralist copied other artistic styles before finding his own.

  • Artwork at ciputra artpreneur .png

    Ciputra Artpreneurshares a story of passion, intimacy, and heartbreak in this colorful in-painting tour.

If you’re looking for more, check out this list of ways to have fun with Arts and Culture at home, and for more armchair cultural travel, explore the wonders of Italy, France, Spain and the UK. 

Keep discovering on Google Arts & Culture, or download our free app for iOS or Android.

Now that we’re at home, bring the great artists to you

Long before video conferencing moved from the boardroom to the family room, art was our common link to each other. It crossed space, time and culture as the purest expression of the human story. Just as we turn the pages of written history to discover what happened; the search for art is the pursuit of what inspires us, what challenges us, and how for thousands of years we’ve discovered a bit of ourselves in each other.

Ten years ago that journey required traveling the world. Now, the treasures of history are a little closer to home. Google Arts & Culture puts the stories and knowledge of over 2,000 cultural institutions from 80 countries in your home. It immerses you in a world of culture through augmented reality, virtual reality, Street View and AI.

New tools recently added to the Google Arts & Culture app allow you to bring the world’s culture into your home, whether you’d like to hang a virtual Van Gogh in your kitchen or experience a classical concert in Beijing's Forbidden City on your couch.

Open up the Google Arts & Culture app and try the following features to get started on your journey:

1. Art Transfer is a new feature that lets you transform your photo or selfie using the style characteristics of works by renowned artists such as Frida Kahlo, Leonardo da Vinci or Yayoi Kusama.

Art Transfer

2. Which artists were inspired by your favorite colors? With Art Palette, you can select your favorite colors and generate art featuring colors you love, or upload a photo of your living room and get some home decor inspiration for the color palette of your home.

3. With Art Projector you can place actual-size artworks in augmented reality right in front of you, wherever you are. Why not place your favorite masterpieces in your kitchen, office or backyard?

Art Projector.jpg

4. Step into a blockbuster exhibition which could never happen in real life. Our latest Pocket Gallery uses Augmented Reality to open a curated virtual space, allowing you to meet Vermeer and see all his artworks for the first time, or step back 36,000 years into some of the oldest cave paintings left behind by our ancestors in the Chauvet Caves.

Pocket Gallery

5. Experience culture in “360-degree video” and encounter a Jurassic giant, explore a Space Shuttle or discover the majestic valley temples of Bagan. Visit via your screen or with a Google Cardboard. 

6. With Street View you can choose your own path to discover cultural institutions,  wonders of the world and places such as the Palace of Versailles, the Taj Mahal or the International Space Station. 

Each of these interactive tools is designed to help bring the treasures of human culture to everyone; but they’re also a way to continue the long journey of human expression—and breathe new life into the old masters. We know where the great artists took human expression in their time--they, as much as anyone, would be interested in seeing where you can take it in ours.

Transform your photo in the style of an iconic artist

From the bold, swirling movement in Vincent van Gogh's paintings, to the surreal, confident brushstrokes of Frida Kahlo, many famous artists have instantly recognizable styles. Now you can use these styles to transform your own photos. With Art Transfer, a new feature in the Google Arts & Culture app, you can apply the characteristics of well-known paintings to your own images.

To try it, open the Camera menu in the bottom bar of the Google Arts & Culture app and select “Art Transfer.” After taking or uploading a photo, choose from dozens of masterpieces to transfer that style onto your image. (And while you wait, we’ll share a fun fact about the artwork, in case you’re curious to know a bit more about its history.) For more customization, you can use the scissors icon to select which part of the image you want the style applied to. 

Thanks to cultural institutions from around the world, such as the UK’s National Gallery and Japan’s MOA Museum of Art, we’re able to feature artists like van Gogh, Frida Kahlo, Edvard Munch or Leonardo da Vinci.

Art Transfer animation of coffee cup - Cutting Tool.gif

Many Google Arts & Culture experiments show what’s possible when you combine art and technology. Artificial intelligence in particular can be a powerful tool not just in the hands of artists, but also as a way for people to experience and learn about art in new ways.  


In this case, Art Transfer is powered by an algorithmic model created by Google AI. Once you snap your photo and select a style, Art Transfer doesn’t just blend the two things or simply overlay your image. Instead, it kicks off a unique algorithmic recreation of your photo inspired by the specific art style you have chosen. 

And all of it happens right on your device without the help of the cloud or your image being processed online.

We are curious to see what you will create with a little help of AI. Once you are happy with your Art Transfer, tap share to share the results as a still image or as a GIF - #ArtTransfer. 

Discover more on Google Arts & Culture—or download our free app for iOS or Android.

Hey Google, tell me about an inspiring woman

Honoring the bold, brave and brilliant women who have influenced our lives is not limited to a single month—it’s a daily endeavor. But for Women’s History Month, Google Assistant and Google Arts & Culture are doing something special. 


When you wish your Assistant "Happy International Women's Day," you’ll learn about one of twelve extraordinary women like Dolores Huerta (an American labor rights activist), Savitribai Phule (often called the mother of Indian feminism), Rachel Carson (an American marine biologist, conservationist and author) and Dr. Kakenya Ntaiya (an activist empowering girls to access education in Kenya). For additional stories about female trailblazers, visit g.co/womeninculture.


Celebrate with your Google Assistant all month long by asking your smart speaker, Smart Display (like Nest Hub Max) or phone (Android and iOS):

  • “Hey Google, Happy International Women’s Day”

  • “Hey Google, tell me about an inspiring woman” 

  • “Hey Google, tell me quotes from inspiring women”

Google Assistant_IWD Phone.png

And if you’re looking for ways to connect with the women in your life (or treat yourself!), get a little help by asking your Assistant:

  • “Hey Google, play a podcast about inspirational women”

  • "Hey Google, talk like Issa" to get Issa Rae’s cameo voice.

  • “Hey Google, call Mom”

  • “Hey Google, text Lisa ‘Happy International Women’s Day’”

  • “Hey Google, who runs the world?”

  • “Hey Google, compliment me”

Meet humanity’s first artists through virtual reality

Editor’s Note: France’s Chauvet Cave contains some of the world’s oldest prehistoric drawings. It’s so delicate that it’s closed to the public, but thanks to our partner, the Syndicat Mixte de la Grotte Chauvet, you can now step into the world of our ancient ancestors through Google Search’s augmented reality feature as well as virtual reality. One of these ancient ancestors, who has asked to remain anonymous, has time-traveled 36,000 years to share what the cave was like back then. 

We began our journey to the big cave days ago. Today we arrive and settle near the stone arch that spans the river. We light a fire, signalling to our people up near the caves that we’re here. We’ve brought small stone tools with us to sew the arrowheads we use for hunting. Perhaps we’ll be able to trade them.

There’s plenty of moonlight, so once we’ve made camp I venture out, hiking up to the cave’s entrance to greet the others. The children are still awake, playing with their toys but also listening intently to the lions roaring in the distance. There used to be bears living here too, but they’re long gone.

The closer I get to its entrance, the more the dark cave seems to draw me in, so I light a torch and step inside. After a short walk, the fire illuminates where we—and those before us—have left our marks. Here, someone scraped the clay, exposed the limestone and painted their world, long before we arrived. My favorites are the horses—I think one is afraid, another is playing, and a third one, the curious one, has pricked up its ears inquiringly.

Near the familiar mammoth, a new image catches my eye—perhaps some of our young hunters have depicted this lion to celebrate their success.

The fresco is so enormous, it’s impossible to take it all in. I step back to try and comprehend its meaning. There are cave lions, reindeer and stags, all seeming to move in the play of light and shadow. Just a few lines, drawn by practiced hands, and somehow we have a masterpiece.

Then there are the handprints left by those who came before us. I stand on my toes and stretch to match my own hand to the imprints on the cold rock, and suddenly I feel compelled to leave my mark too. I’ve never been chosen as a painter, but I’m alone and feeling daring, so I dip my hand into the red paint that’s been left out, rise back to my toes, and add my handprint to the others on the wall. 

As it dries, I draw back and watch as the animals and the handprints fade into the darkness. Who knows how long they’ve all been here, and how long they’ll remain?

Another note from the editor: if you enjoyed hearing from our anonymous cave ancestor, check out the following images of the cave she described, or find out more in Google Arts & Culture’s latest exhibit “Chauvet: Meet our Ancestors.”


  • Panoramic view of the a river and mountains

    Panoramic view of the Pont d’Arc, a stone arch over the river with the Chauvet Cave mountains in the background. © David Huguet

  • Phone screen displaying a AR model

    When you search for the Chauvet Cave on Google Search, the AR in Search features  let you view and interact with a 3D model of a fresco in the cave. Use your smartphone to place it directly into your own space, to get a sense of scale and detail.

  • A torch lights up a cave painting_3.jpg

    “Chauvet - The Dawn of Art” is a virtual reality experience available on HTC vive that guides visitors through the Chauvet Cave. 

    Narrated by Daisy Ridley (English version) or Cécile de France (French version), it shows you 12 stations within the cave. No worries if you don’t have a VR headset - this Youtube 360 video version is equally immersive.


  • Image of a cave painting with felines

    The “alcove of the felines” is the central part of the Horses Fresco, one of the masterpieces of Chauvet Cave. 

    © David Huguet


  • 3D model of a Bear Skull.png

    This is the 3D model of a bear skull that was placed on a  block of stone in the cave. It was staged deliberately, meant to be seen this way, and has not moved for 36,000 years.

Heritage on the Edge urges action on the climate crisis

Editor’s note: Guest author Dr. Toshiyuki Kono is President of the International Council on Monuments and Sites. Distinguished Professor Kono also teaches private international law and heritage law at Japan's Kyushu University.

Preserving and protecting the past is essential for our future. This belief is at the core of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), a global non-government organization dedicated to the conservation of architectural and archaeological heritage.

Our 10,000 members across the globe—including architects, archeologists, geographers, planners and anthropologists—share the same vision: to protect and promote the world’s cultural heritage. The recent youth climate demonstrations shed a spotlight on the urgency of the climate crisis, which is having a devastating effect on our cultural monuments too. It is important to take action, and we must act now to save this part of our human legacy.

That’s why, in collaboration with CyArk and Google Arts & Culture, we’re launching Heritage on the Edge, a new online experience that stresses the gravity of the situation through the lens of five UNESCO World Heritage Sites. You can join us and explore over 50 online exhibits, 3D models, Street View tours, and interviews with local professionals and communities about Rapa Nui’s (Easter Island) iconic statues, the great mosque city of Bagerhat in Bangladesh, the adobe metropolis of Chan Chan in Peru, Scotland’s Edinburgh Castle and the coastal city of Kilwa Kisiwani in Tanzania—all heritage sites that are affected by the climate crisis.
  • 5 Easter island statues at a beach

    Built from volcanic stone  by the native Polynesian inhabitants from the 10th to 16th centuries, the Easter Island Statues—called Moai—stand at an average height of 13 feet and weigh 14 tons each. As sea levels rise and storms increase, the cliffs where the monuments are located are being undercut. The statues will eventually fall into the sea.

  • An animation showing the water damage to Edinburgh Castle

    The historic fortress and urban center of Edinburgh is Scotland's most-visited tourist attraction and at risk from rapidly increasing rainfall and groundwater flooding.

  • A gif of the Gereza Fort AR experience

    Kilwa Kisiwani in Tanzania is the most famous Swahili Coast trading port on the Indian Ocean. Site Director Mercy Mbogellah and her team monitor and work to preserve the site, which is at risk from sea-level rise, mangrove depletion and ocean acidification. Explore the site’s Gereza Fort and the impact of climate change up close in a Augmented Reality “Pocket Gallery”.

  • A stone wall with ancient inscriptions

    Peru's Chan Chan is the world’s largest adobe city. It is being washed away by increasing torrential rain caused by climate change. But building roofs won’t solve the problem either: Thanks to rising groundwater levels, they could cause a dangerous microclimate and ultimately affect the buildings’ structural stability.

  • A 3D point cloud of a Bagerhat Moschee

    A 3D visualization of the Nine Dome Mosque in the Mosque City of Bagerhat in Bangladesh uses a “point cloud” to represent its high concentration of finely made religious monuments and spatial planning. But the monuments are rapidly decaying due to salt water flooding and erosion. With help of this data we were able to also create another dedicated “Pocket Gallery” that lets you explore the Nine Dome Mosque in Augmented Reality.

Above all, the project is a call to action. The effects of climate change on our cultural heritage mirror wider impacts on our planet, and require a strong and meaningful response. While actions at individual sites can prevent loss locally, the only sustainable solution is systemic change and the global reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. 

Heritage on the Edge collects stories of loss, but also of hope and resilience. They remind us that all our cultural heritage, including these iconic World Heritage Sites, are more than just tourist destinations. They are places of great national, spiritual and cultural significance.

Explore the angst and beauty in famous works of art

The “Mona Lisa” is probably the most famous painting in art history. But what’s the second most famous? It could very well be  “The Scream” by Edvard Munch. The image has withstood the test of time to become a modern icon, inspiring the famous ‘90s horror film series and even an emoji you may have used on occasion.


In time for Munch’s birthday on Dec. 12, Google Arts & Culture invited YouTube Music rising star Girl in Red to give us her take on the howling cultural icon. It’s the latest in our Art Zoom video series, where pop musicians bring their storytelling lens to masterpieces from art history. And who better than Marie Ulven (aka Girl in Red), who sings about a “pretty face with pretty bad dreams,” to take us through “The Scream’s” hidden details? Follow her and get down to brushstroke level, zooming in and out of the image thanks to our Art Camera’s high-resolution capabilities.
Art Zoom: Girl in Red x Edvard Munch

On a slightly less angsty note, we asked Lolo Zouai, a newcomer on the international R&B scene, to take us on a cheeky tour of Botticcelli’s “Birth of Venus.” If you’ve ever wondered about the story behind the beautiful woman in the giant shell, now you can just click to learn all about about the Uffizi Gallery’s most famous painting.

Art Zoom: Lolo Zouaï x Sandro Botticelli

Give us a shout (or a scream) if you’d like to see more of these collaborations, and join the conversation on #artzoom.


100 Years of Bauhaus on Google Arts & Culture

Even if you’ve never heard of the Bauhaus movement, you’ve probably seen its influence all around you. From traffic signs to office furniture, the legendary design school changed the way our world looks and functions.  

One hundred years after the movement began in Germany, we’re still surrounded by Bauhaus ideas about art, technology and craftsmanship, which are reflected in Google Arts & Culture's newest collection—"Bauhaus Everywhere". The collection came together in partnership with the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation in Germany—as part of our multi-year digitization collaboration—and six other partners including the IIT Institute of Design or the Guggenheim Museum.

Bauhaus Everywhere

Bauhaus design aimed to improve people's lives through functional design. Well-known members of the school, such as its founder Walter Gropius, the controversial Hannes Meyer or Gunta Stölzl, as one of many female designers and artists, have a lasting influence on architecture, furniture design and even typefaces. 

This project digitizes over 10,000 objects, offers virtual tours of iconic buildings and exhibits over 400 artworks captured with our Art Camera. The result is over 45 online exhibitions curated by our seven partners featuring icons like the world known tubular steel armchair or imagery of “Africa's Finest Campus” and the (perhaps unexpectedly) best selling bauhaus design, wallpaper. 

There are also unique insights into the everyday student life of Bauhaus including the renowned Bauhaus parties and the forward thinking empowerment of women. And, because the school’s design principles spread far beyond Germany and Europe, we’ve created a Google Earth Voyager Tour to show how people as far away as Japan, India or Brazil were inspired by Bauhaus. 

  • Young people posing at the beach

    The Bauhaus Study Guide: Learn what it was like to study at this very unusual school. © Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau

  • 3D model of a round house .gif

    Explore three never-built Bauhaus buildings in Augmented Reality. Here theRundhaus by Carl Flieger.

  • Colourful expressionist painting

    Zoom into a high resolution capture of Wassily Kandinsky's masterwork “Yellow. Red. Blue” and learn about his condition that made him hear colors. © Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau


  • Image of a big concrete high-rise building

    Learn why the first international exhibition on Bauhaus took place in India and how the Bauhaus ideas influenced the look of Indian cities. © Johannes Schwartz, Het Nieuwe Instituut

  • A dining room with colorful furniture

    Follow the tracks of Bauhaus internationally and see what the Dutch De Stijl movement and Bauhaus had in common. © Johannes Schwartz


New shapes, materials and approaches to construction made Bauhaus proposals stand out. Its architectural designs  were especially known for their avantgarde approach. But many of these bold building plans stayed just that, and were never actually constructed. In collaboration with experts from the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation, the collection contains buildings that had only ever existed on paper and in the minds of their creators. 

Together we assembled archival sketches, scribbles and vague descriptions to create augmented reality models of three visionary structures. In the Google Arts & Culture app anyone can now explore “Round House” by Carl Fieger, “BAMBOS” by Marcel Breuer and “Court House” by Eduard Ludwig from inside and outside. 

László Moholy-Nagy, a teacher at the Bauhaus, put it this way: "Design is not a profession, design is an attitude." We hope you’ll see that the Bauhaus attitude is not just everywhere but, through this exhibit, also for everyone. 


When fashion and choreography meet artificial intelligence

At the Google Arts & Culture Lab in Paris, we’re all about exploring the relationship between art and technology. Since 2012, we’ve worked with artists and creators from many fields, developing experiments that let you design patterns in augmented reality, co-create poetry, or experience multisensory art installations. Today we’re launching two experiments to test the potential of artificial intelligence in the worlds of contemporary dance and fashion.

For our first experiment, Runway Palette, we came together with The Business of Fashion, whose collection includes 140,000 photos of runway looks from almost 4,000 fashion shows. If you could attend one fashion show per day, it would take you more than ten years to see them all. By extracting the main colors of each look, we used machine learning to organize the images by color palette, resulting in an interactive visualization of four years of fashion by almost 1,000 designers.

Everyone can now use the color palette visualization to explore colors, designers, seasons, and trends that come from Fashion Weeks worldwide.  You can even snap or upload a picture of, let’s say, your closet, or autumn leaves, and discover how designers used a similar color palette in fashion.

  • Various fashion images in visualised cloud.gif

    Explore four years of runway looks organized by color using machine learning.

  • Images of clothing on a mobile screen.gif

    Take a picture or upload a photo to see how designers used a similar color palette in fashion.

  • a visualisation showing fashion looks.gif

    Click on a palette to see which runway looks have similar colors, and compare by collection.

For our second experiment, Living Archive, we continued our collaboration with Wayne McGregor to create an AI-driven choreography tool. Trained on over 100 hours of dance performances from Wayne’s 25-year archive, the experiment uses machine learning to predict and generate movement in the style of Wayne’s dancers. In July of this year, they used the tool in his creative process for a new work that premiered at the LA Music Center. 


Today, we are making this experiment available to everyone. Living Archive lets you explore almost half a million poses from Wayne’s extensive archive, organized by visual similarity. Use the experiment to make connections between poses, or capture  your own movement to create your very own choreography.
The Living Archive experiment

You can try our new experiments on the Google Arts & Culture experiments page or via our free app for iOS and Android.