Googling Fine Art

Google Earth unveiled 14 high-res photos of some of the world’s finest masterpieces yesterday in a collaboration with Spain’s Prado museum, the Independent reports. The collaboration is the first between Google and an art museum, and features memorable works such as Velasquez’s Las Meninas, Goya’s Third of May, and Rubens’ The Three Graces. The 14 paintings were photographed section by section for a total of 8,200 times, with the results stitched together to form images 1,400 times clearer than anything a tourist’s 10-megapixel camera could capture. A spokesman for Google Spain said, “In the museum we cannot get this close to a painting; if we did we’d need a three-meter-high ladder to get these views.”