Modern Erasmus

Museodelprado.es 1 - GoogleEarth 0

Some of you might already know what Google Earth is. It is an application developed by Google (evidently!), and that can represent all parts of the world, with detailed photographic view. Google added during the last years several cool features to its application, one the most interesting being a map of the Sky, for all those who are passionate about astronomy.

Just recently, I’ve discovered that Google, working closely with the Prado, made a great addition to its tool: a scan of some of the museum’s major works, with unprecedented detail! I’ve downloaded the new version of the software and was indeed quite amazed by that work.

A view of all the paintings:

A detailed view of el Bosco’s “Garden of earthly delights”

Well, believe or not this small post of mine is actually not to talk about GoogleEarth, but about the Prado’s website: http://www.museodelprado.es !

Seeing paintings in extremely high resolution is nice to have, but not having historical and artistic explanation that accompany them is unfortunate. And here’s where the other link I gave you comes along. The site contains lots of details concerning those works, but also an online encycopledia about the museum’s works and painters.

Now if you search a little more you’ll find other hidden treasures, like recorded audio guides in an MP3 file format along with several masterpieces. The audio guides are indicated by a small icon in shape of a headset.

The downside is that most of those resources come only in Spanish; this might be a good excuse to brush up on your High School Spanish.

Do not think I’m an advocate of Virtual art visits! Nothing replaces the real thing. So if you’ve never been to the Prado there’s no other advice I can give you than putting it on your priority list whenever you visit Spain… and don’t forget downloading those MP3s first

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