1000 Glass Images from The Corning Museum Now Available on the Google Art Project

The Corning Museum of Glass launched with 46 other new international museums, altogether adding just over 5,000 objects to the Google Art Project. The addition of the Museum’s 1000 images places it among the top contributors and significantly increases the presence of glass artworks represented in the Google Art Project.     

“We are committed to providing as much online access as possible to the 35 centuries of glass history represented in our collection,” said executive director Karol Wight. “We were pleased to be the first glass-focused cultural institution to join the Google Art Project, where online visitors and researchers can view and compare works in our collection with those from other institutions around the world.”

The Corning Museum of Glass is home to the world’s most comprehensive collection of glass. Encompassing more than 3,500 years of history, the collection of 45,000 objects ranges from ancient Egyptian and Venetian masterpieces to works by contemporary artists. Visitors to the Google Art Project can explore selected objects from every era and culture represented in the Museum’s collection, including ancient and art glass vessels, jewelry, sculptural objects, design objects, decorative objects, stained glass, furniture and lighting. The selections feature a wide range of historic techniques and styles.

Object details are available for each image and links are provided to view the full object record on www.cmog.org. Visitors can zoom in on the high-resolution images and watch related YouTube videos in one click.

To date, more than 40,000 high resolution objects are available in the Art Project. Street View images now cover 200+ institutions in 40 countries, with more being added all the time. The Art Project is part of the Google Cultural Institute which is dedicated to creating technology that helps the cultural community to bring their art, archives, heritage sites and other material online. The aim is to increase the range and volume of material from the cultural world that is available for people to explore online and in doing so, democratize access to it and preserve it for future generations.

Key Features

Visitors to the Google Art Project can browse works by the artist’s name, the artwork, the type of art, the museum, the country, collections and the time period. Google+ and video hangouts are integrated on the site, allowing viewers to invite their friends to view and discuss their favorite works in a video chat or follow a guided tour from an expert to gain an appreciation of a particular topic or art collection.

Create your own collection

The ‘My Gallery’ feature allows users to save specific views of any of artworks and build their own personalized gallery. Comments can be added to each object and the whole gallery can then be shared with friends and family. It’s an ideal tool for students or groups to work on collaborative projects or collections. In addition, a feature called ‘Compare’ allows you to examine two pieces of artwork side-by-side to look at how an artist’s style evolved over time, connect trends across cultures or delve deeply into two parts of the same work. Visitors can compare the Museum’s ancient Roman cage cup with a cage cup in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Vienna.

Discover, Search and Explore

With such a large collection it was important to provide the tools that allow users to explore across partners using the discover tool, and then further explore artworks by artist across all collections. A custom search-integration makes it easier than ever to browse through collections and instantly find what you are looking for.

About The Corning Museum of Glass

The Corning Museum of Glass is the foremost authority on the art, history, science, and design of glass. It is home to the world’s most important collection of glass, including the finest examples of glassmaking spanning 3,500 years. Live glassblowing demonstrations (offered at the Museum, on the road, and at sea on Celebrity Cruises) bring the material to life. Daily Make Your Own Glass experiences at the Museum enable visitors to create work in a state-of-the-art glassmaking studio. The campus in Corning includes a year-round glassmaking school, The Studio, and the Rakow Research Library, the world’s preeminent collection of materials on the art and history of glass. Located in the heart of the Finger Lakes Wine Country of New York State, the Museum is open daily, year-round. Kids and teens, 19 and under, receive free admission.