Google Arts & Culture

Free!

The Google Arts & Culture website contains multiple types of articles, images, galleries, and other resources for users to explore. To begin, the website offers users a “Daily Digest” and “Stories of the Day” section. Both sections include images, videos, and text of historical and notable artists, locations, and topics that users can access by clicking on a story’s headline. The “Virtual Tours” section lets users click on a location and then explore it on the ground, water, street, or building level. Users can click on different areas to move the camera view and explore in great detail. The “Zoom In” section lets users click a piece of art and the website magnifies the artwork. If users wish to learn about the piece of artwork they are viewing, they may zoom all the way out to access the details. The “Explore by Time and Color” features lets users select either a year from a timeline or a color from a palette. The website then shows users all the notable artwork from that time period or artwork from that color scheme. When users click on a piece of art in this section, they are able to access its details and also magnify it. The “Artists” section contains short biographies and collections from many of the world’s famous artists. The “Partners” section includes information about several museums, centers, and organizations that have contributed to this website from around the world. By clicking on one of the partners, users can read about it and view exhibits and collections.

Instructional Ideas

1. When researching a famous artist, time period, museum, or similar topic, teachers can have students use this website as a reference for their work.
2. When teaching about an artist or time period, teachers can have students view artwork by the artist or from the time period. Teachers can then have students compose descriptions for the artist or time period by identifying characteristics and explaining how they are unique to that artist or time period.
3. As a class activity, teachers can have students read an entry from the “Daily Digest” or “Story of the Day” and summarize it in a journal. Next, teachers can ask students to share what they learned from the entry. As a class, students then discuss how the information they learned from the story can be connected to their daily lives.
4. When teachers are discussing a specific geographic location in class, they can have their students go visit it digitally by using the “Virtual Tour” feature in this website. As they explore the location, students can record specific items of interest they noted.
5. After teaching a specific painting, pottery, or weaving technique, teachers can have students view the different artworks included in the “Explore by Time and Color” and “Artists” sections. As they view the different pieces of art, teachers can task students with finding the technique they taught in the artwork they are viewing.

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