Google'southward Arts & Culture app is a miniature mobile masterpiece, which anyone with fifty-fifty a passing interest in art will enjoy exploring.

Launched in 2016, it was originally designed to complement the Google Arts & Civilization website, which lets yous almost visit thousands of galleries and museums around the globe.

But the app, which yous can download for free for Android and iOS, at present goes far beyond that. Information technology uses the latest technology to deliver an immersive, educational, and entertaining art experience. Let's accept a wait at its highlights.

1. Lucifer a Selfie to a Painting

The best-known feature in the Google Arts & Culture app is undoubtedly Fine art Selfie. Information technology finds your art lookalike among thousands of famous paintings.

To discover whether y'all more closely resemble the Mona Lisa or The Laughing Cavalier, tap the photographic camera icon and select Fine art Selfie. Take a photo of your confront and Arts & Civilization will locate matching portraits.

Don't expect the results to be exact doppelgangers, or fifty-fifty anyone you've heard of (though one of our matches was 28th US president Woodrow Wilson). Tap the picture for information about the subject, artist, and collection, then tap View artwork to see the slice in close-upwards item.

Incidentally, in that location have been complaints in the Play Store that Fine art Selfie no longer works, merely just hangs. We also had this trouble, until we switched from cellular to Wi-Fi, which kicked it into action.

two. Transform Your Photos Into Artworks

Even more fun than Art Selfie is the Art Transfer feature. This turns your photos into works of art in the way of specific painters.

Select Fine art Transfer in the photographic camera carte du jour, and then either capture a photo or utilize an existing one from your phone. Tap one of the thumbnails of classic paintings and celebrated artifacts, and Google will employ its AI to apply that manner.

Options include Edvard Munch's The Scream, Claude Monet's Ninfee Rosa, Jean-Michel Basquiat's Man from Naples, and self portraits by Andy Warhol, Frida Kahlo, and Vincent Van Gogh.

You lot can apply a style to merely part of your photograph past borer the scissors icon and tracing the desired expanse with your finger. The app as well creates a GIF showing the transformation of your image into art. Tap Share to download and share your masterpiece.

3. Insert Yourself Into Works of Art

Google Arts & Culture is as well one of the best augmented reality apps. You lot can see this in the Fine art Filter tool, which uses AR to turn yous into a living work of art.

Select Art Filter in the camera menu, so choose i of the five artifacts or paintings. These include a Japanese Samurai helmet from the 19th century, Van Gogh'due south Cocky Portrait (once more), and Vermeer'southward Girl with a Pearl Earring.

Tap Try filter to activate your camera and utilise the filter, Snapchat-style. Information technology will suit to the position of your head and even your facial expression. Tap the circumvolve to have a photo or hold it downwardly to record a video.

When you lot're done admiring yourself, select View artwork to learn more than about the original piece.

4. Projection Artwork Around Your Abode

You probably don't have $80 one thousand thousand to spend on a Monet for your kitchen, so Google Arts & Culture lets you hang classic paintings for free. It uses augmented reality to projection full-size versions of masterpieces anywhere in your domicile.

Printing the camera icon and tap Fine art Projector. Point your camera at the floor, motion it in a circular move, and a grid of dots will prove you where the projection volition appear.

You tin then choose ane of 50 famous artworks, including Edward Hopper's Nighthawks, Grant Wood's American Gothic, and Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa.

As if past magic, the actual-size painting will appear in front end of you on a stand. Tap the frame icon in the bottom-right corner to hang the pic on a virtual wall. Walk towards an artwork to examine information technology in detail, as if information technology were actually in forepart of you.

Art Projector is also available for thousands of other paintings in the Arts & Culture app. Merely look for the View in Augmented Reality option.

You lot can utilise the Arts & Culture app's brilliant Pocket Gallery characteristic to explore some of the earth's best art without leaving your home.

Select Pocket Gallery in the camera carte du jour, then point your photographic camera at a flat, well-lit surface and motion your phone around slowly. Equally with Art Projector, a grid of dots will highlight the augmented reality area.

Choose a virtual gallery from nine options including Meet Vermeer, The Art of Color, and Chauvet Cave. The size and calibration of these tours means you'll need to download them first, but this also makes them easy to revisit.

Press Enter to step into the gallery, where you tin tap and swipe your screen to explore the contents of each room. Alternatively, motion your telephone manually to expect around.

The proper name of the artwork and creative person will appear as you "arroyo" a slice. You can also reverse-compression your screen to zoom in and examine the craftsmanship.

6. Play Art-Themed Games

Although you tin try Google Arts & Culture's games on its website, tapping your phone'south touchscreen makes them easier and more fun to play than with your mouse.

For example, Art Coloring Book offers monochrome outlines of more than 20 famous paintings and photos, which you can color in using the palette of your choice. Merely pick a color then tap a segment of the picture to make full information technology in. You can save and share the result.

Puzzle Party creates jigsaws from hundreds of artworks, which you can either solve yourself or collaborate on with friends. Simply press the puzzle pieces and move them into place.

There's besides Visual Crosswords, which challenges you to group thumbnail images by theme, such as Contemporary and Renaissance fine art, or paintings by Van Gogh and Gauguin.

To play these games and more, keep scrolling through the Arts & Culture app until y'all reach the Games section.

seven. Bring Ancient Creatures to Life

If you relish viewing museum exhibits of fossils and long-extinct species, you'll dear Arts and Culture's Meet an Ancient Brute feature.

This uses AR to identify prehistoric beings in front of you, at their actual size. These include the Opabinia, a 500 one thousand thousand-year-old arthropod with v eyes; duck-billed, crested dinosaur the Amurosaurus; and "Hatcher", the first Triceratops ever put on display.

If yous can't see the characteristic on the app'due south home screen, tap the menu in the top-left corner, choose Collections, and select Country Darwin Museum, which has provided nigh of the 3D images. Select an ancient beast, so tap View in Augmented Reality to bring it back to life.

Interact With Art and Civilisation

Yous could spend days exploring all the content in the Google Arts & Culture app. Try the interactive features nosotros've highlighted to become a flavor of what to expect.

As well as browsing artworks and artifacts, yous should also check out the app's virtual tours of galleries, museums, and sites of cultural and historic involvement. They provide you lot with a earth of culture from the comfort of your phone.

And if you lot're still hungry for more culture without leaving your couch, y'all can cheque out some virtual field trips that make history come up alive.

9 Virtual Field Trips That Make History Come Alive

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About The Author

Robert Irvine (fourteen Articles Published)

Robert has been writing about the internet and computing since the days of AOL discs and Windows 98. He loves discovering new things about the web and sharing that knowledge with other people.

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