Google Art Project

http://www.googleartproject.com/

This has got to be the best idea since sliced bread, or to put it in artists' terms, since paint came in a tube.   I've just discovered it today, apparently it went online last week.  It is the same idea as StreetView, where you virtually walk around a city, looking at photographs taken by Google staff.  But this site is for art museums, and not just any art museums.  Included on the list is everything from MoMA to the Uffizi to the National Gallery in London.  You can "walk" around the museums, search for specific works and look at them much closer than you ever could in real life.  Individual brushstrokes in the hair of Venus are visible, for example, and side bars give additional information on Botticelli and the piece itself.

This is an ongoing project, with 17 museums so far, and more to be added.  Can you tell I'm excited about this?  If you don't hear from me in the next couple of days, you know where I will be.  Maybe we will bump into each other in St. Petersburg!