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Indian Museum collection going online with Google
KOLKATA: Beginning with its prized collection of Buddhist art, including the famous Gandhara sculptures, t he Indian Museum is now putting all of its galleries for
KOLKATA: Beginning with its prized collection of Buddhist art, including the famous Gandhara sculptures, t he Indian Museum is now putting all of its galleries for 360-degree panoramic viewing for anyone to see online.
As part of a tie-up with the Google Cultural Institute, which allows art lovers to explore artifacts from all over the world on its website, the Indian Museum is launching an e-version of its exquisite exhibition titled Indian Buddhist Art on Wednesday.
Among the important highlights in the exhibit include a sculpture of the head of Buddha from fifth century in Sarnath that is featured even in school books.
“This is the first virtual exhibition we are organising after which all our galleries will gradually be available on the Google Cultural Institute website,” museum director Jayanta Sengupta told PTI.
Three galleries are ready for 360-degree panoramic viewing on the internet.
“This allows anyone to have a walk through the gallery...You can scroll to see even the ceiling and the floor,” he said.
The biggest repository of Indian antiquity, some of the museum’s prized possessions include an Egyptian mummy, Buddhist stupa from Bharhut, Buddha’s ashes, Ashoka pillar, fossils of pre-historic animals and a collection of meteorites.
For some of such cultural and historical treasures, the museum is also planning to have gigapixel images which will allow magnification up to a thousand times.
“If it’s a painting then you can see all intricate details like even the brush strokes. Seeing a gigapixel image is like putting the object under microscope,” Sengupta said.
Another advantage of having a virtual tour of the museum is that the website will have more information about the artifact on display since there is no space restriction in the virtual world.
The museum director rejects suggestions that once all galleries are online the number of visitors at their campus will decrease. “Internationally this has been the case. After people see it online they are more motivated to see the real thing and so they walk into the museum,” he said.
