Exceptional.

I make no bones about my dislike for Google’s ‘anything for a buck’ raison d’être but its Google Art Project, which has been around a couple of years now, is really special. You can wander through the halls of many of the world’s great art collections, manna for photographers and the visully inclined everywhere, and examine these at a level of detail and in simply stunning definition that no docent would ever permit, lest your nose make contact with the hallowed canvas in question.

Here’s a perfect example, Holbein’s extraordinary portrait of Thomas More in the Frick Collection in Manhattan:

Click the picture for the interactive site.

The extent to which you can zoom in, with the image refreshing for ever greater detail, is breathtaking.

MOMA NYC, The Met, The Uffizzi, The Frick, Versailles, The Hermitage – they are all there. Sadly, the Louvre is not.

And you want to feel Van Gogh’s passion in his vase of gladioli? Look no further than his eponymous museum in lovely Amsterdam.

For many viewers these picture are simply too remote to be seen in person. You might argue that the Google Art Project experience is superior. You need Flash to view, so iDevices will not work.