Prado Museum on Google Earth Google Earth is an amazing tool that just keeps getting better and it's still FREE. Over the years I have spent hours looking down on our fascinating little planet with Google Earth.

Now Google has made it even more compelling for artists to download as they're opening museums up and taking us inside. No longer content with looking down on art museums from above, they have zoomed in on paintings hanging on the walls. They have gone in armed with some amazing technology too, revealing every crack and brush stroke on each painting.

Here's a video of them capturing some of the 14 masterpieces from the The Prado Museum in Madrid, Spain.



To find the images I opened Google Earth and did a search for "The Prado Museum Spain" then clicked Fly To. The 14 current images that have been scanned at the Museo del Prado include..

• Artemis by Rembrandt
• Self Portrait by Albrecht Durer
• The 3rd of May 1808 in Madrid by Francisco Goya
• The Nobleman with his Hand on his Chest by El Greco
• The Cardinal by Raphael
• Descent from the Cross by Roger van der Weyden
• Emperor Carlos V on Horseback by Titian
• The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch
• Jacob’s Dream by José de Ribera
• Inmaculada Concepción by Giambattista Tiepolo
• The Annunciation by Fra Angelico
• Crucifixion by Juan de Flandes
• The Family of Felipe IV, or Las Meninas by Diego Velázquez
• The Three Graces by Peter Paul Rubens

So, if you haven't downloaded Google Earth yet you're missing out! I really hope this is just the start of things to come and more great art museums invite the Google guys around to photograph their paintings.

Google says "The paintings have been photographed in very high resolution and contain as many as 14,000 million pixels (14 gigapixels). With this high level resolution you are able to see fine details such as the tiny bee on a flower in The Three Graces (Las Tres Gracias), delicate tears on the faces of the figures in The Descent from the Cross (El Descendimiento ) and complex figures in The Garden of Earthly Delights (El Jardin de las Delicias)" on their Google Earth and Maps blog here.

  ¶ 11:55 PM