Virtual

We haven't talked about art for quite awhile, but yesterday at lunch Dr. Bob M. suggested there is a great virtual tour of the Sistine Chapel. It's been "open" for about a year, and it is indeed impressive. It's also frustrating. The tour works by plopping you down in the middle of the chapel and giving you the ability to look at anything from the marble floor to the famous Michelangelo painting of God giving Adam the Finger on the ceiling right above your head. You also have the ability to zoom and this lets you cheat a little on the panorama effect, but with your feet nailed to the floor you just can't get close to the corners to get a good view of some of the less famous paintings. I know I'm probably the only person faced by the magnificent art of Michelangelo who is complaining about not being able to read the Latin inscriptions in the corners, but if you're going to have magic why not let us fly around? The World Gallery of Art has a tour of the chapel with much less impressive photos, but detailed discussion of the artists whose work is there. Did you know that Luca Signorelli did some of the wall painting in the chapel? I never heard of the guy either, but there is a detailed biography at the WGA site. Luca, by the way, was the fellow who finished the wall frescoes when Botticelli and three other more famous painters went on strike due to slow payments by the pope. Us union members would call him a scab!

Taking a quick look around the 'Net it seems that the Sistine Chapel and the two virtual sites we've talked about before-the prehistoric caves and the Google Art Project-have really got this virtual stuff down pat. Has anyone found any other great sites for the arm chair traveller? Too many of the VR sites have really clunky navigation that spoils the effect as well as other problems.