I am a big fan of seeing the real - art, objects and architecture - at museums and galleries. During the COVID-19 lockdown we initially missed our family visits but we have since been exploring the wide range of online museum tours. We are lucky of course that we have digital access and admittedly not all families do. Here are some of our favourite virtual tours (many via Google Arts & Culture):
This Guardian article is a good place to start highlighting 10 of the World’s best virtual museum tours including links to the Guggenheim, Bilbao and the Musée D’Orsay, Paris;
The Hermitage Museum - apparently you can take up to five hours to explore this site and as sadly I fear I may never get to visit this it’s great to explore both the building and its contents;
The Louvré - this tour works well as you can click on the captions for more information about each work, it did test my French though. You can also try it in VR mode;
The Courtauld Gallery - my boys chose some favourite paintings by Cézanne & Van Gogh and also enjoyed using the menu to ‘teleport’ between rooms, as they put it;
Kettle’s Yard - this has been the highlight so far for me. I cannot work out why I have never been in person to this beautiful light-filled house full of art. I will definitely be visiting post-lockdown.
I know many people have said they are suffering from digital overload and I agree in many areas but not with these virtual tours which have helped all of us to get our museum and gallery fix the last month or so!
Looking at Van Gogh’s Self-portrait with Bandaged Ear as part of the Courtauld Gallery’s virtual tour