Virtual art crawl in Europe- how to view amazing masterpieces from your home
- FancifulRoamer
- Jan 4
- 4 min read
Updated: Apr 24
In the age of mindless scrolling and time-wasting apps, the internet also brings culture and art closer. These museums have online platforms that allow us to take virtual museum tours and browse art pieces from the comfort of our homes, without traveling.
The Louvre, Paris
The Louvre offers virtual 3d tours, where you're 'walking' around the museum, like a virtual house tour. You press the arrows through the building to move around, or you press and hold the left mouse button. You admire the museum's architecture. You stop and look at artworks and get more information by pressing the red 'i' button. There's also a set of buttons and commands at the bottom of the screen.
Here you can access the catalog of the Louvre's virtual collections of fine art. You can look at paintings, sculptures, textiles, furniture, and more. There are filters so you can only search for art through a certain period of time.
Among the most famous pieces of art at the Louvre Museum are Venus de Milo, Liberty Leading the People, Mona Lisa, The Raft of the Medusa, and Winged Victory of Samothrace.
The Vatican Museums, Vatican City
The Vatican Museums allow you to explore all their museums and virtual tours, including one of the Sistine Chapel. The museums are organized by room and time period. You can enter a 360' virtual tour and manage it by dragging your mouse or with the arrows on the screen.
Through the Masterpieces tab, you can browse pieces like Pieta by Van Gogh, St. Jerome by Da Vinci, and Deposition from the Cross by Caravaggio. You can also find unique artworks like the Asà rotos òikos mosaic, the Sarcophagus of Djedmut, and the Aldobrandini Wedding fresco.
The Vatican Museums also have two archaeological sites to explore online, the Necropolis of the Via Triumphalis and the Excavations of St. John Lateran.
Thyssen National Museum, Madrid
The online version of the Thyssen National Museum keeps alive centuries of art. You can use your mouse or the buttons on the screen to start your visit at the sunny exterior of the museum. Then you roam around the museum. You have a map, so you can jump to any room and look around. A camera button near the art lets you take a closer look, and then an 'i' button offers more information on the piece.
There are other unique virtual tours to view, like one that specializes in Hyperreal or one on Women Masters.
Among the masterpieces at this museum are Swaying Dancer by Degas, Self-portrait by Rembrandt, and Young Knight in a Landscape by Vittore Carpaccio. One of my favorites here is Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Waking by Salvador Dali.
National Maritime Museum, Amsterdam
The National Maritime Museum in Amsterdam holds a vast collection of objects, from maps to vessels to paintings and navigation instruments. Luckily, we can check them out online as well.
This page puts together more educational materials. You can listen to audio guides and watch videos about the exhibitions. The main gallery is called Republic at Sea. It's about the Netherland's history and how access to the sea impacted it, from trade to war.
I liked looking at old maps, it's amazing to see how the world was and how it changed. The ship artifacts are also very cool, telling the story of sailors traveling for years on ships with no electricity, a freezer, or internet. And today, we can browse art and distant places without moving from our homes.
Palace of Versailles, Paris
The Palace of Versailles holds around 90,000 pieces of artwork, from across 5 centuries. You can check out the collections by area, like gardens, or travel through the Palace. You can read all about life at Versailles and about the furniture and decorations. By clicking on the art, you can obtain more information about it.
You can admire the amazing design of the Hall of Mirrors, the most famous room in the palace. This is where the Treaty of Versailles was signed, putting an end to the First World War.
For a full experience of audio tours and an interactive map of the Palace of Versailles, download their app and let a fancy penguin be your guide.
Famous pieces at Versailles include Marie Antoinette with a Rose, The Coronation of Napoleon, Apollo Served by the Nymphs, and the Comte d'Artois Clock.
For even more art education, access WikiArt. You can learn about styles and popular artists, organized by genres, nationality, and time frame. You can peruse works of art and even order prints.
Google built a section, especially for art and culture, that you can visit here. You can learn about art, play games, read about different cultures, and explore with Street View. It's fun and interactive.
I hope you find this art crawl fun, especially when you can get cultured from your couch, savoring a tea or coffee. The Vatican Museums are the only ones from this list that I haven't visited yet. So it was great to see what's there, maybe their library should be next for an online catalog.