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The CollectorAs the art world goes online, look to social media and virtual exhibitions for your cultural fixes

Deep dive into the world’s digital museum collections, from Hubei’s ancient bronze bells to Rijksmuseum’s Instagram feed

Get involved by dressing like an Old Master, or getting your Renaissance portrait painted, courtesy of AI Gahaku

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Chime bells as seen on screen, on digital display at the Hubei Provincial Museum, in China. Photo: Hubei Provincial Museum

Published: 8:00pm, 14 Apr 2020Updated: 8:05pm, 14 Apr 2020

The Collector has just visited 2,450-year-old bronzes from the mausoleum of Marquis Yi of Zeng, pausing before a magnificent crane with antlers before moving on to view the most famous discovery of the 1978 excavation in Hubei province: a full set of 65 chime bells intended to give the marquis a euphonic afterlife.

No, I haven’t been dispatched to Wuhan, home to the Hubei Provincial Museum and its exquisite collection of ancient bronze artefacts. Instead, like the millions of people stuck at home during the coronavirus lockdown, I finally have the time and opportunity to dive deep into the museum pages on Google Arts & Culture (GAC), where the Hubei museum has a clear and concise section on the bells (with audio recordings).

Dozens of Asian art institutions have partnered with GAC. A few offer the full “street view” experience that allows you to virtually “walk around” permanent galleries. Sure, it is a nice way of getting a feel for the building and the way exhibits are displayed. But there is a lot of clicking, the wall labels are never readable and it is easy to go astray. Somehow, I always end up outside the lavatories.

The words-and-pictures “stories” about individual pieces are more satisfying. It is a perfect way of looking at Chinese horizontal ink scrolls, which are intended to be seen close up, section by section. One of my favourite “objects” on GAC is Huang Gongwang’s 14th-century landscape, Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains, at the National Palace Museum, in Taipei. The digital version magnificently shows the way the brush strokes vary between each peak.

The J Paul Getty Museum, in Los Angeles, which is offering virtual tours. Photo: J. Paul Getty Museum

Online permanent collections are a vital part of museums’ digital presence. Hong Kong’s two main art museums – the Museum of Art and M+ – have both expanded the searchable visual databases on their own websites and M+ has joined the #5WomenArtists online initiative to raise the visibility of female artists in its collection.