By Estelle Chatenoud
It’s now easier and more fun than ever to be a virtual art connoisseur.
The National Gallery of Canada has partnered with the Canadian Heritage Information Network, a federal government program putting Canadian museum collections online to create phase two of CyberMuse: Art Unlimited.
CyberMuse is meant to promote the National Gallery’s permanent collection and increased public knowledge.
The education and public program of the National Gallery was charged with creating this web site in 1999.
The first phase exhibited some of the gallery’s collection; about 5000 art works were featured online.
To face growing public interest, the program developed a second educational phase of the project that was launched last September.
This phase was recently presented during an open house for teachers familiarize them with web collections.
“It’s part of our mandate to help people to appreciate art,” said Valerie Gaumont, CyberMuse manager in the education and public program. “It was a challenge to address the site to different publics.”
The second phase of the site was constructed with feedback from educators and teachers to offer an easy and adaptable educational tool.
Different sections of CyberMuse have been created for kids, youth, teachers, art enthusiasts and the general public.
The teachers’ section suggests instructions to help prepare lessons and can be used as support for classes.
The section “My CyberMuse” is an individual space where the user can select, exhibit and share art works of the collection.
Three hundred accounts have been opened in this section since the launch.
CyberMuse also includes a gallery of children’s crafts which are on display at the National Gallery.
Other selections allow online users to analyse the structure of art and to access interviews with contemporary artists.
CyberMuse also lists information about all works in the gallery, though not all of them are displayed online.
There are currently 10,000 works online, representing only 20 per cent of the entire collection.
Six workstations connected to CyberMuse are accessible to the public in the National Gallery, and another is in the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography.
The gallery plans to move those workstations to the exhibit space, allowing visitors to do instant research on artists.
Gaumont explains she would like to see the program add more online images of the permanent collection. He also wants to offer more lesson plans for teachers, improve the tools for children to draw online and develop the option to create and exhibit the public’s art works online.