Google Arts & Culture

Google LLC

About this app

Are you curious about what Van Gogh’s Starry Night looks like up close? Have you ever toured the ancient Maya temples or met the inspirational figures of Black history? Do you want to learn about Japan’s unique food culture or incredible Indian railways?


Google Arts & Culture puts the treasures, stories and knowledge of over 2,000 cultural institutions from 80 countries at your fingertips. From the suffragettes who fought for women’s rights, to performing arts at the Paris Opera, to NASA’s archive of stunning images, discover stories about our cultural heritage. It’s your doorway to explore the art, history, people and wonders of our world.

Highlights:
• Art Transfer – Take a photo and transform it with classic artworks
• Art Selfie – Discover portraits that look like you
• Color Palette – Find art by using the colors of your photo
• Art Projector – See how artworks look in real size
• Pocket Gallery – Wander through immersive galleries and get up close to art
• Art Camera – Explore high-definition artworks
• 360° videos – Experience culture in 360 degrees
• Virtual reality tours – Step inside world-class museums
• Street View – Tour famous sites and landmarks
• Explore by time and color – Travel through time and see the rainbow through art
• Art Recogniser – Point your device camera at artworks to learn more about them, even when offline (at select museums only)

More features:
• Exhibits – Take guided tours curated by experts
• Favorites – Save and group your favorite artworks into galleries to share with friends or students
• Nearby – Find museums and exhibitions near you
• Notifications – Subscribe to receive weekly highlights or favorite content updates
• Translate – Use the translate button to read about exhibits from around the world in your language

Permissions notice:
• Location: used to recommend cultural sites and events based on your current location
• Camera: used to recognise artworks and provide related information about them
• Contacts (Get Accounts): used to allow sign in with a Google Account, in order to store users' favourites and preferences
• Storage: used to allow artworks to be recognised and related information to be accessed while offline

Ratings and reviews

Lots of good information and data, but can be cumbersome to navigate. My biggest problems are that 1. There is no way to edit or delete a gallery that we make under our profile. 2. No way to suggest museums and art pieces that are missing from the app's database. For example, my city's art museum is not searchable in the app. Also, no support.

Though my phone has plenty of space and I have no problems with other apps, this app often wouldn't open at all. Tried the art selfie and all it did was take a photo then stall for several minutes with dots on the photo, then it said take another photo (with the first one still on the screen so it was hard to line up correctly). Just a loop. Lighting and background changes didn't help. Uninstalled. Seems like a good app if you can get it to work.

Not sure what all the bad reviews are about. I see people leaving 1 star because they couldn't find the Art Selfie feature, which is literally on the main screen when you open the app. The level of detail you can see what in almost all paintings and other art pieces is just mind blowing, I've never had any slowness or freezing issues, Art Selfie works great, information about museums, paintings, artists, etc is really helpful and educational. Front page is constantly displaying new items, so even if you're getting the app only for the selfie feature you might accidentally learn something.

What’s new

• We've consolidated our navigation bar into three items - 'Inspire', 'Play' and 'Explore'.
• Design improvements to the 'Inspire' feed make it easier to like, share and find related content.
• Find our Camera features and other cultural playables in the 'Play' tab.
• Use the new 'Explore' tab to browse our partners' wide corpus of cultural content through topics such as Fashion, Food and Visual arts.