Want to walk around inside a great old master painting, rather than just stand back and look at it hanging on the wall? Microsoft has developed a program that lets you have the feeling of literally being inside a religious painting by an Old Master. “You feel yourself present in the painting and could even find yourself next to Christ,” says Antonio Criminisi. This program could also solve the current debate on whether Renaissance painters relied on mirrors to help them create perspective, a theory of the artist David Hockney. It would also make it more fun to visit paintings on the internet, rather than see them in real museums. “A virtual museum on the web means you work around the corridors. We think this is a little boring,” says Criminisi. “How much better to be able to walk inside the painting itself.”
Great art has always concealed many secrets.
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