VIENNA.- Gustav Klimt's world-famous painting The Lovers, which later became known under the title The Kiss, can from now on be admired not only at the museum Vienna's Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, but also on the Internet, in the form of a gigapixel photograph. On the Art Project page of the Google Cultural Institute, each and every tiny detail can be examined in an extremely high resolution as if through a magnifying glass. The online gallery also holds further paintings from the Belvedere's collection to be viewed on a virtual tour. The Kiss, a masterpiece of Art Nouveau, is considered the most important work by this globally renowned painter and stands out for its dominant material, which is gold. The gigapixel photograph, which consists of billions of physical points, has been made possible through the collaboration between the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere and the Google Cultural Institute within the framework of Google Art Project.

Whereas the encounter with the original remains unique, art lovers can now also view the picture from close up out of museum hours and explore each and every detail of the masterpiece on the internet. 'The Belvedere owns altogether 24 works by Gustav Klimt and thus holds the largest collection of oil paintings by this outstanding Austrian artist. Although Klimt was heavily criticised by his contemporaries, it remains an indisputable fact that he revolutionised painting as hardly any other artist and was an important pioneer of modernism. His painting The Kiss, which marks the climax of Klimt's Golden Period, eventually became one of the most well-known and most frequently reproduced works of art in the world besides Leonardo da Vinci s Mona Lisa says Agnes Husslein-Arco, the Director of the Belvedere and 21er Haus.

The Kiss A Masterpiece of Art Nouveau
Oblivious to the world around them, the couple in Gustav Klimt's The Kiss appears to be lost in an intimate embrace. Klimt s most famous work is an icon of both Viennese Jugendstil and European modernism. In the early twentieth century, the artist created mysterious and ornamentally encrypted works revolving around the secrets of existence, love, and the fulfilment through art. The Kiss was presented to the Viennese public for the first time within the framework of the Kunstschau of 1908.

Klimt A Master of Modernism
Gustav Klimt was already a highly recognised artist in his lifetime, although he had resigned from public life in 1905 because of the scanda and from then on worked exclusively for the liberally minded upper middle classes. By the time of his death in 1918, the Modern Gallery (the d acquired several of his works, including the world-famous Art Nouveau icon The Kiss. The painting was purchased at the Kunstschau in 1908, the year in which it had been painted, on behalf of the Ministry of Culture and is considered the most outstanding work in the Belvedere's collection to this very day. Gustav Klimt's masterpieces are on permanent display at the Upper Belvedere, where the museum's collection is presented. Thanks to the Belvedere's substantial holdings of Klimt's works it is possible to trace the artist's development from his first attempts at Historicism to his Secessionist period and late work.

Google Art Project: Viewing Art with Zoom Function
Google Art Project is part of the Google Cultural Institute and takes users on a virtual tour of important international art museums. Besides Klimt's The Kiss, the platform has meanwhile assembled more than one thousand works by renowned artists from around the globe that can be viewed down to the last detail thanks to an extremely high resolution and a zoom function. Information about the works and the artists pops up in a box at the margin of the page. The platform uses the same technology as Google Street View for rendering its images and employs GigaPan robotic hardware, which was jointly developed with Google. Users can compile their own galleries of favourite artworks online, for which they need Adobe Flash Player software. The difference to a virtual museum is that the collections and buildings shown really exist.