Google

The COVID-19 outbreak around the world has led to the closure of many world-class museums, cinemas and scenic spots from the Louvre in Paris to Disneyland in Tokyo, causing millions of people to lose access to movies, art exhibitions and more. 

One of the lessons that millions of Chinese who have stayed at home for more than a month to prevent the spread of the disease was to learn how to keep boredom at bay by watching streaming movies or visiting virtual exhibitions online.

Numerous museums, art centers and galleries in China including the state-run National Art Museum of China have launched online exhibitions that have attracted billions of visits from netizens. Surfing these online exhibitions have become a major way to kill time while at home in China.

This turn to the internet reminds me of Google's ambitious art project, which is aimed at building a free online database to give netizens the opportunity to view artworks from all over the world in a gallery-style collection. The project, now named Arts&Culture, has worked with a number of world-class museums around the world like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Tate and Château de Versailles to showcase high quality versions of famous masterpieces.

However, in China, the project has been less and less talked about since the company quit the Chinese mainland in 2010. Despite having once announced it was working with China's Jinsha Site Museum and Hunan Provincial Museum in 2013 to bring their collections overseas, it is still impossible for hungry Chinese art lovers to access overseas content in the mainland.

In September 2019, Google did launch an app called Wonders of China developed by the Google Arts&Culture project for android systems. The app features art from 70 museums in China. 

However, it is still sad news for me and many of my art lover friends who use iPhones. 

In February, a streaming tour of The British Museum on China's short video site Kuaishou attracted 2 million users online.

Imagine if Google were to expand its Arts&Culture project to the huge amount of iPhone users in the mainland, the number of visits would rank in the billions. From Google's perspective, this would also be a good step to expand its influence in the mainland as long as the world's largest site is willing to follow relevant laws, regulations and policies.  

The most important thing is that these precious masterpieces from Vincent van Gogh, Edouard Manet and Rembrandt will be able to be appreciated by more people in China. 

Meanwhile, China's national treasures will also be able to be introduced to more overseas audiences.