TRUE BEAUTY IS AT YOUR FINGERTIPS
While stuck at home, why not take a trip through the top virtual museums in Thailand and around the world
Until at least April 25, national museums have closed their doors to prevent the spread of Covid-19. In this age of rapidly changing technology, we no longer have to leave home and can still pay a visit to top museums in Thailand and around the world through virtual museum tour programmes.
Since time is on our side during the lockdown period, you can spend hours exploring collections of national heritages without paying an entrance fee. Although we can’t virtually circle around each object to have a 180degree view, the virtual museum tour offers ideas of where to visit when our lives return to normal.
In Thailand, all national museums are owned and operated by the Fine Arts Department (FAD) of the Culture Ministry. The department launched the virtual museum project in November 2017 through the website virtualmuseum.finearts.go.th. The site supports both Thai and English.
The site has links to all national museums, art galleries and the National Archives (in Thai language only) of the FAD. To make it easier to choose what museums to explore, the site lists names of the national museums by region.
According to the FAD’s statistics, the virtual museum tours received more than 72,000 visits from October to January. The most visited virtual museum is the National Museum Bangkok (virtualmuseum.finearts.go.th/bangkoknationalmuseums). The museum is also the most visited in the country.
When clicking on the link to the museum, you will see various tabs including “Virtual Museum”, a list of ancient artefacts in “Model Present”, and “Virtual Model 360” that displays objects at a 360-degree view. This function also allows you to zoom in to see the objects up close. Unfortunately, the zoom function and the 360-degree view do not directly tie with the virtual museum tour programme.
From there you can visit the Louvre, the world’s most visited museum that attracts about 10 million people a year. The museum has a virtual tour programme at louvre. fr/en/visites-en-ligne. Although not all collections can be displayed online, we can explore some permanent exhibitions including “The Advent Of The Artist”, “Egyptian Antiquities”, “Remains Of The Louvre’s Moat” and “Galerie d’Apollon”.
If you are looking for the world-renowned Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci, you should download the museum’s virtual reality app, “Mona Lisa Beyond The Glass”. The app allows you to see and know more about Lisa Gherardini, whose portrait was painted more than 500 years ago.
The app is available at Apple’s App Store and the Google Play Store. With your mobile phone, you can move your direction left, right, up or down to see an overview of the Louvre before the programme will lead you directly to the Mona Lisa. During the introduction, you can see other paintings in the room. If you have a virtual reality headset, it will give you a much different feeling than watching the presentation on a screen.
In addition, other well-known museums recommended include Museum Siam, the National Gallery in Bangkok, Chao Sam Phraya National Museum in Ayutthaya, the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC and Vatican Museums.