Satyr’s Penis Contest: Find Hidden Details in MFAH’s Google Art and Win!

by Bill Davenport April 5, 2012

183 pieces in the Museum of Fine Arts Houston’s  collection are now online in intimate detail as part of Google’s expanded Arts Project.  With the Google-powered ability to zoom in so tight you can see the sweat on the Virgin’s . . . well, you get the idea, it turns out there are lot of choice moments lurking in art you thought was familiar!

Send in your favorite up-close-and-personal detail from the MFAH’s online collection with a pithy caption, and the name of the piece the detail is taken from, to win two free tickets to the Bahamas and a Glasstire T-shirt (Bahamas cruise tickets may not be available in some areas), or something else.

There’s more to it than just big pictures- as usual, Google has, by doing something obvious, created a whole new way of experiencing the world, encouraging minute attention to pieces as if you were the artist or a conservator,  with the intimate privacy and leisure of a curator locked in an underground store-room after hours. I haven’t frittered away this much time online since Google Earth!

Here’s  one to start off on:

"Arsonist in Venice"

from Canaletto’s Entrance to the Grand Canal, Venice (c. 1730)

I've got my eye on you….

from Francisco De Goya, Still Life with Golden Bream, 1808-12

1 comment

1 comment

Kelly Klaasmeyer April 6, 2012 - 10:08

It’s a great idea but did anyone else find the google site hard to navigate?

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