The 1953 painting "Goyita" by Rafael features his mother with a red scarf on her head, a determined look on her face, and heavy expression lines, a portrait(画像）of a working-class woman that broke from traditional ones of the time that focused largely on wealthy men.
"Goyita" is one of more than 350 paintings from Puerto Rico that Google Arts&Culture digitized(数字化）for the first time with help from"Hamilton"creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, who started the online exhibition that features works from four Puerto Rican art institutions.
The aim is to expose the world to Puerto Rican art, preserve it, and help museums in the U.S. that are struggling to exhibit paintings because of limited space and budget cuts.
Puerto Rico's artwork joins Google's current online exhibitions and stories from around the world. As part of the project, Google brought its so-called "art camera" for the first time to Puerto Rico. The camera has an extremely high resolution(分辨率）thanks to a 400 millimeter zoom(镜头）that uncovers details invisible to the human eye, including brush strokes(笔法). It also allowed those at the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture to find the signature of a pioneering female artist.
The camera took thousands of pictures to digitize 48 pieces of Puerto Rican art as it went inches by inches to cover an entire painting, a job that took 30 minutes to several hours depending on the size of the artwork, said Simon Delacroix, U.S. lead for Google Arts&Culture.
As Mr.Delacroix showed the power of the zoom on a painting called"El Gobernador Don Miguel Antonio de Ustariz", a collective "Wow" escaped from the audience attending the project at the Museum of Puerto Rico. The crowd could appreciate details in the background including someone that appears to be laughing from a balcony.
Google Arts&Culture already allows users to explore more than 2,000 museums and historic sites including Nelson Mandela 's prison cell. In total, it offers more than 6 million photos, videos, and other documents.
