By Agnese Fanizza

From pushing, shoving and maneuvering around crowds, to roaming these same but extensively empty halls and galleries from the comfort of your favorite couch cushion, virtual museum visits seem to be both a blessing and a curse in the current social realities of Covid-19. While the online availability means having some of the world’s most amazing works at your fingertips, there is something to be said about sacrificing viewing the artwork in the flesh, as the move from physical to online engagement seems to signal a transition from one extreme to another. It marks the opening of a new world that merits exploration and this series will do just that - explore and review a variety of the world’s most famous museums and galleries to see how these online experiences are changing the public’s interaction with art. Throughout this series ST.ART will look to answer questions like: is the lens of this technology better and more precise than our own eyesight? Can this new medium replace or even overtake the tradition of museum and gallery visits? Will our relationship with art ever be the same again?

The Vatican Museums seem to be the perfect starting-point for this exploration. Being myself a Roman, the idea of an empty Sistine Chapel or St. Peter’s Square is almost unimaginable, as huge masses of tourists tend to be its most recognizable aspect – an empty Vatican City is almost unheard of. As such, the lack of tourists will now spark a new way of interacting with the sculptural and architectural space, something that will be interesting to observe online: to see if the complexities and grandeur of the art can be properly translated into a virtual domain.

Even though the museums have reopened for limited in-person tours, there is still the option to “explore” the spaces from home. Divided by individual museum, gallery, and archaeological site, both videos and 360 tours are available. The main advantage of this format is that you take control, by zooming in and out, and moving forwards, backwards, and even upwards, to lead yourself through the space.

The “Braccio Nuovo,” or New Wing tour, allows you to follow a sequenced path down its long, airy hallway full of Roman replicas of originally Greek and infamous sculptures such as Augustus of Prima Porta. With scheduled pauses along its corridor, the tour gives you a close-up look at both the sculptures and the hall’s incredible architecture. Natural light streams in from overhead skylights allowing you to take in and observe these classical works with enhanced focus, as well as illuminating the intense detail and simple elegance of the coffered ceiling. In doing so, I believe that the VR tour gives greater importance, and attention, to the marble and construction of the wing itself, rather than solely focusing on the sculptures.

VR also transforms the experience of viewing the Sistine Chapel, enabling it to become intimate by giving viewers a sensorial experience that in pre-social distancing times would never occur: an empty chapel, all to your self – no bustling bodies, roar of mixing tourist tongues, or camera shutters. You have all the time in the world to individually peruse the chapel’s biblical scenes from any perspective and place on the chapel’s plane, albeit through a screen.

All in all, I believe that while this virtual experience is definitely not a substitute for the real thing, it certainly is an underrated addition to the way that we can experience and interact with art in this increasingly modern and virtual time. This format allows tourists and students to travel across the boundaries of time, space, and costs and immerse themselves into these spaces so full of history and art – even while following social distancing guidelines, all we need to do is “look up.”

ST.ART does not own the rights to any images used in this article.