''Microsoft Art Gallery'' is a 1993 educational and interactive guide for the London National Gallery published by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

Production

The software was originally developed by Cognitive Applications in the UK in 1991 as a multimedia learning tool for use in Britain's

National Gallery The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of more than 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current di ...

. Originally called "Micro Gallery", Microsoft released a digitised version entitled ''Microsoft Art Gallery''. The software went on sale in Britain in October 1993, and was released in Australia later that year.

Content

The title allows players to explore various works of art in an interactive and multimedia way. It features the work of the national Gallery of London. The title contains schema links, allowing the player to explore related content in a seamless way.

Critical reception

PC Mag thought the software was "stylishly designed and carefully presented", further praising its elegant and easily navigable interface. When comparing art titles, The New York Times felt the title would appeal to those with "more catholic taste", and praised its "authoritative professionalism" as standing out from other titles in the genre. The paper ''Hypermedia Design, Analysis, and Evaluation Issues'' deemed the title an "outstanding" and "enjoyable" application. Art historian James Moore who reviewed the CD-ROM late in 2001 felt the software was primitive from a 2001 perspective. PC World thought that lovers of art would be able to easily sink hours into the title.

References

{{Reflist Visual arts media

Art Gallery An art gallery is a room or a building in which visual art is displayed. In Western cultures from the mid-15th century, a gallery was any long, narrow covered passage along a wall, first used in the sense of a place for art in the 1590s. The long ...

National Gallery, London