QUICK TAKES - Jan. 14, 2009

Spain’s Prado Museum has teamed with Google Earth for a project that allows people to zoom in on the gallery’s main works -- even on details not immediately discernible to the human eye.

The initiative, announced Tuesday, is the first of its kind involving an art museum. It involves 14 of the Prado’s choicest paintings, including Diego Velazquez’s “Las Meninas,” Francisco de Goya’s “Third of May” and Peter Paul Rubens’ “The Three Graces.”

Google Spain director Javier Rodriguez Zapatero said the images now available on the Internet were 1,400 times clearer than what would be rendered with a 10-megapixel camera.

The project involved 8,200 photographs taken between May and July, which were then combined with Google Earth’s zoom-in technology.

“With the digital image, we’re seeing the body of the paintings with almost scientific detail,” Prado director Miguel Zugaza said. “What we don’t see is the soul. The soul will always only be seen by contemplating the original.”

The images can be seen by going to Google, downloading the Google Earth software, then typing in Prado Museum in the search engine. Once the museum zooms into focus, click on the square with the name of the museum.