Le Louvre: The Palace and its Paintings (Montparnasse/BMG Interactive) is simply one of the best museum-associated CD-ROMs currently available and should be required viewing for any museum contemplating publishing a CD-ROM. The work presented is a well-chosen selection of masterpieces, spanning the period from 1300 to 1900. Just as in the Louvre’s actual collection, the focus here is on the French, Italian and Flemish schools, with the German, Spanish, and English schools represented by a smaller selection of work. The disc also discusses another masterpiece in great detail: the palace itself.
There are copious options available for each piece. Listen to general commentary, zoom in on the painting and smoothly scroll across its entire surface, or choose a “detail analysis” which automatically scrolls across the work and discusses specific details. You can also view a photo of the gallery in which the work is shown (and zoom in on it, as well), and view the work against a chart that shows dimensional relationships between it, other works, and the size of a person. Additionally, there is an image of the artist (either a portrait, self-portrait or photo), that can be examined, and often there’s an animated “spatial analysis” of the work as well. Couple all this with extensive biographical information, a solid index, maps of the galleries, background music, and all the information on the Louvre itself, and you begin to see why this disc is so impressive.
Equally impressive is the image quality. This is one of the first CD-ROMs to use a specially constructed color palette for each image instead of using your computer’s basic palette, and the result is spectacular. The images are crisp and bright, with no visible evidence of dithering, even on a monitor displaying only 256 colors. If we really wanted to be picky, we could ask for a video introduction, but with a program this good that’s like asking for a nicer radio in your new Ferrari. Just sit back and enjoy the ride.
