Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden
The Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden displays some of the most unique artworks in modern and contemporary art, including painting, sculpture and photography. Explore the Sculpture Garden through the museum’s virtual view 1 and virtual view 2. The museum is also offering an array of at-home activities for kids and virtual programs for art lovers.
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The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery captures America through the imagery of remarkable people who have shaped history. The museum is offering a range of digital programs while its physical doors are closed, including workshops, in-depth chats with artists, storytelling for kids and more.
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A small group of technologists working within the Smithsonian Institution Digitization Program Office have brought the Smithsonian museum collections to life with 3D digitization.
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The National Museum of African American History and Culture learning lab offers students and teachers digital resources including imagery, essential documents and engaging videos. These materials bring stories to life and inspire readers to become agents of change. You can also browse upcoming virtual events hosted by the museum.
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The Hall Of Human Origins
The museums Hall of Human Origins shows how humans have evolved over the past 6 million years, in three major areas: the separation into a distinct branch of the apes the adaptation to a changing Earths climate and the changes needed to survive as humans spread to all corners of the globe.
Unofficial Tip: Learn more about the origins of the human species at HumanOrigins.si.edu
The museum begins the story by noting that humans are primates and part of the great apes family that includes orangutans, gorillas, bonobos, and chimpanzees. We share a common ancestor with chimpanzees, one that lived between 6 and 8 million years ago. Two of the major things that set human ancestors apart from other ancient apes are the ability to walk upright on a regular basis and small canine teeth in both males and females. Walking upright makes it easier to get around a wide variety of landscapes, and smaller teeth may have been the result of eating more meat and fewer plants, since plants required bigger teeth to tear and chew.
If youve got kids, theyll enjoy the pair of photos to your right, showing the similarities between a small child hanging from a playground toy and a chimpanzee hanging from a tree: flexible wrists, elbows, and shoulders a broad chest and shoulders and a stable backbone. As parents whove encouraged their children to make monkey noises as they play on jungle gyms, were not surprised at this observation.
Ocean Hall
National Museum Of African American History And Culture
The National Museum of African American History and Culture is a Smithsonian Institution Museum on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. It has over 35,000 objects in its collection related to African American History and Culture and is open to the public free of charge.
The museum was established in 2003, and it opened in 2016, in a ceremony led by U.S. President Barack Obama.
Its collection relates to African American subjects of community, family, the visual and performing arts, religion, civil rights, slavery, and segregation.
The museum has separate 12 exhibition areas with multiple interactive activities and videos across five floors.
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The John F Kennedy Center For The Performing Arts
The Kennedy Center is a vibrant campus of theaters and other artistic spaces that is also a living memorial to President John F. Kennedy. It is home to the National Symphony Orchestra, Washington National Opera, the Washington Ballet and thousands of annual performances of theater, dance, ballet, and orchestral, chamber, jazz, popular, and folk music.
- Find out about their current and past exhibitions
Digital Offering At The Smithsonian National Museum Of Natural History Of Washington
Text by Caterina Sbrana.
From now on it begins the virtual tour of the Natural History Museum Image from: https://naturalhistory.si.edu
This photo shows us the beginning of the tour and the rooms we can visit Image from: https://naturalhistory2.si.edu/vt3/NMNH/z_tour-022.html
The page to enter in one of the narrated virtual tours Image from: https://naturalhistory.si.edu/visit/virtual-tour/narrated-virtual-tours
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The Houses Of Parliament Sunset By Claude Monet
The Houses of Parliament by Claude Monet is one in a series of paintings of the Palace of Westminster, home of the British Parliament, created during the early 1900s while Monet stayed in London.
All of the series of paintings with similar titles share the same viewpoint from Monets terrace at St Thomas Hospital overlooking the Thames.
The set of pictures depict different times of the day, and various weather and light conditions, interestingly all on canvases are of approximately similar size.
Breezing Up By Winslow Homer
Breezing Up by Winslow Homer is an iconic painting of a father and three boys out for a spirited sail.
Homer had a sensibility that allowed him to distill art from potentially sentimental subjects and to yield straightforward views of American life of the period.
Homer painted warm and appealing images that appealed to the postwar nostalgia for a simpler, more innocent America.
Following a trip to Europe in 18661867, Homer adopted a warmer palette and a technique, which owed much to the influence of French artists such as Courbet, Manet, and Monet.
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Ginevra De Benci By Leonardo Da Vinci
Ginevra de Benci by Leonardo da Vinci depicts a well-known young Florentine aristocrat. Leonardo painted the portrait in Florence in 1474 to commemorate Ginevras marriage at the age of 16.
The juniper bush that fills much of the background was regarded as a symbol of female virtue, in Renaissance Italy, while the Italian word for juniper, echos Ginevras name.
Ginevra is shown beautiful but reserved with no hint of a smile. Her gaze, although forward, seems indifferent to the viewer.
True To Nature Virtual Tour
An integral part of art education in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, open-air painting was a core practice for emerging artists in Europe. Intrepid artists such as André Giroux highly skilled at quickly capturing effects of light and atmospheremade sometimes arduous journeys to paint their landscapes in person at breathtaking sites, ranging from the Baltic coast and Swiss Alps to the ruins of Rome. Drawing on new scholarship, this exhibition of some 100 oil sketches made outdoors across Europe during that time includes several recently discovered works and explores the variety of inventive ways in which enraptured artists recorded their moments in nature.
The dynamic new virtual tour allows you to explore each room of the exhibition True to Nature: Open-Air Painting in Europe, 17801870. Zoom in on the works, click on the different-colored dots to read wall texts, view higher-resolution photos, and see artist biographies. While available on mobile, this tour is best viewed on a desktop or tablet.
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Lets Take A Virtual Field Trip To Washington Dc
There is so much to see and do in Washington, so Ive separated the virtual tours and field trips into categories to help you navigate this list. That way you can go directly to the type of place you want to visit.
Below, youll find links to museums, government buildings, memorials, and more. Your teen will be amazed at how much is packed into this small city on the East Coast.
Use the Table of Contents above to help you move throughout the list.
While this is not a full and complete list of everything you can see virtually in Washington, its a great place to start your journey.
The Library Of Congress
The Library of Congress is essentially our national library. One of its major functions is to serve as a resource for the United States Congress. Our representatives use it as a research library. With well over 170 million items, its the largest library in the world and contains some pretty cool treasures.
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National Law Enforcement Museum
The National Law Enforcement Museum covers the history and structure of American law enforcement with exhibits, historical and contemporary artifacts.
The Museum is an underground facility located adjacent to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington, DCs Judiciary Square.
The Museums exhibitions include permanent galleries and one changing exhibition gallery.
The Museum tells the story of law enforcement in the United States. Tales of the fallen are featured in the Museums Hall of Remembrance.
Whats Inside The National Museum Of Natural History
The museum contains some of the most famous artifacts in the world. The has the supposedly cursed Hope Diamond on display. Meanwhile, Q?rius, the museums education center, offers teens and tweens a lab where they can make their own scientific discoveries.
After a five-year renovation, the museum has reopened its David H. Koch Hall of Fossils. The 31,000-square-foot exhibits theme is Deep Time, borrowed from a scientific phrase that illustrates how Earths history has played out over billions of years. Prepare to be amazed, overwhelmed, engaged and dazzled by one of the biggest exhibitions to come to DC in years.
Other permanent exhibits include an insect zoo and The Sant Ocean Hall, which features an exact replica of a living North Atlantic right whale.
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Waterloo Bridge By Claude Monet
Waterloo Bridge by Claude Monet is one in a series of paintings of the famous bridge in London. All of the pictures in the Waterloo Bridge series share the same viewpoint overlooking the Thames.
The paintings depict different times of the day and very different weather and light conditions. From 1899 through 1901, Monet set up his paints in the Savoy hotel and on the rivers north bank and painted the bridge over 40 times.
He depicted the Waterloo Bridge more than either the Houses of Parliament or the Charing Cross Bridge, from his two other London series.
A Dutch Courtyard By Pieter De Hooch
A Dutch Courtyard by Pieter de Hooch depicts two men seated at a table in the courtyard and a standing woman. The soldier who is wearing a breastplate is setting down the pitcher he has used to fill the glass, now held by the woman.
The pass-glass the woman is drinking from was used in drinking games. Each participant had to drink down to the next line on the glass.
If the drinker failed to reach the line level, the reveler would be required to drink down to the next ring. Only when the drinker had drunk successfully to the required line would the glass be passed on to the next participant.
The little girl carries a brazier of hot coals so that the two soldiers can light their long-stemmed, white clay pipes.
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Captain Robert Scotts Emperor Penguin Egg
This Emperor penguin egg was collected on Captain Robert Falcon Scotts last expedition to the Antarctic, 1911. This egg is one of three fresh eggs collected by Scotts ill-fated expedition to Antarctica.
It was hoped that the embryo inside could be used to test the theory that studying emperor penguin embryos would show an evolutionary link between birds and reptiles.
New York By George Bellows
New York by George Bellows is a large painting that captures the essence of modern life in New York City in 1911.
The view looks uptown toward Madison Square from the intersection of Broadway and 23rd Street, but Bellows drew on several commercial districts to create an imaginary composite.
His focus was to show the crowds and traffic to convey a sense of the citys hectic pace. Bellows assembled all of these diverse elements of New York into one scene.
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Marcelle Lender Dancing The Bolero In Chilpric By Henri De Toulouse
Toulouse-Lautrec first encountered her when he began to attend the theater regularly, in 1893. His infatuation with her peak when she starred in the revival of Hervés Chilpéric.
Toulouse-Lautrec visited this operetta over twenty times, arriving just in time to see Lender dance the bolero in the second act. This painting shows Lender performing a bolero from the operetta.
The National Zoological Park
The National Zoo is one of the most famous zoos in the country. It is home to over 2,000 animals, one of the most popular being the panda. On their website, they have a bunch of wildlife and conservation activities you can do at home. Plus, some of the animals have their own webcams, so you can see them whenever youd like.
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National Railroad Museum Virtual Tour
The National Railroad Museum was founded in 1956 and is one of the oldest and largest institutions in the United States dedicated to preserving and interpreting the nations railroad history.
The museum has an extensive collection of rolling stock that spans more than a century of railroading and several historic locomotives.
The museum also exhibits a variety of railroad artifacts, an archive, and a photography gallery. There is a standard gauge track around the perimeter of the grounds.
National Railroad Museum collections include:
- The Rolling Stock Collection includes Steam, Diesel, and Electric Locomotives, Passenger cars, Freight cars, Cabooses, and other equipment.
- The Archives Collection corporate records and documents, annual reports, maps, mechanical and engineering drawings, and oral histories
- The Library Collection related to the social, economic, political, and cultural aspects of U.S. railroading history
- The Artifact Collection over 5,000 artifacts, including textiles, uniforms, tools, and personal items
- The Photograph Collection over 15,000 photographic prints, slides, and film negatives representing railroading in the U.S..S. from 1890 through the present day
The National Railroad Museum, with the reporting mark NRMX, is located in Ashwaubenon, Wisconsin, in suburban Green Bay.
Union Pacific Big Boy X4017 and Pennsylvania Railroad GG1 No. 4890- National Railroad Museum, Green Bay
Explore More From The Exhibition
Louis Dupré, French, 1789 1837, View of Santa Trinità dei Monti in Rome, c. 1817, oil on paper, mounted on canvas, Fondation Custodia, Collection Frits Lugt, Paris, Gift of Jacques and Brigitte Gairard
Michel Dumas, French, 1812 1895, Fountain in the Roman Campagna, c. 1838 1840, oil on canvas, mounted on wood panel, Private Collection, London
August Kopisch, German, 1799 1853, View of Capri, oil on wood panel, Fondation Custodia, Collection Frits Lugt, Paris
Jean-Charles Rémond, French, 1795 1875, Eruption of Stromboli, 30 August 1842, 1842, oil on paper, mounted on canvas, Private Collection, London
Louis Léopold Robert, French, 1794 1835, View of Naples with Vesuvius, 1821, oil on paper, mounted on canvas, Fondation Custodia, Collection Frits Lugt, Paris, Bequest of Carlos van Hasselt and Andrzej Niewgowski
Baron François Gérard, French, 1770 1837, A Study of Waves Breaking against Rocks at Sunset, oil on millboard, Private Collection, London
Carl Frederik Sørensen, Danish, 1818 1879, Rough Sea beside a Jetty, 1849, oil on canvas, The Syndics of the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge
Johan Carl Neumann, Danish, 1833 1891, Landscape with Dunes, oil on paper, mounted on canvas, Fondation Custodia, Collection Frits Lugt, Paris
Richard Parkes Bonington, British, 1802 1828, Dezenzano, Lake Garda, 1826, oil on millboard, The Syndics of the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge
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Farmhouse In Provence By Vincent Van Gogh
Farmhouse in Provence by Vincent van Gogh depicts the entrance gate to a farm with haystacks beyond the gate and with the farmhouse in the background.
When Van Gogh arrived in Arles in February 1888, the landscape was covered with snow, but it was the sun that he enjoyed in Provence. And this painting captures the brilliant light that he sought.
Van Gogh simplified the forms and reduced the scene to the flat patterns he admired in Japanese woodblock prints. Arles, he said, was: the Japan of the South.
Van Gogh used pairs of complementary or contrasting, colors which together intensified the brilliance and intensity of one anothers colors.
A Young Girl Reading By Jean
A Young Girl Reading by Jean-Honoré Fragonard depicts a girl in profile wearing a lemon yellow dress with a white ruff collar and cuffs and purple ribbons.
The girl is reading from a small book held, and a cushion resting against a wall supports her back. Her face and dress are lit from the front.
Fragonard used fine brushwork on the face and looser brushwork on the dress and cushion and the ruff, which was scratched into the paint with the end of a brush.
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A Lady Writing A Letter By Johannes Vermeer
A Lady Writing a Letter by Johannes Vermeer depicts a lady writing a letter while sitting at a table in a room. She appears to have been interrupted, as she looks up towards the viewer, while she continues to hold the quill in her right hand.
The lady is dressed in an elegant lemon-yellow morning jacket and wears pearl earrings. A necklace lies on the table.
Vermeers compositional focus is on the woman and her face. The smaller objects on the table stand in contrast with the large forms used in the rest of the composition, which create a geometric framework for the figure.
The table is brought close to the picture plane to emphasizes the directness of her gaze. Johannes Vermeer preserves the integrity of the picture plane to create a vivid illusion of three-dimensional space.
On the back of the wall is a dark painting that covers much of the background and contrast with the ladys brighter colors.
Interior Of The Pantheon Rome By Giovanni Paolo Panini
Interior of the Pantheon, Rome by Giovanni Paolo Panini depicts the interior of the famous and best-preserved of all Ancient Roman buildings, the Pantheon.
The Pantheon has been a prominent tourist attraction in Rome for hundreds of years. Built by Hadrian in 113125 AD, this grand domed temple has survived structurally intact because it was consecrated as a Christian church, St. Mary and the Martyrs, in 609 AD.
Panini populated the scene with foreign visitors. He featured a diverse mix of Romans and visitors from all parts of society. They congregate in the Pantheon to pray and to admire the fantastic architecture.
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