To commemorate the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci in France, the Louvre has partnered with HTC VIVE arts to create its first Virtual Reality experience, which will bring to life the story of the Mona Lisa, da Vinci’s most famous masterpiece, on an HTC VIVE headset.
The VR experience, Mona Lisa: Beyond the Glass, will provide an opportunity for visitors to interact with the painting in virtual space. Viewers will have the rare chance to be immersed into the world’s most iconic painting, stepping behind the glass to access the intriguing portrait up close in an entirely new, transformative way.
With Mona Lisa: Beyond the Glass, visitors will be able to discover details hidden to the naked eye in one of the most popular works of art. Incorporating new scientific research which has revealed the techniques the artist used to create the masterpiece as well as further information on the identity of the sitter, participants will be presented with an intimate look at a painting which has been the subject of fascination and intrigue for generations.
Produced in close collaboration with the Louvre’s own curatorial team for this unprecedented retrospective of the artist, this creative virtual reality experience will allow audiences around the world to gain new insight into the Mona Lisa. The VR experience will also be available as a home version on HTC’s digital subscription service, VIVEPORT, alongside other online VR platforms, allowing audiences around the world to access Mona Lisa: Beyond the Glass.
Mona Lisa: Beyond the Glass will reflect Leonardo da Vinci’s own revolutionary practice as a true Renaissance polymath, working in science, engineering, architecture, and art. The virtual reality experience will pay tribute to an artist who constantly embraced innovation throughout the course of his wide-ranging influential career and will celebrate da Vinci’s enduring legacy as one of the greatest painters in history.
HTC has set up a special viewing room with 11 vive cosmos headsets, inside the museum during the museum’s seminal retrospective exhibition, Leonardo da Vinci. The exhibition is on view in the Hall Napoléon at the Louvre until February 24, 2020.