More and more museums are putting their collections online, but wading through those collections isn’t always fun. Tiny or missing images, dead-end searches, and other flaws often (but not always) make for a less-than-rewarding experience.

Enter the Google Cultural Institute. We recently found out about this nifty resource, and have been having a lot of fun with it (as you can see from the gif above). Instead of paging through a database, the experience is more like being in a museum: you explore instead of searching. You can even walk around some museums virtually, similar to Google Street View.

In another way, it’s even better than being in a museum. You can zoom way, way in on most of the images. You can jump from museum to museum without being limited to one collection. And you can build and curate your own collections.

But instead of reading more about it, maybe you’d rather start exploring. Here are a few great places to start:

• a massive image of Marc Chagall’s Paris Opera ceiling (try getting that close with your opera glasses!)
• all 952 of the online exhibits
• all 17,419 artworks created since 2010
• the collection of ultra-high resolution images for artists including Georges Seurat, Clyfford Still, Rembrandt, and unknown ancient artists

Let us know if you find anything else noteworthy, and happy museum-going!