ART and culture lovers can still get up close and personal from a safe distance with a new website launched by the Royal Pavilion and Museums (RPM).

While visitors are not allowed to visit Brighton’s museums or the Royal Pavilion at the moment, they can enjoy a host of images from the collections.

Using the new Close Look Collections, viewers will be able to zoom in to a daily image taken from the fine art, natural history and local history collections. 

Digital visitors will be encouraged to view the image and enjoy some of the small details in the work.

Sometimes there will be a story about the item, other times an analysis of elements viewers might overlook or a more playful approach.

Close Look Collections was developed in partnership with digital agency Mnemoscene. 

It uses cutting edge web technology to present the zoomable high-res images of objects in the collections, and short stories inviting people to investigate further.

In addition, RPM  has launched Pioneering Women of Sussex , a daily blog about notable women in local history.

The blogs were created to accompany the First Women Portraits exhibition in Brighton Museum and Art Gallery by photographer Anita Corbin. 

There is a huge amount of varied content on the website already, ranging from virtual tours, podcasts and audio tours.

Visitors can also see a huge range of blog content and images on the extensive online collections which show items not always on display in the museum.

These include highlights from the natural history collection mainly held at the Booth Museum, information about life at Preston Manor, craft and toy collections from Hove Museum and Art Gallery as well as fashion, Egypt, performance and decorative art, just part of the Brighton Museum and Art Gallery collection. 

To help visitors discover new gems in the collection, the museum digital team has decided to publish its monthly Insider newsletter every week during the coronavirus crisis.

It is also publishing more posts via social media channels every day to encourage engagement with the organisation.

 Highlights include:

Voices of the Royal Pavilion and Museums podcast: Discover stories from behind the scenes at the museums with a series of interviews with RPM staff and volunteers.

Virtual Tour of the Royal Pavilion: No need to queue or pay, this is your chance for a virtual tour of the gorgeous Royal Pavilion to be enjoyed from  your sofa. 

Or if  you are going on your daily walk, why not listen to the audio tour of the Royal Pavilion  free of charge.

Local history fans will find a wealth of information about life in Brighton and Hove and Sussex through images, blogs and even archived Facebook Live films including an in-depth exploration of how people washed in Edwardian times.

Councillor Alan Robins, lead member for tourism, equalities, communities and culture at Brighton and Hove City Council, said: “We are so lucky to have such a huge range of interesting and entertaining ways to engage with our cultural history despite the current lockdown. 

“Art and history can be a wonderful way to put perspective on a situation and to add calm and beauty.” 

All venues in the

Royal Pavilion and Museums will reopen as soon as possible.