"...How London Looks on Google vs. Paintings From the 1700s"
Too Cool.
From Wired:
Redditor Shystone took Google Street View photos and made composite images using classic paintings of London. Here is the River Thames in present day with Canaletto's painting of the same view in 1746.
Google’s Street View images bear some similarities to 18th-century landscape paintings. The content is different, of course. What Google’s army of photo collectors captured at Westminster Abbey on any given day in the 21st century will look different than what Italian painter Canaletto saw back in the 1700s. But they’re both a representation of an exact moment in time, which makes them a handy way to compare now and then if you can isolate the right locations.
Redditor Shystone has laid old paintings over Google Street View photographs to create a series of perspective-bending composite images of old and new London. Modern sculptures dominate a plaza that was once wide open; neon signs reside on the same block as gas-lit streetlights; and a bridge covers over a river that was once filled with sailboats....MORE
Canaletto’s painting of Westminster Abbey from 1749 is overlaid on an image from Google Street View. Image: Shystone
Readers who have been with us for a while have probably noted a fascination with Canaletto:
