Accessible Artwork at the NGA #1

Tim Fahlberg
Jun 10, 2021
3 min read

Updated: Mar 10

Kids video for Winslow Homer's "Breezing Up (A Fair Wind)"

National Gallery of Art

The free National Gallery of Art (NGA) in Washington, DC, USA, has hundreds of works of art with audio descriptions, many of which are available in six languages. More than 60 of their artworks also have video descriptions in ASL (American Sign Language). I encourage you to visit the NGA in person or virtually to experience these highly engaging audio and video descriptions that make artists and their work come alive!

A painting of a small sailboat on the ocean features four people on board, including a man wearing a straw hat and three children. The boat is navigating choppy waters under a cloudy sky, with another sailing vessel visible in the background. The painting has a realistic style with rich colors and dramatic lighting. In the upper right corner of the image, a NaviLens code is overlaid. You can scan this code using the NaviLens app using your smartphone if this blog page is displayed on a 2nd screen. — **NaviLens code added to Winslow Homer's painting "Breezing Up (A Fair Wind)"**

Adding NaviLens codes next to artwork can help access these resources.

For example, the NGA owns Winslow Homer’s ”Breezing Up (A Fair Wind).” It has audio descriptions in six languages (English, French, Japanese, Mandarin, Russian, and Spanish). It also has an ASL video and children’s video available. These can be accessed through the NGA’s website, but NaviLens and NaviLens GO make it much easier. NaviLens can also translate text descriptions of artwork into 37 languages*.

Try it!

1. Scan the code shown above using the NaviLens app.

You’ll hear a brief overview of the artist and the painting. After this, you’ll hear ”Experience the NGA YouTube video about "Breezing Up (A Fair Wind), 1873 to 1876, Winslow Homer" by tapping this hyperlink. Tapping the hyperlink will open and play a 2-minute video on YouTube.

2. Scan the code above using the NaviLens GO app.

Try this if you have normal or low vision, prefer ASL or CSL, or want to experience easy-to-read content or a video appropriate for kids.

Your iPhone or Android screen should look like this:

NaviLens GO screen after scanning the NaviLens code on Winslow Homer's painting above

At this point, you can:

Swipe through the images at the top to view more images and videos or tap Multimedia at the bottom to view images and videos.
Tap (Read More) for more text, followed by links to videos (including ASL and CSL) and resources.
Tap Accessible Content. Your iPhone or Android screen should now look like this:

At this point, you can:

Tap Sign Language Content to experience an ASL video.
Tap Easy Reading Content to experience simplified text.
Tap Educational / Kids to experience an NGA video for kids (the one featured at the top of this blog post).
Swipe through the images and videos at the top.
Tap the (Read More) button to experience more text and get links to videos and resources (including ASL and CSL videos).
Tap Multimedia to get to the images and videos.

By the way, in NaviLens GO Settings, you can also change the font size and the speaking speed to meet your needs if you can access text and/or audio.

Want to relive your experience with NaviLens or share it with someone else?

Use the History feature built into both NaviLens and NaviLens GO. In NaviLens GO – go to Settings. Tap on History and select any of the codes you’ve previously scanned to experience its information again. You

Giving credit to the NGA!

I used the NGA Related Content page for ”Breezing Up” to get all the text and links. Then, using the NaviLens dashboard, I added these to this public NaviLens code to make this painting as accessible to as wide an audience as possible.

NaviLens for Museums!

NaviLens now has a site dedicated to showing how NaviLens technology can enhance the accessibility of museums. See NaviLens for Museums.

* 37 Languages supported by NaviLens

Arabic, Basque, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Farsi, Finnish, French, Galician, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese.