Most "virtual exhibitions" online turn out to be a slideshow with a nicer name: a grid of thumbnails, a lightbox, a "next" arrow. A real exhibition is different. You step into a room, the light falls on the wall, you stand back, you move closer, and you decide for yourself where to look next.
Xibit360 curates a set of free exhibition rooms built around public-domain masterworks. Each one is a room you walk through in your browser, with no app to install and no account needed. This guide collects all 15 in one place, explains how to get the most out of them, and shows how to build a room like these for your own work.
What "walkable" actually means
In a walkable room you move through a 3D space the way you would in a gallery. You look around, approach a frame, and read the museum-style label beside it. The same room works on a laptop and on a phone, and you can share it with a single link.
Here are three of the rooms. Press the button to step in.
Japanese prints: Hokusai, Hiroshige, Utamaro
Ukiyo-e is a good place to begin, because the prints are small, graphic and packed with detail, and they reward a slow walk.
- Hokusai (enter the room): the Great Wave and the master's famous landscapes and nature studies.
- Hiroshige (enter the room): rain, snow and travellers on the roads of Edo-period Japan.
- Utamaro (enter the room): portraits of beauties, drawn with some of the finest line work in the tradition.
Impressionism and its circle: Monet, Manet, Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec
These four painters turned everyday Paris and the French countryside into modern subject matter. Walking the rooms side by side shows how differently they handled light, movement and the crowd.
- Monet (enter the room): water lilies, gardens and shifting light.
- Manet (enter the room): modern life, painted with a bold, flat, direct touch.
- Degas (enter the room): dancers, rehearsals and unusual, cropped angles.
- Toulouse-Lautrec (enter the room): cabarets, posters and the nightlife of Montmartre.
Old masters and Romantic painters: Rembrandt, Goya
- Rembrandt (enter the room): portraits where the drama lives in the shadows.
- Goya (enter the room): portraits, scenes of everyday life and the darker imaginings of a restless mind.
Post-Impressionism: Gauguin
- Gauguin (enter the room): flat, saturated colour and the Tahitian paintings that changed how colour could be used.
Art Nouveau, Arts and Crafts and the printed page: Mucha, Beardsley, Morris
Posters, book illustration and pattern design. If you are an illustrator or a designer, these three rooms are especially useful to study.
- Mucha (enter the room): flowing line, floral ornament and the poster as a work of art.
- Beardsley (enter the room): stark black-and-white ink drawing with a sharp, theatrical edge.
- Morris (enter the room): the patterns and textiles that shaped the Arts and Crafts movement.
Early photography: Nadar, Stieglitz
- Nadar (enter the room): portraits of Paris artists and writers from the early days of the medium.
- Stieglitz (enter the room): photography argued for as an art form in its own right.
How to enjoy a walkable exhibition
- Pick one room and give it ten minutes. Walk the whole room once without stopping, then go back to the two or three works that pulled you in.
- Stand back before you step in. A work reads differently from across the room than from half a metre away. In a walkable room you can do both.
- Read the label last. Look first, form your own impression, then read the title, date and note.
- Compare neighbouring rooms. Hokusai next to Monet, or Beardsley next to Mucha, shows how artists on opposite sides of the world, or opposite sides of a style, solved similar problems.
- Send a room to a friend. Every room is one link, and the link previews nicely in chat apps.
From visitor to exhibitor: build your own room
The reason these rooms feel like places and not slideshows is the same reason your own work will feel more considered in one: the lighting is adjustable for each piece, every frame is available on the free plan, works carry museum-style captions, and the space looks the same on a phone as on a desktop. You can add video works, create a short walk-through video to post on social media, and embed the whole room on your own website.
Xibit360 has a free plan, and anything beyond it is a one-time purchase, never a subscription. Creating a room is about choosing a few pieces, picking a layout, and sharing the link.
Create your first room for free
If you would like to feel the quality before you sign up, try the demo first.
FAQ
Are these exhibitions really free? Yes. All 15 curated rooms are free to walk through, with no account needed.
Do I need to install anything? No. The rooms run in a modern browser on desktop and mobile.
Where do the artworks come from? The curated rooms use public-domain works. Each room is curated by Xibit360.
Can I show my own work the same way? Yes. You can start on the free plan and add extras only if you need them, as one-time purchases.