Inside MINIESE · October 3, 2026
The Loupe — read the museum's paintings stroke by stroke
Most of The Living Museum now opens under a loupe in MINIESE AR. Hold your phone to the painting and every brushstroke comes up close, the way you never see it from across the room. A new Magic Tool, unlocked once for $9.99.
Closer than the museum lets you stand. Every painting is made of brushstrokes, and from across a room you never see them. Now you can. 80 of the museum’s paintings open under a Loupe in MINIESE AR: hold your phone to the painting on your wall, and wherever you point, the strokes come up close — how thick the paint is, which way the brush went, where one colour was dragged through another.
Van Gogh, for example. Look at The Starry Night from across the room and the sky turns. Put the loupe on its brightest star, by the top of the cypress, and you see how: a knot of thick golden paint at its heart, rings of white and yellow strokes laid round and round it, and beside it the cypress in long dark strokes climbing like flames, the canvas showing through where the brush ran dry. The picture at the top of this page is that star and that tree, under the glass. Seven of Van Gogh’s paintings in the museum have it, among them Irises, The Bedroom and Almond Blossom.
And the rest. Monet’s water and haystacks. Seurat’s dots, one by one, in A Sunday on La Grande Jatte. The foam on Hokusai’s Great Wave. The gold in Klimt’s The Kiss. The Mona Lisa, Vermeer’s Milkmaid, Renoir, Hiroshige, Kawase Hasui, Spitzweg: 80 paintings in all, and more as they are added.
A Magic Tool. The Loupe is the newest tool in Magic Tools, in the menu, next to Paper finish. Unlock it once for $9.99 and it is yours on your account: for every painting that has it, on any phone you sign in on.
How to use it.
- Tap the chip on your museum print to open MINIESE AR, and sign in from Menu → Sign In.
- Point your phone at the painting. When it has a loupe, Loupe appears on the right.
- The first time, the button shows a small lock: tap it to see the Loupe in Magic Tools, and tap Unlock · $9.99.
- Once unlocked, tap Loupe, and move your phone over the painting to read it.
The Last Hand’s loupe, where the gods at the table speak, stays free: it is that work’s own Smart AR.
How to Use Magic Tools walks you through every step.
