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This article is part of our latest article Fine Arts and Exhibitions A special report on how arts institutions help audiences discover new options for the future.

Twenty-five hundred years ago, in a workshop in Athens, a potter and his apprentice were creating a vase depicting Hercules riding a bull to sacrifice when the potter had a eureka moment – ​​instead of painting the figures in the usual black, why not red. Red? Nobody had done this before.

“Something extraordinary happened to them that day that changed the course of history,” said Alexia Roider, the company’s creative head. Zedem Mediais an animation studio based in Cyprus. The potter changed the colors and the effects of the paint on the vase by applying some different substances to the clay and controlling the temperature inside the kiln. (It is believed that the creator was a potter known as Andokides.)

“This is a very sophisticated pottery making technique and the strong colors have survived to this day,” said Ms. Roider. “Smoke in the oven gives you black, and an increase in temperature brings out the red. There’s a lot of advanced technology these days, but they did it with fire and sticks.”

NS Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, has a rare vase from that period, one of about 55 vases in the world displaying both black and red figure painting. This inspired the museum’s first animated film, “How to Make an Athenian Vase,” produced in partnership with Zedem Media.

“To help visitors appreciate the profound change from black-figure vase painting to red-figure vase painting, we wanted to portray an epiphany,” said George Scharoun, the museum’s director of exhibition and gallery media. photography.”

The film is part of the museum’s effort to use technology in new ways to engage visitors in a deeper and more memorable way. Besides animation, the museum will use augmented reality, computer graphics, 3D computer modeling and sound design to create innovative displays and interactive experiences. five newly transformed galleries In the museum’s George D. and Margo Behrakis Ancient World Art Wing.

“The museum uses the tools they used in Hollywood movies to provide new ways to understand and appreciate objects from the past,” said Mr Scharoun.

He said the Museum of Fine Arts’ efforts to make art more accessible through technology are part of a larger trend. MCN, an association (formerly called the Museum Computer Network) for museum professionals to share practices related to emerging technologies.

“Most museums have increased the size of their digital teams,” he said, and many museums now have technology labs and innovation incubators to develop and test new ideas.

Mr. Longo said that digital is inseparable. “It’s part of the missions of the museums.”

Opening permanently on December 18, the Museum of Fine Arts’ remodeled galleries will feature architectural improvements such as raised ceilings, new windows to increase the flow of natural light, and custom vault work. They will display approximately 550 works of art and provide a new home for the Byzantine art collection, showcase gods and goddesses, and explain the profound role mythology played in the daily lives of the ancient Greeks and Romans.

Part of the purpose is to highlight the creativity of early Greek artists and to look at the development of portraiture during the Roman Empire. Rotating exhibitions will juxtapose ancient art with works by 20th and 21st century artists to explore how they were inspired by classical culture. The opening installation will feature American abstractionist Cy Twombly.

“This is one of the best collections of Greek and Roman art in the world,” said Phoebe Segal, curator of Greek and Roman Art at the museum.

Part of a curator’s job – the word comes from the Latin for “care” – Dr. “Keeping the material relevant, explaining to people why they should care,” Segal said. Good design, wall text and, increasingly, digital media help do that, he said.

“When faced with the original artwork, we want to make the same connection in the museum as when you watch a period film,” said Mr. Scharoun. “I want visitors to see ancient Greece and Rome as real places, to imagine the living, breathing people who make the objects and the world they live in.”

In ancient times, statues were typically brightly painted or decorated with gilding and gemstones, but over time the colors dissolved or peeled off. 3D digital reconstruction Statue of Athena Parthenos can be experienced with the augmented reality available in the application of the museum and with the behind-the-scenes video of the process shown in the gallery. The goal is to recreate in color how people in ancient Rome might have seen it.

“It allowed us to use a lot of pretty geeky visual effects tools to visualize how Athena might have been painted, what she might look like,” said Evan Errol Fellers, the school’s principal. black mathis a Boston-based production company and art studio that collaborates with the museum.

The museum preservation team examined the trace pigments on the mostly white statue of Athena using special lights and photographic techniques and chemical analysis. A digital model of the sculpture was then created using hundreds of photographs.

“It’s a technique called photogrammetry that uses triangulation to compare similarities between photos and then reconstructs the 3D geometry based on that information,” said Fellers. “Once we had that, our tools allowed us to digitally draw on the model and create photorealistic images using something called neutral rendering and ‘paint’ the statue of Athena without touching the real thing.”

Fellers said that some of the original pieces of Athena were lost “so that with these visual effects and 3D sculpting tools at our disposal, we have the ability to recreate the missing elements of her.”

“Working on a real piece of art is so special, it’s a vintage piece of art that went to our studio for our artists to repaint once again,” he said. “This delicate balance of playfully combining these techniques and digital sculpting tools, but in a way that respects the era and the original sculptor. It adds a whole new value to the intricacies of the work of art.”

Mr. Scharoun said sound installations are another way to help museum visitors slow down, establish an inner connection with the past. A large-scale image projection recorded at an archaeological site earlier this year will accompany a new 3D digital reconstruction of the sixth-century Temple of Athena at Assos.

The “atmospheric piece” will use sound to invoke the landscape where people live, he said, immersing museum visitors in the sights and sounds of nature.

“You get the same panoramic ocean view that visitors to the ancient temple would have through a kind of virtual window,” he said.

In a gallery designed to evoke an early Byzantine church, visitors will stand in front of a 10-foot-tall church under a golden ceiling dome. altar surrounded by the music of the sacred Byzantine music. A small touch panel allows them to select specific chants.

“You have to strain your imagination to appreciate the depth of time,” said Mr. Scharoun. “And once you do, you can see the collection in a new way.”