An option to display "hot spots" highlights select paintings on the wall. Viewers can also easily zoom in and out to focus on objects contained in that room, and the QuickTime interface also allows virtual visitors to enter an adjoining room visually. Thus, the QuickTime version may be more useful for working with elementary-age children because of the more fun, game-like atmosphere the virtual tour creates. Older children and adults, however, would enjoy the QuickTime and standard versions of the tour equally. In both the QuickTime and the standard interface, clicking on one of the hypertext items or on the floor plan map allows visitors to move from room to room. Virtual visitors using on the standard interface can pan the camera in each room, too, using the arrows below the image. Except for the heightened, point-and-click ability to pan, zoom, and view "hot spots" on the photographic image itself, the two versions are identical. In both versions,...

In fact, some young children will find the virtual tour easier to deal with than an actual field trip to a museum: they can talk, and take breaks whenever they like. Although viewing paintings online does not come close to the experience of seeing them in person, close-up, virtual galleries such as the one created by the National Gallery of Art deliver an ideal alternative.
Reference

Vincent Van Gogh's Van Goghs." Virtual Tour: National Gallery of Art. Retrieved Oct 6, 2006 at http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/vgwel.shtm