Museum Wallpapers
Ivan Aivazovsky's The Ninth Wave as a desktop wallpaper, with a small museum label in the corner

A museum
on your desktop.

An endless walk through public-domain paintings from museums worldwide. A new one every hour, with the title, artist and story one click away.

Know what you’re looking at.

Every painting comes with its label. Click the icon by the clock and the card opens: the title, artist, year and museum, and the story behind the work from Wikipedia.

  • Next, Read more, Save. Skip ahead instantly, open the article, or keep the painting with its credits.
  • More by Caravaggio. One click narrows the walk to an artist or a movement.
  • In your language. Titles and stories from the Wikipedia you read.
  • A label on the wall. A small museum placard in a corner of the desktop, or none at all.
The card: preview, title, artist, museum, summary, Next, Read more, Save, quick filters and settings

Hung properly, whatever the shape.

Few paintings have your screen’s proportions. Choose how the rest are hung. Every monitor gets a scan sized for it, up to 4K.

The Fortune Teller framed by a blurred copy of itself
BlurThe whole painting, framed by a soft copy of itself. The default.
The Fortune Teller on a dark wall
WallThe whole painting with a margin, hung on a dark wall.
The Fortune Teller filling the screen, cropped
FillFills the screen edge to edge and crops what doesn’t fit.

Famous painters first.

Paintings come from Wikidata and the Wikimedia Commons scans, many of them Google Art Project museum photography. Choose how far off the beaten path to wander.

FAMOUS · DEFAULT~280 painters

Leonardo, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Monet, Aivazovsky. About 38,000 paintings.

KNOWN~1,200 painters

Everyone with articles in 30+ Wikipedias. About 94,000 paintings.

ANYEveryone

The full Google Art Project collection, plus whatever your filters match.

Install it.

The same paintings, labels and filters on both platforms.

Windows

Windows 10 or 11 · tray app · updates through the Store

  1. Install it from the Microsoft Store.
  2. The first painting appears within seconds. A gilt-frame icon sits by the clock.

Prefer a direct download? Grab the installer from GitHub Releases. It isn’t code-signed, so Windows may warn you: click More info → Run anyway. Install one or the other, not both. Source on GitHub.

Omarchy

Omarchy 4 · shell plugin · widget on the bar

  1. Run this in a terminal. It starts the service and adds the widget to the bar.
  2. The first painting appears within a minute. Click the palette icon for the card.
omarchy plugin add https://github.com/dpsk/omarchy-museum-wallpapers --enable

Talks only to Wikimedia, and sends nothing about you.

Admission is free.

Museum Wallpapers is open source and costs nothing. If it makes your desk a nicer place, you can leave something at the door.

Support on Ko-fi