The Met’s Art Collection Is Now Available for Animal Crossing: New Horizons

When Animal Crossing: New Horizons launched in March, its museum was missing one of the four wings it’s had since the very first Animal Crossing hit the GameCube in 2002. There was no art gallery, and thus no in-game recreation of classic paintings. The most recent update to the game reintroduced art, but it turns out there’s another way to collect the classics on your island. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has joined the Getty Museum and others in making its collection easily transportable into Animal Crossing: New Horizons. If you know how to scan designs with the Nintendo Switch Online app on your phone, it’ll be only a matter of minutes before you’re hanging Manets, Titians and Van Goghs in your home.

The Met explains the whole process on its blog. The gist of it: search collection on its website, click the share options at the bottom of the image, and look for that familiar Animal Crossing leaf icon. You’ll be able to crop the image, if you’d like, and then the site will generate a QR code. Scan it with the Design tab under the Animal Crossing options on the Nintendo Switch Online app, and then save it. It’ll soon show up in your mail box within the game.

The Getty’s process is a little bit different. Read this post on its blog detailing exactly how to turn its open-access collection into Animal Crossing art, or dive right in with their handy little tool.

You’re not just limited to what you can find through museums, of course. The Animal Crossing Pattern Tool makes it simple to turn any image into an in-game design, where you can then turn it into a sign, a flag, clothing, and more.

The only person who could possibly have a problem with the ease and convenience of these tools? Blathers, of course. The proud, nervous owl who runs the Animal Crossing museum will now have competition for the first time ever, once you open up your own art gallery on your island. It’s a shame, but as Blathers himself says literally every time you talk to him, the cultural development of your island is a worthy endeavor indeed.