Происхождение и общая характеристика коллекции Эрмитажа

The state Hermitage Museum is the largest museum in Russia which ranks with such museum as the British museum in London, Louver in Paris, Prado in Madrid and Metropolitan in NYC.

The treasures of the Hermitage are famous throughout of the world. The collection numbers about 2,7 million exhibits. But only 5% of the collection is on display.

There are different departments in the Hermitage: 1.Western-European department. 2.Antique department. 3.Primitive art and Golden room – after the revolution.4.Department of Oriental art.

5. Department of Russian Culture. 6. Numismatic department.

The museum was founded in 1764 as a private art gallery of the empress Catherine-II. The first acquisition was made at the time of Catherine. A collection of 225 pictures was acquired from the Prussian Merchant Gotskovsky. Originally the collections were accommodated in some of the rooms of the Winter Palace. But as the palace was not intended for museum purposes and the collection were growing another building adjacent to the palace was built specially for museum. It was called The Hermitage. It was only in 1825 when the museum was opened to the public. The number of tickets available was very small and admittance was restricted by a lot of regulations. Almost all collections which were sold in Europe in the 18th century were bought by Russian court. By 1785 the Hermitage collection of paintings alone numbered over 2800 items. In the 19th century they went on buying whole collections but on more modest scale. 1769 – About 600 paintings from the collection of count Brulle in Drezden was bought with the help of Beloselsky-Belozersky. 1779 – Acquired 198 paintings from the collection of Robert Wallpall in London. 1781 – 119 paintings from the collection of count Goduen in Paris. 1814 – Alexander bought 38 paintings from the gallery of Zhozefine Bogarne. 1814 – Acquired the collection of Spanish paintings from English banker Guzvelt. 1865 – Madonna Litte was bought from the collection of Litte. 1870 – Rafael was bought from the collection of Konstabel.

1910 – about 800 paintings from the collection of Semenov-Tyan’-Shansky.

The beginning of the century – Scythians gold. After the revolution all the private collections of Russian Merchants were confiscated. There were the collection both of St-Petersburg and Moscow merchants. Among them are Yusupov, Stroganoff, Morozoff, Shchukin. The collections of St-Petersburg and Moscow merchants are different. While St-Petersburg merchants collected mostly old paintings, Moscow ones collected the paintings of the modern artists. During the war the collection of the Hermitage was evacuated to safety in Sverdlovsk. After the war the collection was sent back. Besides the old collection new objects of art were added brought from the Germany as a Trophey. Nowadays new objects of art can be bought by the Hermitage only within

Russia. It has no special fund to renew and replenish its collection. The only way of getting new objects of art is a private presents.

Особая кладовая. Особенности посещения

The complex of the state Hermitage in St Petersburg lining a bank of the Neva river is one of the wonders of the world. The imperial collection comprised old master paintings, classical antiquities, coins and medals, an arsenal, medieval and Renaissance works of art. In the 1920th an oriental department was added, in the 1930th – an archeological, in the 1940th – the department devoted to the Russian works of art. If the development plans of the Hermitage are ever completed it will regain its pre-eminence. One of the Peter decrees brought to Russia a collection, which is now one of the glories of the Hermitage. It consists of gold buckles and ornaments in the so-called Siberian animal style made around in the 7th century bc. Peter’s attention was drawn to these artifacts when Demidov who had mine for precious metals in Siberia presented 20 golden objects to Catherine I. Peter I gave the governor of Siberia

(Gagarin) strict instructions that all the antiquities found in the burial mounds should be collected and sent to St Petersburg and the following year 100 objects were sent to Peter. The museum contains objects of art, which remind the visitors an extraordinary event of Russia’s history. Nadir Shah the ruler of Iran had sent an embassy from India to St Petersburg after his conquest of the Moguls in 1739. It took them 2 years to get to St Petersburg as they traveled by elephants. They arrived to St Petersburg on the 8th of October 1741 carrying 22 objects including plates, bottles, rings. All was from the booty from the Mogul treasures. Today the group of these objects in the Hermitage is the largest in the world to have survived. Only 3 pieces have survived in the Iranian treasury and there are none in Indian museums. The Mogul emperors were the richest rulers in the world. They were the main customers of the Colombian emerald mines. Those emeralds then as now were considered finer than the stones from any other source. All the emeralds used in the Hermitage pieces came from Columbia via India. All objects are wrought from gold and incrusted with precious stones. From the original gift 18 items have survived. One ring is inscribed with commemoration of the birth of one of the rulers of India, the one who built Taj Mahal. The 14 elephants, which came with the embassy, were also a gift to the imperial family. In advance of the arrival several of the city bridges had to be reinforced. New elephant yard was constructed. The gift was meant for Anna Ioanovna but by the time they got to St Petersburg the empress was Elizabeth. The most exciting feature on the display of the antiquities then at the time of Nicolas I (1830th) as now was the number of gold and silver objects of art. They were exquisitely wrought. They have been found in Scythian tombs (barrows) in southern Russia. The Scythians, nomadic people, who originated in central Asia, arrived in the Black Sea area in the 8th century bc. They remained dominant there for the next 4 centuries. They became immensely wealthy because they were trading grain with Mediterranean world. Their princes went to their graves richly decorated with gold ornaments. Mostly these gold ornaments were made by Greek craftsmen who were very sophisticated jewellers. The Scythians either imported the gold jewelry or commissioned Greek craftsmen who had settled locally to make it for them. Greek colonies were established on the Crimea from the 7th century bc. At the time the New Hermitage was being built Russian archeology was still at its beginnings. The burial mounds that remain one of the curiosities of the south Russian landscape only began to attract attention at the end of the 18th century. The first excavations were made on the orders of the Russian military governors. There were also French immigrants who had been ousted from France by the French revolution (Paul Dubrux). He began to excavate on his own account in 1816. He gave some of his early finds to the dowager empress Maria Fedorovna. Thus, home-grown archeology began to attract attention of the court. New museum was set up to house local finds but it was ordered that the finest artifacts had to be sent to the capital to the Hermitage. In 1830 came the sensational opening of the burial mound close to Kerch. The governor of Kerch who was a keen amateur on archeology invited Paul Dubrux to watch how 200 soldiers were removing stones from 2 burial mounds to build barracks. The Frenchmen realized from the shape of the stone structure that was revealed that the site contained an unexplored tomb. It turned out to contain a Scythian king, his wife and his servant. Round his neck he wore a magnificent gold necklace (torque). Beside him was a gold vessel. His wife wore an elaborate gold pendant embossed with a head of Athena copied from the famous statue of the goddess by Phidiy in Pantheon. At her feet was gold flask worked by a Greek master from scenes from life. This vase is one of the highlights (gems) of the Hermitage collection of Scythian gold. It has been suggested that the scenes illustrate the Greek myth concerning the founding of the Scythian kingdom. There is a goddess represented “a strange being” between a maiden and a serpent whose youngest son Scythes inherited the kingdom. The so-called Kerch-room was one of the most popular at the New Hermitage when it opened to the public in 1852. It contained artistically arranged gold objects, bronzes, vases, terracotta and stone sculptures from the burial mound of south Russia. The excavated jewellry was upstairs in the empress’s drawing room. They were 18 crowns and a gold death mask of a queen. From the very start the antiquities collection galleries were of the high standards.

40 Итальянская Живопись. Шедевр

The collection of Italian art is one of the best in the Hermitage. It is accommodated in 30 halls and numbers 380 pictures, 160 sculptures and great number of items of applied art and furniture. It spans the period of time from late 13^th to the 18^th century showing the development of Italian Art in the course of 6 centuries. Early paintings still look rather Medieval. All features of Medieval art can be traced here. The subjects were only religious. Painters were dictated not only subjects but postures of the characters, the way they were dressed, even the tilt of the heads. It was the reason why we sometimes can’t find the name of the painter in many pictures of that period because they didn’t consider themselves authors of the pictures. Images were painted against guilted background which were also typical for medieval ages. They didn’t render neither perspective nor volume. To paint human body wasn’t allowed and also they didn’t know anatomy. That’s why pictures look quite flat, two-dimensional. Pictures were usually painted on wood in tempera, which gave no possibility to render volume. While one of the leading and most brilliant school in Italian art was Florentine school, the Seines school was also considered a distinguish one. The Seine school headed by Simon Martini was probably not that powerful as the Florentine school but it had more aristocratic and refined subtle. In the 14^th century Italian artists wanted to explore the laws of vision to acquire knowledge of the human body to build it up on their statues and pictures. Once their interest took this turn we come to the period known as the Renaissance. The Italians of the 14^th century believed that art science had flourished in the Classical Period. Simon Martini in his picture “Annunciation” tried to outline the volume. The cites in Italy of that time competed with each other in securing the services of the greatest artists to beautify their buildings and to create works of lasting fame. It was a great incentive to the masters to outdo each other. Italian artists turned to mathematics to study the laws of perspective, to study the build of human body. In the pictures of Fra Angelico “Madonna and 2 Saints” we can see that the picture is painted according to the laws of perspective and volume of the faces is visible. But still there were many problems for them to solve, for exmaple some figures looked harsh and almost wooden. They looked more like statues than living beings. Only Leonardo found the solution to this problem. The painter must leave to the viewer something to guess. If the outline are not firmly drawn, if the form is left a little vague as though disappearing in a shadow the impression of dryness and stiffness will be avoided. This is Leonardo’s famous invention called “sfumato” – it is a blurred outline. Soft

colors that allow one form merge to another and always leave something to imagination. Example with Mona Liza if necessary. At the time when Leonardo worked in Florence ayoung painter arrived there from a small city of Urbino in the Province of Umbrio. He was Raffaello Santi whom we know as Raphael. Raphael’s greatest paintings seem so effortless that one doesn’t usually connect them with the idea of hard and persistent work. To many he is a painter of sweet Madonnas which have become well known type and was adopted and copied by subsequent generation. In fact the apparent simplicity is the result of deep thought careful planning and immense artistic wisdom. His paintings of Madonna are truly classical. They served as a standard of perfection to countless generations. After some years in Florence Raphael left to Rome. He arrived there at the time when Mikelangelo worked there. The Pope asked him to decorate the walls of various rooms in Vatican. Raphael proved his mastery of perfect design and balanced compositions in a series of frescos on the walls and ceiling of these rooms. Pictures couldn’t be taken out of the context or they lose their principal function. It is for the supreme mastery of arranging his figures. His skill in composition that artists have admired Raphael ever since. Raphael contemporaries and subsequent generations admired the beauty of his figures. When he was asked where in the whole world he could find a model of such beauty, he replied that he didn’t copy any specific model but rather followed a certain idea he had formed in his mind. It was for this achievement (Raphael could idealize without any loss of vitality and sincerity) that Raphael has remained famous throughout the centuries. It was Raphael whom the Pope had put in charge of hid building enterprise and thus he had become an architect designing churches, villas and palaces and studying the ruins of ancient Rome. He got on well with people and because of his sociable qualities the scholars and dignitaries made him their companion and gave him commissions. But Raphael didn’t live long. At the age of 37 he died. The masterpiece “Judith” was created by the prominent artist of Renaissance Giorgione de Castel Franko who was of Venetian school. Judith is a heroin of the Old Testament story. Her native town was besieged by the Assirian army. Judith managed to get into the enemies camp. She penetrated into the tent of the chieftain Holophernes whom she seduced with her beauty. After he had fallen asleep she beheaded him with his own sword. Having lost the leader the army fled in panic and the city was saved. Judith brought the head of Holophernes to the walls of the town so that her fellow citiziens could see that their town was saved. The painting Judith came from Pier Kroya’s collection in Paris. Like other painters of the Venetian school Giorgione pays special attention to coloring. He tries to trace the subtle color transitions and does it very skillfully. Colors blend and reflect each other.

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