Музеи и галереи искусств (english)

Museums and Art GalleriesInBritain.About100 million people a year, across all social groups, attend some 2000 museumsand galleries open to the public, which include the major national collections.There are a lot of galleries and museums in Britain. Some of them are theNational Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, the Tate Gallery and so on andso forth. First of all I would like to draw your attention to the NationalGallery in London.It contains one of the richest collections of paintings inthe world.

The range of the collection is wide. It represents all the leadingschools of European painting from the 13th to early 20thcenturies, for example pictures of Rembrandt, Turner, Monet, Picasso, Van Goghand other great masters. Another gallery is the National Portrait Gallery wherethere are oil paintings, water colors, drawings and sculptures. The Galleryconstantly changes displays and holds the annual portrait competition for youngartists.The Tate Gallery is one of London s best-known art galleries, openedwith the financial support of Sir Henry Tate, who also gave a collection of 65paintings.

The Gallery contains a unique collection of British paintings fromthe 16th century to the present day. It regularly holds specialexhibitions. The most famous museums in Britain are the Victoria and AlbertMuseum and the British Museum. The Victoria and Albert museum is one of theworld s outstanding art museums. It is situated in south central London.Themuseum was given its present name in honor of Queen Victoria and her husbandPrince Albert.

The British Museum has a priceless collection of antiquitiesfrom almost every period and every part of the world. It houses collections ofdrawings, coins, medals and ethnography. StanleySpencer is one of the most original of modern British artists. He was a painterof imaginative and religious subjects, landscapes and occasional portraits.Swan Upping is one of Spencer s best known pictures. This paintinghas an air of hightened reality the light reflected from the water suggestsmoonlight, yet events take place in the foreground in daylight.

There isanxiety in the immobilized swans and the face of the woman on the bridge, amood enhanced by the serrated edges of the clouds and the flame-like branchesof the tree on the right.An ordinary scene made to appeal extraordinary.Spencer s works are well represented in the Tate Gallery collection and theexhibition reveals the full range of his output, from early drawings done whilestill a student to his late self-portrait, painted a few months before hisdeath in 1959.Washingtonmuseums and art galleries are among the finest in the world. The Smithsonianinstitution, a scientific and cultural organization sponsored by the USgovernment, consists of different museums.

The museum of History and Technologyhas the collection of First Ladies Gowns. The National Gallery of Art houses awonderful collection of American and European Art. There are some halls devotedto Andrew Wyet one of the prominent living American painters.

He was born in1917. The son of illustrator Andrew is the leading member of the dynasty ofpainters that includes his sisters, their husbands and his own two sons. He wonfame at the age of 12 for his illustrations of Robin Hood . He was20 when he first exhibited his paintings.Andrew studied with his father andwas strongly influenced by him. His father s style of illustration expressessentimentality. But very early the young artist gravitated a way from histeacher.

Wyet s style is both precise and minute in detail, he is a realistinfluenced by photography. He painted portraits, landscapes, seascapes anddomestic scenery. His favorite media are tempera and water colors.His worksare easily recognized by dimly lit and deserted landscapes in tones of grey andbrown which convey the feeling of loveliness and solitude. His famous works are Christina s world and Inland shell .Russian.Moscow is known for itsmany historical buildings, museums and art galleries.

Museums are considered animportant part of the National Heritage. There are more than 80 museums inMoscow, the largest are the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts and the State TretjakovGallery. The Tretjakov Gallery is a major research, artistic, cultural andeducational center.The Gallery takes its name from its founder, the merchantPavel Tretjakov, who began to collect Russian paintings in 1856. The collectionwas donated as a gift to the city of Moscow in 1882. Later it was supplementedby collections from other museums and private citizens. The Tretjakov Galleryhas a rich collection of old Russian Icons from the 11th to the 17thcentury, many fine examples of Russian paintings from 18th to theearly 19th century.

The Gallery contains halls devoted to oldRussian paintings, to great master such as Ivanov, Serov, Surikov, Repin andLevitan.Levitan was one of the first painters of the Russian scenery to revealits beauty.

He is a real poet of the Russian countryside. Levitan is a veryspecial sort of painter. There is something in his landscapes that reflects ourmoods. He deeply felt what he wanted to depict.A master of landscape, he neverintroduced figures into it. Though if you look at The autumn in Sokolniky you will notice the figure in the center. Everything seems to underline theloneliness of this figure the trees loosing their leaves, the remoteindifferent sky, the path going off into the distance.

But the fact is that itwas not Levitan who painted this figure. It was Chekhov s brother Nikolay whodid it. Levitan s influence over lyrical landscape painters can t be overestimated. His paintings have won the love and gratitude of people.