Другое : The Hermitage
The Hermitage
The Hermitage
The State Hermitage
in St. Petersburg ranks among the world’s most outstanding art museums. It is
the largest museum in Russia: nowadays its vast and varied collections take up
four buildings; its rooms if stretched in one line would measure many miles in
total length, while they cover an area of 94240 square meters. Over 300 rooms
are open to the public and contain a rich selection from the museum’s
collections numbering about 2500000 items. The earliest exhibits Date from
500000-300000B.C., the latest are modern works.
The collections
possessed by the museum are distributed among its seven departments and form
over forty permanent exhibitions. A common feature, characterising these
exhibitions is the arrangement of items (all of them originals) according to
countries and schools in a strictly chronological order, with a view to
illustrating almost every stage of human culture and every great art epoch from
the prehistoric times to the 20th century.
Fabulous treasures
are gathered in the Museum. It contains a rare collection of specimens of
Soythian culture and art; objects of great aesthetic and historical value found
in the burial mounds of the Altai; a most complete representation of exhibits
characterising Russian culture and art. The Oriental collections of the Museum,
ranking among the richest in the world, give an idea of the culture and art of
the people of the Near and the Far East; India, China, Byzantium and Iran, are
best represented; remarkable materials illustrative of the culture and art of
the peoples inhabiting the Caucasus and Central Asia, also from part of the
collections of the Department. The Museum numbers among its treasures monuments
of ancient Greece and Rome and those from the Greek settlements on the North
coast of the Black Sea.
World famous is the
collection of West-European paintings, covering a span of about seven hundred
years, from the 13th to the 20th century, and comprising works by Leonardo da
Vinci, Raphael, Titian, El Greco, Velazquez, Murillo; outstanding paintings by
Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Rubens; a remarkable group of French eighteenth century
canvases, and Impressionist and Post Impressionist paintings. The collection
illustrates the art of Italy, Spain, Holland, Belgium, Germany, France,
Britain, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and some other countries. The West European
Department of the Museum also includes a fine collection of European sculpture,
containing works by Michelangelo, Canova, Falkonet, Houdon, Rodin and many
other eminent masters; a marvellous collection of prints and drawings,
numbering about 600 000 items; arms and armour; one of the world most
outstanding collections of applied art, rich in tapestries, furniture, lace,
ivories, porcelain metalwork, bronzes, silver, jewellery and enamels. An
important part among the museum possessions is taken by the numismatic
collection, which numbers over 1 000 000 items and is regarded as one of the
largest in the world. A permanent exhibition of coins, orders and medals is
open on the 2nd floor, rooms 398-400. There are auxiliary displays of coins
forming part of exhibitions in other departments as well. A temporary
exhibition of West-European medals is on view in the Raphael Loggias (1st
floor, room 227).
The seven
departments of the museum, i.e. the Department of Russian Culture, Primitive
culture, Culture and Art of the peoples of the Soviet East, Culture and Art of
the Foreign Countries of the East, Culture and Art of the Antique World,
West-European Art, Numismatics, together with the Education Department, the
Conservation Department and the Library determine the administrative and
academic structure of the museum.
Within the past few
decades the Hermitage has become one of the country’s most important centres of
art study with a research staff of about 200 historians carrying out a vast
program of research on art problems, and responsible for the preservation of
the museum treasures, their conservation and restoration, and also for the
scientific popularisation of art. The results of this varied work are published
in the form of books, articles, periodicals, pamphlets, etc.
Since 1949 a
post-graduate school has been functioning at the Hermitage, specialists in art
working here at their theses.
An important aspect
of the Museum’s research activities is the work of the annual archaeological
expeditions organised by the Museum either independently or in co-operation
with other Soviet scientific institutions. The most notable among them are: the
Kazmir-Blur expedition making excavations of the city of Taishebaini dating
from the 7th century B.C and situated on the Kazmir-Blur hill near Erevan; the
Chersonese and Nymphaeum expeditions working on the sites of the ancient Greek
towns in the Crimea, the Tadjik, Altai, Pskov and some other expeditions.The
material discovered by them is of exceptional value, for not only does it throw
fresh light on the problems of the history of the art and culture, but it also
serves to enrich the Hermitage collections.
Most helpful in the
Museum’s research work is the Hermitage Library which contains about 400 000
books, pamphlets, periodicals, and is one of the largest among the art
libraries in Russia. It was started in the 18th century and contains works on
all branches of fine and applied arts. In addition to the Central Library each
Department has at its disposal a subsidiary library of special literature. Of
these, the library of the Hermitage exchanges books with a number of Russian
and foreign museums. It is open to every student of art.
All these are but a
few aspects of the varied work carried out by the Museum and constantly
achieving still greater scope and a few forms, meeting the growing cultural
demands of the Russian people.
Список литературы
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