Which closed this weekend, made me think about the innovative trends in painting of that time. I won’t say that I am a big fan of painting, but the pictorial solutions of the early 20th century are already recognized classics. And since it’s a classic, it means that such a view of the world makes sense at least to try to correlate it with one’s own. Paintings of the early 20th century in St. Petersburg can be seen in the Russian Museum, in Erarta, in the Hermitage, and in several other places. It was too lazy for me to go to Erarta, because it was far away, and the Russian Museum and the Hermitage were almost nearby. One is open until 21.00 on Thursday, the other - on Wednesday. It was Wednesday - January 31, a lunar eclipse and I was drawn to the Hermitage. At the ticket office in the Winter Palace, they politely sent me to the General Headquarters, through Palace Square, it turns out that the avant-garde artists now "live" there, on the 4th floor. I have never been to the Rossi wing, all the more it became interesting. Came, and there - here
To be honest, I liked it. On the 4th floor there are such interesting glass bridges
And under the bridge is another courtyard
Avant-gardists were placed on the 4th floor. You can get there by lift. However, I did not go to them, but to the French Impressionists. This, of course, is not avant-garde, but for the end of the 19th century it was also a revolutionary campaign. After the pompous staging and multi-figure compositions of academic artists, the viewer did not immediately accept this direction. In my unenlightened view, the landscapes of the Impressionists have not lost their original message - to convey a momentary impression. At first, I wanted to purposefully get to the avant-garde artists and not stop at other paintings. But the charm of the moment, like a casual glance out of the window, stopped me. I took out my smartphone and went to those canvases, into the “windows” of which I wanted to look. First it was Claude Monet "Meadows at Giverny"
He is the Pond Bank in Montgeron
It is also Waterloo Bridge. fog effect
His same - On the steep banks near Dieppe
The next stop is Camille Pizarro Boulevard Montmartre. Here curiosity played more, it was too much I read about this famous boulevard in literary works. Something like "so you're a little scarlet flower" :))
I partially took a photo from the network when my picture was completely unsuccessful. Moving on - Auguste Renoir Landscape at Beaulieu. The sea, the sun, the wind - all in a small landscape, as if outside the window.
The same set, but from a different place and in a different manner: Georges Pierre Seurat Fort Sanson - the coast of the English Channel.
In the same technique, but the work of another artist - pointillist Paul Signac Harbor in Marseille
According to the author's memoirs, it is an absolutely fictional thing, but nevertheless, reflecting the real moment of the approaching sunset.
Another of the famous followers of Paul Signac - Henri Edmond Cross View of the Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli near Assisi
Paul Cezanne Blue landscape - deep twilight, almost night. But for the artist, the period of passion for impressionism was relatively short.
Paul Gauguin A man picking fruit from a tree. And not because Paul Gauguin is an iconic figure, there are more famous works of him in the Hermitage. But because everything is momentary - the sun, goats, fruits.
Here is Van Gogh Kust. By the way, this bush grew in the garden of the psychiatric hospital, where Vincent van Gogh spent several years. Art critics write about a hot day, maybe the bush was the same, but here I didn’t feel a hot day
His same sad Remembrance of the garden in Etten. In the picture - the mother and sister of the artist, and Etten - the city in which Van Gogh was born, although the picture was painted in the south of France in Arles
Charles Cotte View of Venice from the sea. Here I was more saddened by the dissimilarity of the plot to everything I know about Venice.
And I'll end today with Georges Dupuis The embankment of Notre Dame in Le Havre
St. Petersburg, May 21 - "AiF-Petersburg". The cultural capital is in a fever again. One of the largest collections of the Impressionists, which includes more than 200 canvases of pictorial masterpieces of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, may be threatened with relocation. Paintings by Gauguin, Monet, Matisse, Picasso and other brilliant artists can go from the Hermitage to the collection of the Moscow Museum. Head of the Hermitage Mikhail Piotrovsky was categorically against it. May 21 it .
The pride of the Hermitage is ours
“The third floor of the Hermitage is the pride of St. Petersburg,” the governor said today in an open letter to the head of the Hermitage. “It is difficult to overestimate the Hermitage's merit in that this art, whose value was not obvious during the liquidation of the Museum of Western Art, was taken out of prison and adequately presented in the Hermitage,” the mayor said.
Cheese-boron began on April 25 after a direct line with the president, during which the director of the State Museum of Fine Arts. A. S. Pushkin Irina Antonova offered to return the collection of paintings to the Moscow Museum of Modern Western Art. According to her, the museum was liquidated in 1948, after which the collection was distributed to many museums, half of it ended up in the Hermitage. Putin promised to think about it, but said that the issue should be resolved at the level of the Ministry of Culture and experts.
The brilliant collection of the 19th-20th centuries from the collection of the Hermitage includes over 200 paintings. Among them are paintings by prominent impressionist artists, Paul Cezanne, Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso and other famous masters of this time.
Head of the Hermitage Mikhail Piotrovsky is convinced that the Hermitage collection must remain inviolable.
“I am ashamed and unpleasant that the internal relations and disputes of museums are raised during the “direct line” with the president, Piotrovsky shared at a press conference in St. Petersburg. “The Hermitage collection has been encroached on many times, but now the disputes have taken the form of denunciations,” he said. Piotrovsky added that it was necessary to start restoring museums that had suffered from the actions of the Soviet authorities from the Hermitage, since it had suffered more than others.
Petersburgers against
Piotrovsky explained that the "dispute" between the Pushkin Museum and the Hermitage concerns the private collections of Moscow collectors and patrons Ivan Morozov and Sergei Shchukin, nationalized by the Soviet authorities. In 1928, based on these collections, the Museum of New Western Art was created in Moscow. After the liquidation of the museum in 1948, the most valuable works were distributed between the Hermitage and the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts.
In the 1920s and 1930s, the works and treasures of the Hermitage were sold abroad. At the same time, the authorities did not report on what the funds received from the sale of valuables were spent on.
“The question is absurd in itself. You can look for any other options for cooperation with museums, for example, joint exhibitions, but there is no talk of a transfer, - Yevgenia Kulikova, an employee of the Hermitage press service, told the site. - This will entail claims from various museums, foreign ones in particular. The redistribution of museum collections cannot be allowed. The museum in question existed for 17 years, so the issue of restoring historical justice sounds strange. The collection has been in the Hermitage for 70 years.”
It was not only the Hermitage that revolted – Petersburgers, eminent and not so famous, are collecting signatures against the collection moving with might and main. Nearly 34,000 people signed up.
“For our city, the disappearance of the originals of Renoir, Matisse and Picasso is tantamount to the transfer of the Bronze Horseman, Rostral columns and burial places of emperors to the capital. This is an irreparable blow to the culture of the city and the historical memory of the people living in it,” the petition says.
In the meantime, an expanded meeting of the expert council under the ministry is taking place in the capital. Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky has already acknowledged that the issue is indeed "hot".
“Reconstruction of the Museum of New Western Art is a hot topic in connection with the necessary relocation of a significant part of the Hermitage collection to Moscow. This causes a lot of controversy,” admitted the head of the Ministry of Culture, quoted by ITAR-TASS.
The fate of the Impressionist collection was promised to be decided at the beginning of next week. However, the Hermitage itself sees no other way but to leave everything in its place.
A luxurious museum, one of the most visited and loved by many residents from different parts of Russia and the Earth. The exposition of its General Staff is estimated as the world's richest treasury of impressionist and post-impressionist art.
The collection is adorned with authentic masterpieces by Monet, Renoir, Sisley, Pissarro, Cezanne, Van Gogh and many other outstanding masters who worked at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Examining the work of prominent representatives of these movements, visitors manage to discover for themselves the features of the new artistic language of conveying unique and at the same time relevant worldview views of artists.
The exposition is based on French landscapes filled with golden rays of light and fresh air, portraits of Parisians, whose mysterious features leave no one indifferent, as well as views of Gauguin's Polynesia, which attract the eye with their original grandeur and harmony with the surroundings.
Hermitage collection
The museum displays masterpieces in the following quantities:
- 8 paintings by Claude Monet;
- 6 paintings by Renoir;
- 4 works by Van Gogh;
- 15 works by Gauguin;
- 37 paintings each by Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso;
- 9 marble, bronze and plaster sculptures by Rodin;
- as well as many other artistic works of great masters.
Art of France
It is worth noting that the art of France, starting from the 15th century, occupies 39 halls of the museum, due to which the exposition has become the largest in the world organized outside its native country. On the 3rd floor, works of French painting and sculpture of the 19th century are presented.
Works by French impressionists and post-impressionists are exhibited in the halls of the 4th floor . Some of them are reserved for the works of Matisse, Picasso and other masters of the 20th century. Since 2014, a large-scale exhibition "Manifesta 10" has been shown. In addition to the works of Matisse and Picasso, here you can see "Composition No. 6" by Kandinsky and "Black Square" by Malevich.
The basis of the exposition of French painting of the mid-19th - early 20th centuries is made up of paintings by venerable artists - Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, Camille Pissarro, Paul Cezanne, Honoré Daumier, Henri Fantin-Latour, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin andFrom private collections of Shchukin and Morozov.
Meeting start
In the enfilade of the halls of the General Staff, the richest exposition of French impressionists and post-impressionists is put on public display. The vast majority of works were in private collections of industrialists and collectors - Ivan Abramovich Morozov and Sergei Ivanovich Shchukin.
Being subtle connoisseurs of the beautiful and genuine, they were able to understand at one time how great the contribution of the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists to art would be. Patrons collected their collections bit by bit, buying paintings from art dealers and from the artists themselves. Thus, purchases and gifts from domestic collectors were important components of the artistic wealth of the Hermitage exposition of the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists.
An active and enterprising industrialist, a subtle and refined lover of painting, Sergei Ivanovich Shchukin, oddly enough, was called a “porcupine”, primarily for his stubbornness in transactions, and also for the fact that he allegedly bought up “art rubbish” and did nothing understood art.
Shchukin often visited Paris, where he bought canvases from artists, merchants and connoisseurs of painting. So, paintings by Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Degas, Cezanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Picasso, as well as panels specially ordered from Matisse, Bonnard, Willard appeared in his mansion.
According to the will drawn up by Shchukin in 1908, his collection was to go to the city after his death. After 10 years, there were 225 works of French painting in it.
Continuing the work of his brother Alexei Vikulovich, who created the Porcelain Museum, Ivan Abramovich Morozov collected paintings by Russian artists. Later, he became interested in impressionism and replenished the family art treasury with the works of French masters of the modern direction.
Although he was seventeen years younger than Shchukin, the artistic hobbies and views of both patrons coincided. They were guided by non-material considerations. By the time the Bolsheviks came, Morozov had a collection of 135 paintings and sculptures.
Morozov liked the work of Bonnard, from whom the collection included more than three dozen works. There was a series of decorative works by Maurice Denis in Morozov's mansion.
When Shchukin introduced Matisse Morozov, the latter's collection was replenished with three canvases depicting African landscapes. Morozov was interested in the Tahitian works of Gauguin, he was also fond of Van Gogh.
Under Soviet rule, the collections of both patrons were nationalized and transferred to the Hermitage and the Pushkin Museum. But they suffered the fate of collecting dust in storage until the middle of the last century, since at the dawn of socialism it was too early for the immature builders of communism to evaluate the advanced L "art Français (French art).
Today on the 4th floor of the General Staff building there is a "Gallery in memory of Sergei Shchukin and the Morozov brothers", where the works of the Impressionists, Post-Impressionists, artists of the Nabis group are exhibited.
In general, the Hermitage collection of works by Cezanne, Gauguin, Marquet, Bonnard, Matisse, Picasso and other great French painters and portrait painters of the 19th and 20th centuries is so luxurious that it deservedly ranks among the most elite and largest world collections, taking into account their own artistic arsenal in their homeland.
The “impression” concept
Impressionism is translated from French as "impression". This art movement was born in France at the end of the 19th century. Artists with impressionistic views, protesting against the embellishment of life by artistic academicism, turned to a kind of transmission of reality. They worked exclusively from nature, for landscape creations they used natural landscapes.
In them, they wanted to show the natural grace and desire for change, perfectly depicting the airiness and sunshine, subtle shades of light and colors.
The original tonality and freshness of the paintings, the optical perception of natural scenes by the Impressionists gave impetus to the development of the movement, which expanded the boundaries of possible painting.
The emphasis on the color perception of the world and the departure from the conceptual significance of phenomena caused the artists to begin to combine the images they created into one whole.
Therefore, in Impressionism there is no plot painting. The methods of impressionism are not aimed at "exposing" or "uncovering" individuality, displaying events of a large scale. This is despite the fact that the conflict of that era was the greatest. Hence the accusation, sounding against the works of the Impressionists, about their alleged remoteness from life.
The name of the current came from the name of Monet's painting "Impression. Sunrise". It was the centerpiece of the 1874 Paris Exposition. What caused a furor. One journalist with great sarcasm called the above-named artist and others like him "impressionists".
Current - “post-impression”
The Englishman Roger Fry used this word when criticizing the contemporary trends that appeared in French art at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.
After the publication of the “Manifesto of Symbolism” by Moréas, the era of the creative spirit was marked. Taking from impressionism the color components of purity and sonority, post-impressionism is looking for stable values. The works of the masters are saturated with philosophy and symbolism. Post-impressionism includes the works of Toulouse-Lautrec, Cezanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Seurat, Signac, Pissarro and other authors.
The post-impressionists differed from the impressionists in their desire to display not momentary moments, but eternity itself, as if they possessed secret knowledge about the universe.
The principles of post-impressionism influenced the formation of Fauvism, Cubism, Expressionism and other movements, formed the basis for the development of modern painting.
Conclusions from what has been said
The Hermitage collection from the family treasuries of Shchukin and Morozov are the most unique works, masterpieces from famous masters. Private collections were replenished by these connoisseurs of art when the artistic works of the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists were not recognized either by the public or by specialists. Today, these trends are more relevant than ever. They are included in the history of the development of painting. But most importantly, they serve people who are not indifferent to great art.
During a direct line with the president, the director of the Moscow State Museum of Fine Arts, Irina Antonova, asked Vladimir Putin to recreate the State Museum of New Western Art.
The famous collection of French paintings of the late 19th - early 20th century, collected by Moscow merchants Morozov and Shchukin, formed a separate museum until 1948, and then was distributed by decision of the communist leadership between the Hermitage and the State Museum of Fine Arts. Pushkin. The exposition of the third floor of the Hermitage, dedicated to the Impressionists, opened in 1956, is one of the main attractions of St. Petersburg.
The presence of this collection in the halls of the Hermitage had a huge impact on the development of art in St. Petersburg in the second half of the 20th century.
In the last century, Russia experienced a revolution, nationalization, wars, and a change of capital. After 1945, Soviet museums and libraries received a lot of "trophy" artifacts. To return to the state of almost fifty years ago means to begin the process of an endless, unstoppable flow of artistic values from city to city, from country to country.
It is known that most of the collections of provincial museums are formed on the basis of the storerooms of the Hermitage, the State Russian Museum and the Tretyakov Gallery. What's stopping you from bringing them back? The question of restitution also arises in relation to pre-revolutionary owners and collectors. Why not return the collection of Shchukin and Morozov to their descendants - let them decide their fate, give them to the Orsay Museum or the Tate Gallery. Irina Antonova's proposal is a dangerous precedent leading to chaos.
During the Soviet era, cultural property moved mainly not from Moscow to Leningrad, but from Leningrad to Moscow. The Academy of Sciences was sent to the new capital, as well as archival collections that made up the three largest depositories, most of the collections of the guards regimental museums, and a significant part of the collection of the State Hermitage itself. Therefore, if the commission created by order of the president decides to transfer part of the Shchukin-Morozov collection to Moscow, it would be natural to consider returning to the banks of the Neva what was given to Moscow.
For our city, the disappearance of the originals of Renoir, Matisse and Picasso is tantamount to the transfer of the Bronze Horseman, Rostral columns and burial places of emperors to the capital. This is an irreparable blow to the culture of the city and the historical memory of the people living in it.
We ask you to suspend the work of the commission and not consider the question raised by Mrs. Antonova as deliberately absurd.
During the recent Direct Line TV program on 25 April 2013, in which members of the Russian public presented the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin with their views and concerns, Irina Antonova, director of the State Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow (the Pushkin Museum) began lobbying the President for the reopening of the State Museum of Modern Western Art, closed in 1948.
In itself, this request might seem innocent. The holdings of the State Museum of Modern Western Art, founded in 1928, were made up of works of art from two private collections nationalized in the early Soviet period, and once owned by Ivan Morozov and Sergei Shchukin. The museum was housed in the mansion that had formerly been the home of Ivan Morozov. However, after the State Museum of Fine Arts was closed, its holdings were split up, with part of them subsequently on display in the State Museum of Fine Arts. The remaining works of art from the Morozov and Shchukin collections have been, since 1956, exhibited in the top-floor galleries of the State Hermitage in St Petersburg (formerly Leningrad), where they have come to be an integral part of the museum's world- class collections, and are regarded by both locals and visitors as one of the artistic jewels of St Petersburg, akin to the Bronze Horseman and St Isaac's Cathedral. What Irina Antonova is demanding is nothing less than the surrender by the Hermitage of its most famous modern paintings, its entire holdings of major post-impressionist works, including Matisse’s La danse.
If these artworks are returned to Moscow on the grounds that this is essential for the integrity of the original collections, then this will, in effect, be an attempt to annul the importance of the historical processes of war and revolution that precipitated their arrival in state hands to begin with. The logical next step must be a re-examination of the status of all other artworks transferred into Russian museums in the Soviet period. In addition, the removal of the artworks to Moscow would be a huge blow to the status of St Petersburg’s museum collections. Since 1917, much of the city's movable heritage has been removed to Moscow, including large sections of the pre-revolutionary government archives and public records, many of the artefacts once owned by regiments, and significant items from the former royal collections, not to speak of countless items from the Hermitage's own collections. If the works of art from the Shchukin and Morozov collections go to Moscow, then the Hermitage will be entitled to demand the return of the works of art that were removed from there in the pos-revolutionary years and sent to the new capital.
In short, Irina Antonova’s demands will set an inflammatory precedent, and risk causing chaos in the Russian museum world. We are astonished and appalled that a government commission should have been set up to investigate the feasibility of this proposal, which is clearly both mischievous and absurd. We urgently request you to disband the committee and to confirm that the rightful place for these post-impressionist masterpieces is the Hermitage.
To whom:
Medinsky Vladimir Rostislavovich, Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation
I ask you not to allow the transfer of part of the Shchukin-Morozov collection from the Hermitage to Moscow.
During a direct line with the president, the director of the Moscow State Museum of Fine Arts, Irina Antonova, asked Vladimir Putin to recreate the State Museum of New Western Art.
The famous collection of French paintings of the late 19th - early 20th century, collected by Moscow merchants Morozov and Shchukin, formed a separate museum until 1948, and then was distributed by decision of the communist leadership between the Hermitage and the State Museum of Fine Arts. Pushkin. The exposition of the third floor of the Hermitage, dedicated to the Impressionists, opened in 1956, is one of the main attractions of St. Petersburg.
The presence of this collection in the halls of the Hermitage had a huge impact on the development of art in St. Petersburg in the second half of the 20th century.
Moving this collection would be a tragedy for the city.
In the last century, Russia experienced a revolution, nationalization, wars, and a change of capital. After 1945, Soviet museums and libraries received a lot of "trophy" artifacts. To return to the state of almost fifty years ago means to begin the process of an endless, unstoppable flow of artistic values from city to city, from country to country.
It is known that most of the collections of provincial museums are formed on the basis of the storerooms of the Hermitage, the State Russian Museum and the Tretyakov Gallery. What's stopping you from bringing them back? The question of restitution also arises in relation to pre-revolutionary owners and collectors. Why not return the collection of Shchukin and Morozov to their descendants - let them decide their fate, give them to the Orsay Museum or the Tate Gallery. Irina Antonova's proposal is a dangerous precedent leading to chaos.
During the Soviet era, cultural property moved mainly not from Moscow to Leningrad, but from Leningrad to Moscow. The Academy of Sciences was sent to the new capital, as well as archival collections that made up the three largest depositories, most of the collections of the guards regimental museums, and a significant part of the collection of the State Hermitage itself. Therefore, if the commission created by order of the president decides to transfer part of the Shchukin-Morozov collection to Moscow, it would be natural to consider returning to the banks of the Neva what was given to Moscow.
For our city, the disappearance of the originals of Renoir, Matisse and Picasso is tantamount to the transfer of the Bronze Horseman, Rostral columns and burial places of emperors to the capital. This is an irreparable blow to the culture of the city and the historical memory of the people living in it.
We ask you to suspend the work of the commission and not consider the question raised by Mrs. Antonova as deliberately absurd.
Sincerely,
[Your name]
Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation
St. Petersburg State University of Technology and Design
Department of Chemical Technology of Textile Design.
Specialty: 070601.65 - industrial design of textiles
Practice report.
"Collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Paintings in the Hermitage"
Group student: 2-xd-4
Teacher:
Candidate of Arts - Associate Professor
Mitrofanova N.Yu.
Saint Petersburg 2008
Introduction
Impressionism
post-impressionism
Conclusion
Bibliography
Introduction
The topic of the report is “The Collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Paintings in the Hermitage”. The collection of impressionists and post-impressionists in the Hermitage is one of the richest in the world. In the second half of the century, donations and purchases from domestic collectors became important sources of funds replenishment. The Hermitage possesses the largest collection of French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings. was collected at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries by two patrons S.I. Shchukin and I.A. Morozov. With a subtle flair, they were able to predict what role the Impressionists would play in the history of art.
The collection includes eight paintings by Claude Monet ("Lady in the Garden", paired panels "A Corner of a Garden in Montgeron" and "A Pond in Montgeron", etc.), six works by Pierre-Auguste Renoir ("Portrait of the Artist Jeanne Samary", "Girl with a Fan" and others) eleven canvases by Paul Cezan ("Banks of the Marne", "Still life with drapery", "Fruits", etc.) pastels by Edgar Degas, four works by Vincent van Gogh. ("Bush", "Huts", etc.). The art of Paul Gauguin is represented by fifteen paintings ("Tahitian Pastorals", "Woman Holding a Fruit", etc.). Among the thirty-seven works of Henri Matisse are such world-famous works as: "Red Room", "Dance", "Music". Thirty-seven paintings by Pablo Picasso belong to the early periods of his work: pink, blue, cubist ("Absinthe drinker", "Date", "Boy with a dog", "Woman with a fan", etc.). Nine works by Auguste Rodin, the largest sculptor of the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries, include works in marble, bronze, plaster ("Eternal Spring", "The Sinner", "The Bronze Age", etc.)
In order to open the topic, it is necessary to solve a number of problems. First, consider the history of creation, in particular, consider the special contribution to its creation of two patrons - Morozov and Shchukin. Secondly, to study the very movement of the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, which originated in France, to understand the features of their painting and highlight the most prominent artists of this trend. Thirdly, to describe the biography of one of the representatives of these areas, in this term paper - Paul Cezanne.
To solve a number of problems, it is necessary to turn to the literature. In the book "The Impressionists" Gabriele Crepaldi consistently describes the exhibitions of the Impressionists and their direct initiators. It also describes the reaction of critics to the exhibitions and quotes from publications. In "Encyclopedia for children. Art” in one of the articles describes the history of the creation of the collection in the Hermitage by S.I. Shchukin and I.A. Morozov. The book "The State Hermitage" by P. F. Gubchevsky also describes this collection. The book "Impressionism. The Illustrated Encyclopedia by I. Mosin consists of short biographies of artists, collectors and critics. Information from various information sites was also used.
The history of the creation of the Hermitage collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings
In a brief reference, it is difficult to characterize the exceptional richness and diversity of the Hermitage's collection of works of French art. It covers a huge, almost five hundred year period, from the early monuments of the French Renaissance to paintings by artists of the 20th century. The excellent creations of outstanding painters and sculptors clearly characterize various styles and artistic trends, all the main stages in the development of the fine arts of France. Tapestries, fabrics, lace, artistic furniture, faience and porcelain, items made of silver, gold and bronze - all this unusually rich complex of applied art monuments gives a broad idea of the country's culture, helps to correctly understand the interaction of various types of art. The exhibition "The Art of France of the 15th - early 20th centuries", occupying 39 halls, is the largest in the world outside of France itself. In a sequential inspection, it should be borne in mind that the first half of the exposition, dedicated to the art of the 15th - 18th centuries, is located in the halls of the second floor, and the works of the 19th - early 20th centuries. located on the third floor.
The works of Impressionist artists occupy a very significant place in the exhibition (rooms 107, 108). Outstanding painters of this trend - Monet, Pissarro, Sisley, Renoir - are represented by many first-class paintings. Protesting against the routine and falsity of salon-academic art, the Impressionists turned to the direct depiction of the surrounding world. Working only from nature, most often in the open air, in their rural and urban landscapes, scenes of everyday life and portraits, they sought to capture the incessant malleability and variability of nature, excellently conveyed the air environment, sunlight and the subtlest changes in color relationships. The coloristic freshness of the Impressionist paintings, painted in rich and pure tones, colored transparent shadows and many newly developed painting techniques that accurately and correctly convey optical perception, was a valuable contribution that enriched and expanded the possibilities of painting. However, the exclusive focus only on the color perception of the world, the refusal to disclose the semantic side and the ideological significance of various life phenomena soon led the Impressionists to the internal unification of the images they created. It is no coincidence that the methods of impressionism were insufficient for a deep psychological disclosure of a person's individuality, showing events of the greatest social significance. In the art of the Impressionists, there is almost no plot painting that poses significant social, ethical or moral themes, despite the exceptional acuteness of the social conflicts of their time.
In the artistic views of the masters of the next generation, subjectivist tendencies were further developed and led to the formalistic searches of artists of the 20th century. It should be noted that the Hermitage collection of works by Cezanne, Gauguin, Marquet, Bonnard, Matisse, Picasso and other masters of the late 19th – first half of the 20th century. so extensive that it can fairly be attributed to the best world collections, even taking into account those available in France itself.
Moscow merchants and entrepreneurs Sergei, Peter and Dmitry Shchukin, Ivan and Mikhail Morozov, who made their own collections of the Impressionists and their successors, have special merit in collecting works of world art. S.I. Shchukin, on the basis of his collection, in 1909 opened a public, free for visitors art gallery in B. Znamensky Lane near the Arbat, in the former palace of Prince Trubetskoy, which was bought by his father from ruined aristocrats.
Sergei Ivanovich Shchukin (1854-1936) graduated from a commercial academy in Germany and in 1890 became the head of a family business, the Ivan Shchukin and Sons Trading House. This talented and energetic entrepreneur was nicknamed "porcupine" by his partners for his stubbornness in trade deals. After his marriage, Shchukin settled in Bolshoy Znamensky Lane, in a mansion known in Moscow as the former palace of the Trubetskoy princes. Artists, musicians, and actors have always been welcome guests in the Shchukins' house. The collection of S.I. Shchukin was created in 1898-1918. and went through a series of stages, when collections of works by the Impressionists, Post-Impressionists, Fauves, the Nabis group, and Cubists were acquired successively. However, a number of paintings were bought as soon as they appeared at the Parisian marchants, dealers in paintings (as a rule, great connoisseurs of art).
Shchukin laid the foundation for his famous collection in the 1990s. XIX century., When he became interested in modern Western painting. He often visited Paris and on one of his visits he bought the work of the French impressionist Claude Monet "Lilacs in the Sun". The first painting by Monet, which ended up in Russia, made a huge impression on connoisseurs-professionals - Moscow painters. However, the general public, not only in Russia, but also in the homeland of impressionism, in France, did not yet understand, and sometimes did not want to understand such painting. Shchukin, possessing a subtle flair, was able to predict what role the Impressionists would play in the history of art.
Soon, the collection of the Russian philanthropist included paintings that have now become classics: “Portrait of Jeanne Samary” and “Girl in Black” by Auguste Renoir, “Haystack” and “Capuchin Boulevard” by Claude Monet, paintings by Camille Pissarro, Edgar Degas. From 1903-1904 Shchukin began to collect works by Paul Cezanne, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, which attracted the collector with their unusualness. He himself said: "If, after seeing a picture, you experience a psychological shock, buy it."
With the work of Henri Matisse, Shchukin first met in 1905 at an exhibition in Paris and since then has remained a constant buyer of his paintings. In 1910, Matisse completed two picturesque panels for Shchukin's mansion - "Music" and "Dance", and in 1911 the artist came to Moscow.
In 1908, Shchukin made a will, according to which his entire richest collection became the property of the city. By the time of the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, Shchukin's unique collection consisted of 225 works and gave a complete picture of the development of French painting, from the 1870s to cubism. Shchukin directly ordered decorative panels for his home from such masters as Bonnard, Villard and Matisse.
