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Moscow is replete with art galleries and museums. Yet
there is one gallery that remains a symbol of Russian art. It is
the world-famous Tretyakov Gallery.
The founder of the gallery was the entrepreneur Pavel
Tretyakov (1832—1898), who was from the merchant class.
Beginning in 1856, Tretyakov had a hobby of collecting
works by the Russian artists of his time. He was a famous
patron of the arts who helped to support the "peredvizhniki"
(a movement consisting of realistic painters in the second
half of the 19th century). Toward this goal, he intended to
purchase a collection from a St. Petersburg collector, Fyodor
Pryanishnikov, and, having added his own collection, created
a museum. The government bought Pryanishnikov's gallery
in 1867, but Tretyakov gradually acquired an excellent
collection, exceeding all other collections in Russia in its volume
and quality.
In 1892, Pavel Tretyakov donated his entire collection to
Moscow. His brother Sergey Tretyakov (1834—1892) was
also a collector, but only of Western European paintings.
The brothers' collections were at ,the core of the Moscow
Municipal Art Gallery,which opened on August 15,1893.
At first, it contained 1,287 paintings and 518 pieces of graphic
art by Russian artists, as well as 75 paintings by Western
European artists.
Later, the Western European paintings in the Tretyakov
Gallery were transferred to the Hermitage and the A. S.
Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, and the Tretyakov Gallery
began to specialize exclusively in Russian art.
After 1918, the Tretyakov collection grew many times with
the inclusion of the collection of Ilya Ostroukhov (1858—
1929), an artist, paintings of the Russian school from the
Moscow Rumyantsev Museum, and many private collections.
Presently, the gallery is being improved by carefully planned
purchases. Already more than 55 thousand works are kept
there. There is the rich collection of ancient Russian icon
painting of the 12th—17th centuries including Andrei
Rublyov's famous "Trinity", as well as significant works of
painting and sculpture of the 18th — 19th centuries —
paintings by Dmitriy Levitskiy, Fyodor Rokotov, Karl Bryullov,
Orest Kiprenskiy, Alexander Ivanov (including his wellknown
canvas "The Appearance of Christ Before the People"),
Ivan Kramskoy, and sculptures by Fedot Shubin.
The gallery has an excellent selection of the best works by
the "peredvizhniki": Ilya Repin (including "Ivan the Terrible
and His Son Ivan"), Victor Vasnetsov, Ivan Shishkin, Vasiliy
Surikov ("The Morning of the Strelets Execution"), Vasiliy
Vereshchagin and others.
The blossoming of many areas of Russian art at the end
of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries is also
well represented.
Suffice it to name such artists of the period as Mikhail
Vrubel, Isaak Levitan, Nicholas Rerikh, Alexander Benua,
Mikhail Nesterov, Konstantin Korovin, Mstislav Dobuzhinskiy,
Konstantin Somov, Valentin Serov, Boris Kustodiev and Kuzma
Petrov-Vodkin. After the relatively short period of the 1910's—
1920's, new movements in art — futurism, cubism, etc. —
were quickly developed.
Such an artistic movement as socialist realism also produced
a number of talented and original artists. This trend is
represented by works of Alexander Deineka, Arkadiy Plastov,
Yuri Pimenov, Dmitriy Nalbandyan, and others.
The main building of the gallery includes the renovated
Tretyakov home and several buildings that were attached to it
at various times. The main facade of the building was erected
in 1902 according to plans by the artist Victor Vasnetsov.
In 1994, the Tretyakov Gallery opened after 10 years of
restoration. This was not just a facelift to the building; the
interior and technical equipment were brought up to the highest
standards of quality, which is as it should be, since it contains
so many treasures of Russian art.
Questions:
1. What gallery in Moscow is a symbol of Russian art?
2. Who was the founder of the gallery?
3. What did he make his hobby?
4. Whom did he support?
5. What did P. Tretyakov intend to do?
6. Who bought Pryanishnikov's gallery in 1867?
7. What did P. Tretyakov do with his collection in 1892?
8. His brother Sergey Tretyakov was a collector of Western
European paintings, wasn't he?
9. When was the Moscow Municipal Art Gallery opened?
10. What did it contain at first?
11. Where were the Western European paintings
transferred?
12. The Tretyakov collection grew many times after 1918,
lidn't it?
13. How is the gallery being improved now?
14. How many works are kept there now?
15. What collections are extremely rich and beautiful in
the gallery?
16. Are new art movements of the 1910's—1920's
represented in the gallery?
17. When was the main facade of the gallery erected?
According to whose plans was it erected?
18. When was the Tretyakov Gallery opened after 10 years
of restoration? What does its interior look like after the
restoration?
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