MOSCOW DAY 3, PUSHKIN MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS

 

 On day 3 we went to the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts.  Violetta masterfully presented a sampling of the museum's collection, which includes the largest collection of European Art outside the Hermitage.

Pushkin is the father of Russian literature, and by extension, Russian art.  He was the first Russian to write about Russia.  Before Pushkin the only books were foreign, mostly from France.  He is a major figure, even today.  So even though he was a writer, it is only natural that the foremost art museum in Moscow is named for him.   

 We started with the large rooms of plaster casts of great European sculpture, a practice commonly used in the 18th and 19th centuries to allow people from distant countries to see and appreciate masterworks.  The tsars used the casts to allow students to study and learn without making the trek to western Europe. 

 Perhaps you recognize this bad boy?

 

A highlight of the collection is Schliemann's Gold.  The Pushkin Museum is still a main depositary of a gold hoard removed from Troy by the German archaeologist, Heinrich Schliemann.  He smuggled it out of Turkey to Berlin, claiming later he was protecting it from corrupt officials.  It was later taken by the Soviet Army  from the Pergamon Museum in Berlin to Russia.  Its ownership is still in dispute today. 

 

In addition to the gold, the ancient world is represented by Hittite and Egyptian artifacts and art.

 The European collection, including works by Russian artists, is quite impressive.  This is a Rembrandt, Ahasveros and Haman at the Feast of Esther, which was acquired by Catherine the Great in a lot of some 320 works that had been destined for the King of Sweden, who had fallen on hard times after some unsuccessful military campaigns.  This photo does not do the piece justice; a better one is in Wikipedia. 

We left the first building of the museum, to catch our breath at a brief lunch in the cafe of the second building.

Again, the collection was impressive, particularly of impressionists.  Even though many of the artists are well know to us, the works we saw here were not, perhaps because they do not travel for exhibitions outside Russia as many others do.

This sculpture interested me because I noticed it is by Meissonier, a rock star among artists at the time the impressionists challenged the French Salon.  His life and work are profiled in an interesting book comparing the classic and impressionist arts in Paris, The Judgment of Paris. 

This is Van Gogh's Red Vineyards Near Arles, the only painting he sold in his lifetime

Up close and personal.

A Pissaro....

As usual, yours truly is often as interested in the buildings and rooms as in the art itself.  These fixtures were particularly lovely.  I'm planning a retrospective chandelier post when the travelogue is done....

Matisse, anyone?

And what happens after a day filled with art?  A trip on the famous Moscow metro....