The Tretyakov Art Gallery

One of the best traditions in Russia was investing in culture by those whose activity was in some other field.

Pavel Tretyakov and his brother Sergei were Russian merchants. They had some factories and were successful in their trade. Collecting of paintings was Pavel’s hobby. Being a well-to-do merchant he decided to found a national gallery for Russian people.

Tretyakov was very strict in selecting pictures. Thus, old paintings and icons were the subject of his collection. He began to buy pictures from the Peredvizhniki and in the 80s he supported the young generation of artists. They were Levitan, Serov, Korovin, Nesterov.

In 1892 Pavel Tretyakov opened his museums to broad public. There are 30 halls in this Gallery. The first Hall is devoted to Andrey Rublev. His “St.Trinity” is famous all over the world. There are a lot of portraits in the Gallery. One of them is the portrait of Lopukhina by Borovikovsky. It attracts everybody’s attention. She is a charming woman and Borovikovsky saved her beauty for ever. The portraits of Leo Tolstoy, Nekrasov and an “Unknown woman” by Kramskoy attract everybody’s attention too. Levitan was famous for his landscapes. Being fond of Russian nature he reproduced it in his painting well-known and dear to everybody. Kuindzi, Aivazovski and Levitan founded a school of realistic landscape painting.

Another hall and another famous artist Ivanov and his picture “Appearance of the Christ before people”. Look at this picture attentively and you’ll see different faces and different characters: wise and stupid, kind and cunning (хитрый).

Valentin Serov in his childhood was taught by Repin. Then Levitan, Surikov and Vrubel taught him the technique of colours, the value of responding (откликаться) to a personal emotional experience. He became a very famous artist. His paintings “Girl in Sunlight”, “Girl with Peaches” made him known in the world.

Surikov is represented in the Tretyakov Gallery by his “Boiarinia Morosova” and “Menshikov at Beriozov”. “Morning of the Executing of the Streltsy”. He had a very deep interest in the history of Russia and is considered to be a historical artist.

Go through the halls of the Gallery and you’ll understand the soul of Russian people better.

Exercises

1. Suggest the Russian for:

merchant, successful, well-to-do, strict, thus, support, generation, icon, artist, broad public, to devote, broad public, attract, attention, charming, save, forever, landscape, reproduce, painting, attentively, different, wise, stupid, kind, cunning, paintings, to consider, soul.

2. Suggest the English for:

деятельность, другая сфера, дела в торговле шли успешно, строг в выборе картин, таким образом, предмет его коллекции, оказывать поддержку молодому поколению, широкая общественность, посвящен, привлечь всеобщее внимание, очаровательная женщина, навсегда, «Неизвестная», известен своими пейзажами, воспроизводить это в картинах, создать школу художественного реалистического пейзажа, «Явление Христа народу», внимательно, обучать технике цвета, важность обращения к личному эмоциональному опыту, картины, «Девушка в солнечном цвете», «Девочка с персиками», представлен, «Утро стрелецкой казни», считается художником-реалистом, «Троица».