Музеи мира - World museums

World Museums

The British Museum (Great Britain)

London is a city rich in museums. There's museums full of toys, furniture,

wax people, antique furniture, in fact, something for practically every

taste. It's hard to see them all, even if you're here for a very long time,

so picking which museums to see can sometimes be quite difficult. Still for

most visitors, The British Museum always ranks as one of London's most

popular.

The British Museum had it's origins back in 1753 when the government was

given various collections by a famous physician, Sir Hans Soane. The

museum's collections have grown through the years and the present building

was erected in the early 1830s. Until last year, the British Museum shared

it's location with The British Library, which among other important tasks,

houses a copy of every book published in Britain since 1911 (required by

law!), and the buildings of the former Library are in the process of being

converted into a new visitor's centre for the Museum. The Museum is one of

the few quality tourist sites in London that is also still free to the

public. This may change in the very near future though, and any donations

are gratefully accepted as you enter.

The Louvre (France)

The Louvre is situated between the rue de Rivoli and the Seine. It is the

most important public building in Paris and one of the largest and most

magnificent palaces in the world,the construction of which extended over

three centuries. However, its great architectural and historical interest

is sometimes overshadowed by the popularity of the art-collection which it

contains. It became a national art gallery and museum since 1793.

Probably one of the most important painting that it contains is the

Mona Lisa. Over four century old, it still fascinates hundreds of visitors.

As Michelet wrote: "This canvas attracts me, calls me, invades me, absorbs

me. I go to it in spite of myself, like a bird to a snake".

The National Gallery of art (USA)

The National Gallery of Art was created in 1937 for the people of the

United States of America by a joint resolution of Congress, accepting the

gift of financier and art collector Andrew W. Mellon. During the 1920s, Mr.

Mellon began collecting with the intention of forming a gallery of art for

the nation in Washington. In 1937, the year of his death, he promised his

collection to the United States. Funds for the construction of the West

Building were provided by The A. W. Mellon Educational and Charitable

Trust. On March 17, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt accepted the

completed building and the collections on behalf of the people of the

United States of America.

The paintings and works of sculpture given by Andrew Mellon have formed a

nucleus of high quality around which the collections have grown. Mr.

Mellon's hope that the newly created National Gallery would attract gifts

from other collectors was soon realized in the form of major donations of

art from Samuel H. Kress, Rush H. Kress, Joseph Widener, Chester Dale,

Ailsa Mellon Bruce, Lessing J. Rosenwald, and Edgar William and Bernice

Chrysler Garbisch as well as individual gifts from hundreds of other

donors.

The Gallery's East Building, located on land set aside in the original

Congressional resolution, was opened in 1978. It accommodates the Gallery's

growing collections and expanded exhibition schedule and houses an advanced

research center, administrative offices, a great library, and a burgeoning

collection of drawings and prints. The building was accepted for the nation

on June 1, 1978, by President Jimmy Carter. Funds for construction were

given by Paul Mellon and the late Ailsa Mellon Bruce, the son and daughter

of the founder, and by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

The Collectors Committee, an advisory group of private citizens, has made

it possible to acquire paintings and sculpture of the twentieth century.

Key works of art have also come to the Gallery through the Patrons'

Permanent Fund. In addition, members of the Circle of the National Gallery

of Art have provided funds for many special programs and projects.

The Vasa Museum (Sweden)

The Vasa Museum is Scandinavia's most visited museum, located in Stockholm,

capital of Sweden.

The Museum was inaugurated in 1990. In the large shiphall stands the

warship Vasa - the only remaining, intact 17th century ship in the world.

The lower rig has been rebuilt, complete with masts, stays and shrouds.

Just like the Vasa would have looked like when set for winter in harbour.

The wreck, salvaged in 1961, is now once again a complete ship.

Surrounding the ship are several permanent exhibitions, cinemas, a shop and

a restaurant.

The Hunterian Museum (Scotland)

The Hunterian Museum was built on the grounds of the University of Glasgow

which lay then on Glasgow's High Street. Opened to the public in 1807, it

is thus the oldest public museum in Scotland. In 1870 the Museum was

transferred, along with the rest of the University, to its present home at

Gilmorehill in the western suburbs of the city.

The collections have grown enormously since Hunter's time. At first they

were all housed together, but gradually sections were dispersed to

appropriate University teaching departments. In 1980 the art collection was

transferred to a purpose-built Art Gallery.

The Archaeological museum at Olympia (Greece)

One of the most important archaeological museums in Greece. It hosts in its

collection artefacts from the sanctuary of Olympian Zeus, in Olympia, where

the ancient Olympic Games were born and hosted.

The new museum was constructed in 1975, and eventually opened in 1982, re-

exhibiting its treasures. The architect of the museum was Patrocolos

Karadinos.

Museo Del Prado (Spain)

The Prado Museum is a neo-Classical building by the Architect Juan de

Villanueva, the construction of which began in the year 1785. It was

conceived of as a museum and natural history room forming part of a

building complex dedicated to the study of science, as planned under the

reign of Charles III and within the scope of the urban reform that took

place on the Paseo del Prado (previously named Salon del Prado), which also

embellished with various monumental fountains (Cybele, Apollo and Neptune).

It was established in 1819 as the "Royal Museum of Painting and Sculpture"

by King Ferdinand VII, with pieces from the royal collections amassed by

earlier Spanish Monarchs, his forebears. At the end of the 19th century,

the Museum -by then national in scope- received works from another museums,

then called the Trinity, that were of a ecclesiastic nature and which had

been expropriated under laws governing the depreciation of ecclesiastic

assets. From the time of the creation and merger of the two museums many

other works of art have been added to the Prado through donations, legacies

and acquisitions.

Only a tenth of the museum's artistic holdings are actually on display in

its two buildings, the Villanueva building and the Casуn del Buen Retiro.

The remainder is held in other places, museums, institutions and Government

buildings or in storage at specially conditioned sites within the two

museum buildings.

The large museum collections fundamentally include paintings. However,

there is a valuable collection of sculptures, drawings, furniture, luxury

art, coins and medallions that cannot be permanently displayed due to the

lack of space.

The painting collection (12th to 20th century) is displayed as followed: up

to the 18th century and Goyas work is in the Villanueva building, and the

19th and 20th centuries' work in the nearby Casуn del Buen Retiro.

The fundamental painting collections belong to the Spanish schools -the

best represented- and the Italian and Flemish schools. The French, Dutch

and German schools, through numerically less represented, are not unworthy

of mention vis-a-vis their quality. Two halls are expressly reserved for

sculpture, but sculptural pieces are scattered throughout the different

halls in both museum buildings. All decorative art is on display in what is

known as the Dauphin's Treasure.

Uffizi Gallery (Italy)

The construction of the Uffizi palace began in 1560, when the Duke Cosimo I

dei Medici decided to build a special seat for the offices (hence the name

"uffizi") of the thirteen magistracies, that is for the administrative

center of the Florentine State. Cosimo I commissioned the project of the

building to Giorgio Vasari, painter and architect at the Medici court, who

realized one of the most famous architectural masterwork of Florentine

Mannerism. Stretching from the Signoria Palace to the river Arno the

costruction posed difficult technical problems since the foundations were

quite over the river; Vasari had to include into the building the ancient

church of San Pier Scheraggio and the ancient Zecca (near the Orcagna

Loggias). When in 1574 Vasari and Cosimo I died, the Uffizi were not yet

completed: Francesco I, son of Cosimo I, succeeded his father, Bernardo

Buontalenti succeeded Vasari in supervision of construction; in 1581 the

building was terminated. Some years before at the first floor the offices

of the thirteen magistracies had been installed: everyone of these had a

beautiful entrance door in the portico at the ground floor. A man of

peculiar intelligence, Francesco I (1541-1587) had a profound interest for

science, alchemy and art; in 1581 he decided to give a nearly private

arrangement to the second floor of the Uffizi. In the west wing he set

laboratories where specialized artisans worked jewels and precious stones,

perfumes were distilled, new medecines were experimented; in the east wing

he placed ancient sculptures of medicean collection: shortly afterwards in

this side of the building Buontalenti started to erect the Tribune.

Francesco's successors increased more and more the medicean collection with

new acquisitions of paintings, sculptures, precious and rare object in

general; they were set not only at the Uffizi but also at Pitti Palace or

in other medicean palaces. The continuing growth of the granducal

collections in 17th century enriched the Uffizi: new rooms of the second

floor were arranged to display masterworks as in a museum and in the

meanwhile the Gallery could be visited on request by Florentine or foreign

persons. For this the Uffizi can be considered the first kind of modern

museum of the history. In 1737, with the death of Gian Gastone (born in

1671) the Medici dynasty ended and the family of Lorraine ascended the

throne of Tuscany. The last descendant of Medici family, the Palatine

Electrix Anna Maria Luisa, sister of Gian Gastone, made an important

agreement that secured for ever the city of Florence all the medicean art

treasures. It was so eliminated any risk of dispersion of this artistic

patrimony unique in the world. The Lorraine family, from Pietro Leopoldo to

Leopoldo II, enriched the whole collection, increasing it with important

masterpieces: many paintings and several hundred of drawings were bought,

many Florentine pictures were transferred to the Uffizi from Tuscan

monastries, after suppression of religious orders during the 19th century.

In 1860 at the formation of the Kingdom of Italy the Medici-Lorraine

collections became public property to all effects and purposes. At the end

of the 19th century a new arrangement of the Gallery caused the destruction

of the wonderful Medici Theatre, to make way to the first rooms of the east

corridor, before the Tribune

. In 1989 the State Archive that occupied the first floor of the Uffizi,

has been transferred in the new seat of Piazza Beccaria: the first floor

will be indeed arranged to double the Gallery's area, as planned in the

Nuovi Uffizi project. The first six rooms of this floor have beeen recently

restored; all the other rooms soon will be added to them, to make way to

the exhibition of many masterworks now conserved in the warehouses and

realize new arrangements for all needs of a museum of such importance.

The Museum of The Romanian Peasant

The Museum of The Romanian Peasant is part of the large family of European

Museums for Folk Arts and Traditions. It is a National Museum, functionning

under patronage of the Ministry of Culture. Owner of an impressive

collection of objects, even if otherwise poor - as far as the financial

means necessary to capitalize this collection are minimum -, placed in a

historical monument building, (new Romanian style), whose restauration

costs exceed by far the budget allocated by the Ministry of Culture, The

Museum of The Romanian Peasant in spite of all these, has managed to put in

practice a special type of muzeology. The original poetics developped in

relation to the object was certain one of the reason why the Museum was

awarded the EMYA - European Museum of the Year Award. One of the other

reasons, of equal importance, was the very assuming of the poverty; the

personalized style of display in the halls has a certain number of

extensions which sometime happen to go beyond the door of the Museum: that

is, not only openings, concerts and conferences, but also publications and

unconventional ideas, like the Missionary Museum or the Village School, for

instance.

The Hunt Museum

The Hunt Collection is an internationally important collection of original

works of art and antiquities. It is a personal one, formed by a couple who

judged each piece that they collected according to the standard of its

design, craftsmanship and artistic merit. These criteria they applied to

objects of all ages - from the Neolithic to the twentieth century.

One of the strengths of the Hunt Collection is its medieval material. Its

range covers objects commissioned and used by both ecclesiastical and lay

patrons, and includes statues in stone, bronze and wood, crucifixes, panel

paintings, metalwork, jewellery, enamels, ceramics and crystal. The

importance of the collection is such that some items are currently on loan

to the British Museum and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, while

others have been shown in international exhibitions.

The links between the Hunt collection and other museums can be illustrated

by the fact that one fragment of the Beaufort, late 14th century armorial

tapestry, is on display in the Hunt Museum in Limerick, while other

fragments of the same tapestry are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New

York; the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the

Burrell Collection, Glasgow.

Besides the medieval, there is a wealth of other material ranging from

Egyptian, Greek and Roman items through to the 19th century metalwork and

ceramics. There is also an important collection of Irish archaeological

material ranging from Neolithic flints, through Bronze Age gold, the unique

8th century Antrim Cross, hand pins, pennanular brooches, down to penal

crucifixes of the 18th and 19th century. Irish decorative arts are

represented too in a range of items including Irish delft, Belleek

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