 | The Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg is hosting a permanent exhibition of French painting from the 19th and 20th century, many of the works bearing the signature of famous artists such as Degas, Monet, Pissarro, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, Matisse and many others. These varied works of art have been in private collections in the past, then presented in separate exhibitions in the Hermitage museum, only to be reunited in this splendid event. |
Most of these were hidden during the Second World War, in order to avoid destruction or confiscation, and after the conflagration were taken to the Soviet Union. It was only after 1950 that some of them were returned to Germany, from where they were initially taken. Other unique works of art were kept in the museum's repositories, and although they were kept in pristine conditions, their study or inclusion in exhibitions was forbidden. Only much later some of these hidden treasures were taken out of the repositories and slowly included in several exhibitions. |  |
The exhibition is more of an experiment, where several masterpieces, most of them rarely seen in exhibition, have been selected and put together with inteligence and talent, in order for the public to understand how these great masters worked and understood art.
Photo : hermitagemuseum.org
May 2007
