Master and his Masterpieces. Works of West European Painting, Sculpture and Graphic Art from the Collection of the State Hermitage opened in the Irkutsk Regional Art Museum

On 23 August, 2011 the exhibition Master and his Masterpieces. Works of West European Painting, Sculpture and Graphic Art from the Collection of the State Hermitage opened in the Irkutsk Regional Art Museum after the name of V. P. Sukachov.

On the eve of the 350th anniversary of the city the State Hermitage presented in Irkutsk over 80 items of West-European fine art, among which there are 46 pieces of graphic art, 33 fine art paintings and 8 sculptures.

The exposition acquaints the observer with famous masters of Italy, Spain, Flanders, Holland, France, England and Germany. Among them there are great painters of the Renaissance – Michelangelo, Durer and Titian; famous representatives of the 17th “Golden Age” of painting – Murillo, Rubens, Rembrandt, van Dyck; a great master of the Italian Baroque sculptor Bernini and ingenious etcher Callot as well as establishers of “Grand maniere” (“Grand Style”) in France – Le Brun, Rigaud, Girardon; artists of the 18th century – the age of Rococo and emerging realistic trends and neoclassicism: painters Boucher, Chardin, Mengs, engraver Piranesi and sculptor Canova.

The presented works of painting and sculpture reflect the main stylistic trends and genre diversity of national schools. Each author, either the painter, sculptor or engraver appears not only in his creative originality – in the piece of work where his world is embodied but also personally – in the engraved portrait made either by his painted self-portrait or by the portrait of another master.

The gallery of self-portraits and portraits of painters, sculptors and engravers is extremely large. Beginning with the 16th century the engraved portrait as a kind of mass-produced art provided publicity, justified the prestige of the depicted person, and stimulated interest to him. Whereas the portrait of an artist corresponded to a rather free way of depicting, subordinate to a particular type of a private portrait which includes pictures of scientists, literary men, musicians, depicted with informal privacy and incomparably wider range of stylistic possibilities. Often it is so called psychological portrait one of the main distinguished features of which is its emotional tone. Such portraits are often are enriched with attributes, corresponding the occupation of the model. The image of an architect is usually accompanied with dividers, triangle, a scroll with the layout of a building, a painter – with a pallet with brushes and an easel, an engraver – with a graver and a printing block.

This exposition is an exhibition of portrait it its wide sense as every piece of work to which the artist gives his efforts in itself is to a certain degree the portrait of his soul. But the portrait as a genre in particular is the main subject of the exhibition: its peculiarities, its evolution over a period of three centuries, a place of the portrait of an artist himself among the portraits of his contemporaries.

The preserved data on the life of artists is also valuable. A visitor of the exhibition will find detailed biographies, characterizing each master fully and from different sides in the catalogue abstracts to the portraits of artists.

Exhibition Curators are Irina Yetoeva, Research Assistant of the Department of Western European Art and Niyole Masyulionite, Senior Research Assistant of the Department of the Western European Art of the State Hermitage.

For the exhibition a scientific illustrated catalogue with an introduction of Director of the State hermitage Mikhail Piotrovsky as well as scientific articles of specialists of the Department of the western European Fine Art of the State Hermitage was prepared.

More

At the press conference to the opening of the exhibition

V. I. Kutischeva, minister of culture and archives of the Irkutsk Oblast

E. S. Zubriy, director of the Irkutsk Regional Art Museum after the name of V. P. Sukachov

V. Yu. Matveev, Deputy Director of the State Hermitage, and A. N. Sokurov at the opening ceremony

At the opening of the exhibition

First visitors

Concert during the opening ceremony