Art, museums and galleries

People reflect their life in art. Real, live art appeals to the heart and mind of man, to his feelings and ideals and it proclaims life. Art is truthful only when it serves life, only when the artist hopes to arouse a warm response in the heart of man. This was the case in the days of Giotto and Raphael, this was the case in the subsequent stages of man's artistic development, and this is the truthful relationship of art and life in the day of Renato Guttuso and Rockwell Kent. Art belongs to the people. The history of art from the Renaissance to our days confirms this. An artist is a worthy son of his time if his art is addressed to the people, when it deals with life, when he welcomes the sunrise as a wonderful symbol of man's finest hopes. It is close contact with the life of his people that gives an artist's work its power. One can see masterpieces of old and modem art in various picture galleries and museums. There are nearly a thousand museums in Russia, many of them being world famous. The largest collection of Russian art is the Tretyakov Art Gallery in Moscow. It is a real treasury of canvases by prominent Russian painters. It contains priceless collections of icons, 17-20th centuries paintings and sculptures and contemporary Russian painting and sculpture. One of the largest and most remarkable museums of the world is the Hermitage, more than three hundred halls housing its exhibitions of articles of the greatest artistic value. The museum's collections now comprise work of various periods in the development of art, from ancient times up to the present day. Famous painters from different countries are represented there. The Russian Museum in St. Petersburg is another picture gallery which contains the richest collection of Russian paintings of 18-19th centuries and the best collection of Russian sculpture. In the Pushkin Museum of the Fine Arts in Moscow the art of the Ancient East and Western Europe is represented. This museum possesses a unique collection of copies of the finest sculptures of the old time. It is in this museum that many famous foreign expositions of the Fine Arts are displayed almost every year.