Customer Reviews

French Art Treasures at the Hermitage

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I have had the pleasure of visiting the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia. If you ever have the chance to go, I highly recommend it. I spent three wonderful days in the Hermitage and would have been content going back every day for the rest of my vacation. Although some museums surpass the Hermitage in their collections (surprisingly few), none has fewer visitors per masterpiece. It was not unusual to be alone in a room of Van Goghs for 30 minutes at a time. The lightly guarded museum does not even have a security guard in every room. So the experience of the museum is a wonderfully intimate one.

If you never go to St. Petersburg, you must get and read this outstanding work about the French art from 1860 to 1950. Most of these works do not travel very much, so you won't see them otherwise. That would be a terrible shame, because many significant works, especially the Matisses and Gauguins, from this period are in the collection.

How did such a great French art collection find its way to Russia? That's an interesting story, and the book begins with a long essay about that. Although the Czar and the nobility had always collected art, this period of French art was not very appealing to them. A new merchant class had grown up, and they embraced advanced art from France (beyond the salon portraits the nobles commissioned) that became known as Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. After the Communists firmed up their hold on Russia, museums were consolidated and private collections were expropriated. You will enjoy seeing black and white photographs from the many private museums that these business people sponsored. The Shchukin and Morozov collections form an important base for this collection, as well as having provided important support for these French artists before they were well established.

In most art books, not enough of the reproductions are in color. This book is the exception. The reproductions are essentially all in color. There are 433 of them in color. They are also done in large sizes in many cases, which makes it easier to appreciate them.

The Hermitage is particularly rich is works by Matisse and Picasso, and these are presented in depth in this book. You will also find lots of Monet, Renoir, Cezanne, Gauguin, Degas, Van Gogh, Rodin, and Bartholome. Outstanding examples of works by lesser known artists round out the collection in a way that will give you a different sense of the period than you get at the Musee D'Orsay or the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Albert Kostenevich is by far the world's authority on these works, as their primary curator for over 30 years. No one else has had nearly as much access or incentive to study them. He has written several fine, detailed essays that relate the works to each other and explain the works. In fact, this is better than going to the Hermitage because you would not have him at your side to explain things there.

And, naturally, if you have been to the Hermitage, this book makes a fabulous souvenir. Treat yourself today!

After enjoying this wonderful book, ask yourself, what other outstanding art collections have I not yet seen? Even if you cannot visit them, there may well be a book on the collection that you can order from Amazon.com!

Exceptional museum quality art book. Chance to see a wider range of the well-known and be introduced to some less well-known. A book of this quality I would put at a $100 value.