Be the Impressionists at the Hermitage

[Кирилл Сызранский]

When a straight line with the president director of Moscow's Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts Irina Antonova asked Vladimir Putin to recreate the State Museum of New Western Art.

The famous collection of French painting of the late XIX - early XX century, collected Moscow merchants Morozov and Shchukin, until 1948 formed a separate museum, and then was distributed by the decision of the Communist leadership between the Hermitage and the State Museum of Fine Arts. Pushkin. Opened in 1956, the third floor of the Hermitage exhibition devoted to the Impressionists - one of the main sights of St. Petersburg.

The presence of this collection in the Hermitage has had a tremendous impact on the development of art in Saint Petersburg the second half of the XX century.
Moving this collection would be a tragedy for the city.

In the past century Russia experienced a revolution, nationalization, war, change of capital. After 1945, the Soviet museums and libraries received a lot of "trophy" artifacts. Return to a state of almost fifty years ago is to begin the process of endless, unstoppable overflowing art treasures from city to city, from country to country.

It is known that most of the collections of provincial museums are formed on the basis of the vaults of the Hermitage, the Russian Museum and the Tretyakov Gallery. What prevents them back? The issue of restitution arises in respect of pre-revolutionary owners and collectors. Why not return the collection Shchukin and Morozov their descendants - let them decide their fate, give to the Orsay Museum and the Tate Gallery. Proposal Irina Antonova - a dangerous precedent, leading to chaos.

In Soviet times, cultural values ​​moved mostly not from Moscow to Leningrad and Leningrad and Moscow. In the new capital, sent the Academy of Sciences, archival collections, formed the three major storage, a large part of the collections of museums Guards regiment, a significant part of the collection of the State Hermitage Museum. Therefore, if established by order of the President of the Commission will decide transported to another part of the collections of Moscow Shchukin-Morozov, naturally it would consider returning to the banks of the Neva River that was given to Moscow.

For our city disappearance of original Renoir, Matisse and Picasso is equivalent to the transfer of the first capital of the Bronze Horseman, the Rostral columns and tombs of the emperors. It irreparable blow to the city's culture and historical memory of the people living in it.

Please suspend the work of the commission and do not consider the question posed by Ms. Antonova as obviously absurd.

Добавлено через 6 минут
Began collecting signatures asking them not to pass Impressionist paintings from the collection of the Hermitage :
To:
Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation Vladimir Medinsky Rostislavovich

I ask you not to allow the transfer of the Morozov - Shchukin collection of the Hermitage in Moscow ...

same[/URL] can this petition and sign it.