Masterpieces from the Hermitage, Leningrad

It is with great pleasure that the Hermitage takes part once again in an exhibition with Australian galleries.

In the period 1978 to 1980 the Hermitage, together with the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts (Moscow), the Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow) and the Russian Museum (Leningrad) sent two exhibitions of paintings and drawings to Melbourne and Sydney. These enjoyed great success, as did the reciprocal exhibition of Western European and Australian art presented by Australian galleries.

In response to the wishes of the organisers in Australia – the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the National Gallery of Victoria – this exhibition from the Hermitage collection entitled Masterpieces of Western European Art of the 15th-20th Centuries has a single theme – ‘The Human Figure in Art’.

The exhibition consists of 30 paintings and 30 drawings by well-known masters. Occupying a special place among them are works by painters of the Italian Renaissance, an age in which a new, truly humanistic conception of art emerged. Interest in the human character which distinguishes this period can be seen in the interpretation of traditional religious themes (Botticelli, Francia, Pontormo), in the return to themes of antiquity (Bordone), and especially in the portraits (Palma il Vecchio, Lotto, Correggio). The glorious flowering of painting in the seventeenth century and the diversity of styles of the masters belonging to leading European schools are represented in the works of Rubens, Van Dyck, Poussin, Lorrain, Hals, Velázquez and Ribera. In the eighteenth century national distinctions disappear to a large extent, and the works of Lancret, Greuze and Reynolds, while all highly individual, are noted for the obvious similarity in their styles.

The celebrated Hermitage collection of French painting of the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries may be seen in the canvases of Claude Monet, Renoir, Cezanne, Gauguin, Matisse and Picasso. The graphic works of masters of the fifteenth-eighteenth centuries form a separate part of the exhibition and include masterpieces by Ercole de’Roberti, Dürer, Pierre Dumonstier, Rubens and Rembrandt.

We hope that this exhibition, chosen with such care by staff at the Hermitage, will arouse the interest of Australian art-lovers and serve to further strengthen the ties of friendship between Australian galleries and museums of the Soviet Union. The possibilities are exciting and could bring positive results.

Sourced from: Boris Piotrovsky et al., Masterpieces from the Hermitage, Leningrad: Western European Art of the 15th – 20th Centuries, International Cultural Corporation of Australia Limited, 1988, p.4