Hermitage
I visited the original Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg in 2011, and was, like a million tourists before me, overwhelmed by the avalanche of riches in its collection.
But I hadn’t realised that the Hermitage has spawned mini-Hermitages across the planet, the first of which being the one in Amsterdam. 2019 is its 10th birthday, and they are celebrating with what is honestly one of the most wonderful art exhibitions I’ve ever seen.
The Treasury! Exhibition is built around pairings of artworks. Each display featured two different but somehow similar artworks. One pairing was two 16th century paintings of the Madonna with Child, one by a Catholic artist, the other by a Protestant. In light of the different theologies on the divinity of the Madonna, viewers were invited to contemplate how Mary was depicted.
Another featured two warhorses in full armour, one from 3rd century Mongolia and one from 16th century Turkey, and viewers could consider the evolution from simple leather to ornate steel. Other pairings celebrated swans, or St George, or breakfast, inviting viewers to compare and contrast what very different artists wanted to say about the same thing.
This could only have been achieved by an institution as mind-bogglingly wealthy as the Hermitage. Only they can afford to downplay the fact that one of the paired works on the subject of nudes is by Leonardo da Vinci. Oh, and the other one is a Matisse. I also remember my dawning astonishment as I realised that one of a pair of panthers, a football-sized gold 7th century Siberian carving intended to decorate the quiver of an archer, was actually made of solid gold, and was worth millions of dollars just in the metal alone.
But one of the most interesting items, sitting all by itself not paired with anything, was a little carved blob of limestone that looked like a fertility goddess, if you squinted enough. It was fairly unimpressive, until you discover that it’s twenty five thousand years old.
It’s staggering. That’s older than a thousand Justin Beibers… which doesn’t really bear thinking about.
But I hadn’t realised that the Hermitage has spawned mini-Hermitages across the planet, the first of which being the one in Amsterdam. 2019 is its 10th birthday, and they are celebrating with what is honestly one of the most wonderful art exhibitions I’ve ever seen.
The Treasury! Exhibition is built around pairings of artworks. Each display featured two different but somehow similar artworks. One pairing was two 16th century paintings of the Madonna with Child, one by a Catholic artist, the other by a Protestant. In light of the different theologies on the divinity of the Madonna, viewers were invited to contemplate how Mary was depicted.
Another featured two warhorses in full armour, one from 3rd century Mongolia and one from 16th century Turkey, and viewers could consider the evolution from simple leather to ornate steel. Other pairings celebrated swans, or St George, or breakfast, inviting viewers to compare and contrast what very different artists wanted to say about the same thing.
This could only have been achieved by an institution as mind-bogglingly wealthy as the Hermitage. Only they can afford to downplay the fact that one of the paired works on the subject of nudes is by Leonardo da Vinci. Oh, and the other one is a Matisse. I also remember my dawning astonishment as I realised that one of a pair of panthers, a football-sized gold 7th century Siberian carving intended to decorate the quiver of an archer, was actually made of solid gold, and was worth millions of dollars just in the metal alone.
But one of the most interesting items, sitting all by itself not paired with anything, was a little carved blob of limestone that looked like a fertility goddess, if you squinted enough. It was fairly unimpressive, until you discover that it’s twenty five thousand years old.
It’s staggering. That’s older than a thousand Justin Beibers… which doesn’t really bear thinking about.
posted by Blandwagon at 8:51 PM
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