Today in the Exhibition Center "Hermitage Amsterdam" opens the exhibition, which presented 76 works of art of one of the world's finest collections of French painting of the early XX century

Today, March 6, at the Exhibition Center "Hermitage Amsterdam" opens the exhibition "From Matisse to Malevich. The pioneers of modern art from the Hermitage, which presented 76 works of art of one of the world's finest collections of French painting of the early XX century.

In the Netherlands, such a large collection of masterpieces of the new art is exhibited for the first time. The exhibition is devoted to the emergence of modernism as a cultural-historical phenomenon, and especially emphasizes the continued importance of masters, who at the beginning of last century, at the moment, the most important for the history of art, a revolution in painting. Along with works by the great French masters - Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Kees van Dongen, Maurice de Vlaminck, presented the work of famous Russian contemporaries, such as Kazimir Malevich and Wassily Kandinsky . Almost all of these works - from the permanent exhibition of the State Hermitage Museum, located in the Winter Palace. Most of the paintings originally in the private collections of SI Shchukin and Ivan Morozov, Moscow.

• Henri Matisse The Red Room. 1908
  Oil on canvas
• Henri Matisse Game balls. 1908
  Oil on canvas

Shchukin and Morozov

first stone of a large collection of French painting of the early XX century came to an eminent Russian collector Sergei Ivanovich Shchukin (1854-1936) and Ivan Abramovich Morozov (1871-1921) - the entrepreneurs associated with production and trade in textiles. They brought the French art in Russia, which had a significant impact on the development of native art. Sergei Shchukin was an outstanding collector of his time: he bought 51 works by Pablo Picasso, and 37 paintings by Henri Matisse - more than anyone else. IA Morozov, and SI Shchukin bought just appeared the work of these artists and the beginning of XX century, dominated in the cultural life of Moscow. SI Shchukin made his collection open to all comers. Thus, the young Russian artists could learn about what was most relevant and new at the time in France. The outbreak of the First World War put an end to collecting activity. After the October Revolution of 1917, both collections were nationalized. In 1948, the State Museum of New Western Art in Moscow, which was formed on the basis of collections, has been abolished, and his collection was divided between the State Hermitage Museum in Leningrad and the State Museum of Fine Arts. Pushkin in Moscow. In the Hermitage collection was transferred about 80 works.

• Pablo Picasso The Absinthe Drinker. 1901
  Oil on canvas
• Pablo Picasso Dryad. 1908
  Oil on canvas

In one of the exhibition halls of the center of the Hermitage Amsterdam " Visitors will see the documentary about that era, recreating a complete picture of life both collectors, as well as their bold front collecting activities.

Pioneers of Modern Art

Matisse, Picasso, Derain, Vlaminck, Van Dongen, and many other artists sought to update the art, to release him and a copy of nature and of blind adherence to academic traditions. They formed the earliest avant-garde of the twentieth century, which arose in France as a reaction to Impressionism. These masters resorted to bright colors, intentional color contrast, sharp, rough brushwork, simplified forms, light and shade without halftones and smooth transitions. Henri Matisse was the center of a group of artists, known as Fauvism ( "wild"). The exhibition presents the best of his works - 12 paintings, among which we must first note the "Dance", "Red Room" and "The Game of balls. Complete exposition four sculptures by Matisse.

Works by Pablo Picasso is represented by twelve major works, among them "The Absinthe Drinker" and "farmer". Especially outstanding are such masterpieces of Cubism, as "Woman with a Fan", "Dryad" and "Factory". It is worth remembering that it was Picasso, all his life experimenting with new techniques, in 1907 laid the foundations of cubism.

• Wassily Kandinsky Winter landscape. 1909
  Oil on canvas
• Wassily Kandinsky Composition VI. 1913
  Oil on canvas

Wassily Kandinsky ( "Winter Landscape", "Composition VI ») early acquaintance with the French avant-garde painting. Color discoveries Matisse and his friends made a strong impression on him, but no less influenced by the music and Schoenberg. He heard the colors of music, and his colors sounded like music. Kazimir Malevich ( "Black Square") also belongs to the founders of abstract painting. The contradictions and ideological hesitations XX century, he brought to the geometric absolute.

The exhibition illustrated scholarly catalog "From Matisse to Malevich. The pioneers of modern art from the Hermitage, which introductory remarks by Mikhail Piotrovsky, director of the State Hermitage. Catalog compiled the State Hermitage - AG Kostenevich, NB Demina, Michail Dedinkin, and Henk van DCOM, under the general editorship of Kostenevich.

The exhibition runs until September 17, 2010.

Source: hermitagemuseum.org