The Museum of Russian Art

The museum of Russian Art exhibits Russian art paintings. It’s amazing how they can turn a Spanish Colonial Revival style church into a three level Russian art exhibit. The church building with so much history fits nicely together with displays of Russian paintings. The main gallery I would say is the room where people in the past sat in rows of benches. The altar would be at the end of the room where there’s a big arch. The basement would be the lower level where the “Photography of the Tsar” is. The museum of Russian art is historically beautiful on the outside and inside.

The dates of a few artist paintings are more than a century old and most of the paintings are this century. Most of the Russian artist’s paintings are realism art. Almost all of them depict real people in real life.

The first art I chose in the Russkiy Salon on the main gallery is the painting “Sunday In The Village” by Nikolai Dmitrievich Dmitriev-Orenburgsky made in 1884. He painted using oil on canvas. I like this painting because the painting shows what ordinary people do on a normal Sunday in the country. He paints adults dancing by a man playing an accordion, children and adults watching, a woman breastfeeding, homes in the background, and a church. When I look at the painting it looks real as if I was there watching these people have fun. If you look closely at the painting it is very detailed in the faces of people and their clothing. I like this artist because he is very talented visually and detailed.

The second art I chose in the Mezzanine gallery is “A Day in Autumn” by the artist Aleksei Mikhailovich Gritsai made in 1995. He painted using oil on canvas. I like this painting because the painting shows a Russian forest landscape during the fall when the leaves are turning a yellow color. This realism painting makes you feel like your seeing a colorful forest by looking out a window. The paint texture of the yellow leaves brings out the realism of the leaves being blown down by the wind. I like this artist because he’s very precise in painting the beauty of nature during one of its changing season.

The third art I chose in the Mezzanine gallery is “Milkmaids, Novella” by the artist Nikolai Baskakov made in 1962. He painted using oil on canvas. I like this painting because the Russian milkmaids look like they are having fun on a sunny day at the farm. The painting shows three milkmaids on a farm during a work break. The milkmaids are sitting in the grass and two of the milkmaids are laughing hysterically as if one of the three had told a joke. You can tell they are milkmaids because they have two large milk cans next to them and about four cows behind them. This is a good realism painting because the facial expressions of the milkmaids and every detail are very real. The painting made me feel like I was there and I could feel how funny the joke was. I like this artist because he captured the three Russian milkmaid’s happy moment very well.

The exhibit “Photographer to the Tsar” down in the lower level of the building were pictures of people in their everyday lives in central Asia taken by Sergei M. Prokudin-Gorskii. Sergei was one of the first photographers who was able to advance his camera to capture color in photos. He is unique because he was able to take color photography while he was traveling in Russia and central Asia. The lower gallery displayed the lighted photos in square frames. Each photo had a number under it and an exhibition guide was provided. The booklet had more information of what the photos were about and where they were taken. All of the photos were very colorful. Being able to see the colors from that time period was very fortunate for me. Not too many photos in that time were colorful. I can see what colors their fabrics, clothes, food, and buildings are. The colors show more detail in what color the clothing and jewelry are like between rich and ordinary people. The colors also show what kind of culture, nationality, climate, and type of landscape the people live in. I’m glad I got to see these colorful photos taken by Sergei.