Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts Moscow Paint

This review is from: Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts Moscow Paint...There was a passion for art, and two excellent museums that housed various collections, the Hermitage in what was then Leningrad (present day St. Petersburg) and the Pushkin (named after Russia's most famous poet) in Moscow. They produced several glossy picture books, with excellent plates of the paintings within the museums, and sold them for almost nothing. They are, literally, a "steal," if you can purchase them at the original price, and fortunately Amazon has a few "secondary sellers" who currently selling good used copies for almost original prices. Be careful as to the edition you buy: mine dates from 1988, and I acquired it in the Pushkin museum bookstore in 1990. Irina Antonova wrote a useful 20 page introduction to the museum, and briefly describes the 137 full color plates, one each for the paintings. The Pushkin's foundation-stone was laid in 1898, and it opened to the public in 1912. It survived both World Wars (during the Second, the paintings were removed to Siberia for safekeeping). The plates are displayed in rough chronological order, starting with religious-themed iconic works from the 12th Century. In a few pages the paintings come from the Renaissance period, with Brueghel's Rubens and Rembrandt's. A substantial number of French paintings, commencing for the 1700's were also acquired, and include Vernet's, Boucher's, and Delaroix. The collection includes some from England, including John Constable's "View of Highgate from Hampstead Heath." The next significant phase involves the Impressionists, including Corot, Manet, Degas, Pissarro, Sisley, Renoir, Cezanne and Monet. The concluding works include the artists Leger, Edvard Munch, and others. This book includes an index of all the plates, with dates and descriptions of the work. There are several other quality productions of paintings in these museums, all published by the Soviet Union in its waning days,