Ars longa, vita brevis (eng. Art is long, life is short)... This Latin saying is attributed to Hippocrates, the Greek thinker and natural scientist,
and it allows for many different interpretations. Still one thing is true - the Art is really worth spending part of a human life on studying it...
Moscow is a living museum in itself, but at the same time our city is home to the great number of dedicated spaces
to discover Art, History and Culture. On this tour we will walk you through the most famed and significant ones.
Day 1
Landing at Moscow airport
Meet with local assistant and transfer to your hotel of stay
Rest of the day at leisure
Day 2
We will make our first stop at
the State Tretyakov Gallery (Old building in Lavrushinsky Lane), one of the largest art museums in the world, which is truly a treasury of Russian National art.
The gallery was founded in 1856 by the wealthy merchant Pavel Tretyakov, who was a passionate art lover and philantropist. The result of more than forty years of his collecting activity was the creation of the first public art museum in Russia: in 1892, Pavel Mikhailovich donated his collection together with his house to the city of Moscow. At that time it had 3,500 works, today the whole collection of the Tretyakov Gallery is about 170,000 works from the 11th to the 20th centuries.
We continue our tour at
the Central Andrey Rublev Museum of Ancient Culture and Art, located in the old Savior St.Andronicus Monastery on the picturesque bank of the Yauza River. The collection includes more than 10,000 works of art, with the main focus on the Old Russian icons from the 13th to early 20th centuries. Apart from the icons, visitors will see the fragments of monumental church murals, carved wooden sculptures, various cult objects and much more. Nowadays, this monastery is no longer active, you will not encounter a large flow of believers. This place is steeped in an atmosphere of peace and tranquility. Time seems to have ground to a halt here.
Day 3
In the morning your guide will take you for the tour of
The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts.
The museum was opened on May 31 (June 13), 1912, the basis of its collection was copies of antique sculptures and mosaics, as well as a collection of genuine antiquities bought by the state from the Russian egyptologist Vladimir Golenishchev. As of today, the exposition of the museum, located in several buildings, has more than 3,000 unique pieces of paintings and sculptures from ancient times to the present day. Most fully represented are the periods of Antiquity, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Among the most valuable paintings in the collection are the works of Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck, Rembrandt van Rijn, Nicolas Poussin.
In addition, the Pushkin Museum is one of the most active venues in the city, hosting temporary world-class exhibitions. The recent events include, for example, personal exhibitions of Picasso, William Turner, Caravaggio, Titian and Raphael.
After a short lunch break, we invite you to continue your acquiantance with the museum's treasures at
the Gallery of 19th-20th century European and American Art, which occupies a separate building, and boasts a finest collection of
the French Impressionists and
the Post-Impressionists. Here you can marvel at the pieces by Eugène Delacroix, Francisco Goya, Jean-François Millet, Claude Monet, August Renoir, Camille Pissarro, Edgar Degas, Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Pablo Picasso, alongside with the canvases of Vasily Kandinsky, Marc Chagall etc.
Day 4
Today our first art destination is
The Garage Museum of Contemporary Art.
Moscow is an extremely dynamic place, and so is
"The Garage", which is one of the best spaces to "experience" contemporary art in Moscow.
It is no sense to describe any current exhibition, as those are constantly changing. One thing is true - here you will find a very refreshing mix of exhibitions, tours, workshops, seminars and much more. Central to all activities is the museum's collection, which is the only public archive in the country related to the development of Russian contemporary art from 1950s through to the present.
On June 12, 2015, the museum moved to its first permanent home - a spectacular glass pavilion on the fringe of Gorky Park, in the heart of Moscow.
For those who are not yet fully "saturated" with the modern art, we prepared one more delight of the day -
Winzavod Center for Contemporary Art.
Winzavod (Wine Factory) is one of the first and biggest private contemporary art centers in Russia. Art Cluster of the Winzavod covers 9 art galleries, 6 educational centers, exhibition halls, artists’ workshops, art cafés, creative showrooms and stores. It is like an Art town, which lives and develops.
You will find a large variety of shops at Winzavod, in their assortment there are both small knick-knacks in hand-made style, and quite serious designer things. We invite you to explore the space as per your wishes – you can take a peek into one of the galleries, or roam around and look for some special hand-made artifacts, or just pick up a burger or enjoy an almond coffee in a café you like.
Day 5
After breakfast, check out from your hotel.
Free time for self arrangements or taking an Optional tour (if your flight timings allow).
"TARI" recommends: Visit to Digital Art Center "Artplay Media" - a unique opportunity to finish off your "museum tour" on a special note.
