Among the world’s most outstanding art museums one of the first places is taken by the State Hermitage in Saint Petersburg. It is the greatest museum of the Russia: its vast and miscellaneous collections take nowadays a block of four buildings; its rooms, if stretched in one line, would measure many miles in total length, while they cover an area of 94 240 square metres. Over 300 rooms are open to the public and contain a rich selection from the Museum’s collections numbering over 2300000 items. The earliest exhibits date from 500000—300000 Ð’. C, the latest — from our days.
All the Museum exhibits are distributed among seven departments which are subdivided into forty permanent exhibitions. A normal feature of these exhibitions is a selection of originals arranged by countries and schools in strictly chronological order to illustrate almost every stage of human culture and every great art epoch from the prehistoric times to the 20th century.
Fabulous treasures are gathered at the Museum. It contains a rare collection of specimens of Scythian culture and art; objects of great aesthetic and historic value found in the burial mounds of the Altai; a most complete representation of exhibits characterizing Russian culture and art. Oriental collections of the Museum ranking among the richest in the world, are representative of culture and art of the peoples of the Near and Far East, among the noteworthiest being those devoted to China, India, Byzantium, Iran; they also include remarkable material illustrative of culture and art of the peoples of the Caucasus and of Central Asia. The Museum numbers among its treasures monuments illustrative of the ancient Greek and Roman civilizations, as well as those from the Greek settlements on the North coast of the Black Sea.
World famous is the collection of West-European painting covering a span of about seven hundred years — from the 13th to the 20th century, and including works by Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Titian, El Greco, Velazquez, Murillo, outstanding works by Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Rubens, a remarkable group of French eighteenth-century paintings as well as impressionists and post-impressionist paintings. The collection is representative of the art of Italy, Spain, Holland, Belgium, Germany, Austria, France, Britain, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and some other countries. The West-European Department of the Museum includes also a fine collection of European sculpture containing monuments by Michelangelo.
Canova, Falconet, Houdon, Rodin and many other eminent sculptors; an extremely fine collection of prints and drawings, numbering about 600000 items; a collection of arms and armour; one of the world’s most outstanding collections of applied art rich in tapestries, furniture, lace, ivories, porcelain, metalwork, bronzes, silver, jewellery and enamels. An important place among the Museum’s possessions is taken by the numismatic collection, which numbers over 1000000 items and is regarded as one of the largest in the world. This section of the Museum has organized a permanent exhibition of medals and orders, whereas coins are distributed among the museum galleries in addition to the main groups of material. A special exhibition of coins is in the process of arrangement.
The seven Departments of the Museum of which the names are: Russian Culture, Primitive Culture, Culture and Art of the Peoples of the Soviet East, Culture and Art of the Foreign Countries of the East, Culture and Art of the Antique World, West-European Art, Numismatics, together with the Department of Scientific Propaganda of Art (Educational Department), the Restoration Dapartment, and the Library determine the administrative and academic structure of the Museum. Within the last decade the Hermitage has become one of the Country’s most important art institutions with a research staff numbering about 200 historians and art historians carrying out a complicated and varied work in the field of the study of art problems and responsible for the study and keeping of the Museum treasures, their conservation and restoration, as well as scientific popularization of art. This varied work results in a great number of publications of which many are issued by the State Hermitage Publishing House.
Since 1949 a postgraduate school has been organized at the Hermitage, specialists in art working here at their theses.
An important role in the Museum’s research work is played by the annual archaeological expeditions organized by the Museum either independently or together with other Soviet scientific institutions. The most notable among them are: the Karmir-Blur expedition making excavations of the seventh-century Ð’. C. city of Taishebami situated on the Karmir- Blur hill near Erevan; Chersonese and Nymphaeum expeditions working on the sites of the ancient Greek cities in the Crimea; the Siberian, Tadjik, Altai, Pskov and other expeditions. The material found is not only of exceptional value since it always throws fresh light on the problems of the history of art and culture , — it is also one of the sources of enriching the Hermitage collections.
Most helpful in the Museum’s research work is the Hermitage Library which contains about 350000 books, pamphlets, periodicals, and reference material and is one of the largest art libraries in the Russia. It was started in the 18th century and deals with all branches of fine and applied arts. In addition to the Central Library each Department of the Museum has its own library containing special books in accordance with the type of the Department. Of these the library of the Numismatics Department deserves special mention as being one of the finest in the world. The Library of the Hermitage exchanges books with a number of Soviet and foreign Museums. It is open to every student of art.
An exceedingly important section of the Museum is the Restoration Department, which in co-operation with other scientific Departments sees to the preservation of the Museum’s priceless treasures. The diversity of material possessed by the Museum: paintings, sculptures, watercolours, prints and drawings, all kind of metalwork, ceramics, textiles, stone carvings etc. — makes it necessary to organize several restoration shops specialized by materials and types of objects. At the present moment there are seven specialized restoration shops responsible for conservation and restoration of the Museum exhibits. The restoration process crowns a laborious research work and fundamental study of the objects restored. Microscopical and chemical analyses. X-rays, ultra-violet and infra-red rays are applied at large in the process of “work. A number of experiments is made annually in search of new and safe methods of restoration.
No short survey would suffice to represent the various aspects of work in so great a museum as the Hermitage. A special place belongs here to the Museum’s activities in the field of the popularization of the art treasures, answering the great interest shown by the people of the Russia for the artistic legacy of the past. This work is, in fact, carried out by the whole of the museum staff, however the main bulk of it is extended by about hundred officers of the Department of Scientific Propaganda of Art which includes research workers and relief-lecturers.
One of the Department’s principal activities is the arrangement of lecture-tours, consultations, and talks in the Museum rooms. During 1960 about 21 500 lecture-tours were given in the Museum, on some days the number of lectures amounting to one hundred! Apart from the general survey or episodical guide-lectures devoted to a separate museum section a new type of lecture-tours has come into being. These, are series of specialized study-lectures arranged for various parties, the course ranging from 6 to 32 lecture-tours for each party.
Very often parties of factory workers with their families, come to spend their day off at the Hermitage. For a group of 400—500 people a lecture with lantern slides is arranged in the Lecture Theater, the former court theater, after which people are guided through the museum rooms.
Every year hundreds of extra-mural lectures are delivered by the Museum staff. These are courses of evening lectures given in the Hermitage Lecture Theater, lectures in the workers’ clubs, in all kind of institutions of the city, as well as lectures given in other cities of this Country.
The Museum organizes travelling exhibitions consisting of original material or photographic mounts, which are lent to many institutions and workers’ clubs of Saint Petersburg and of other cities too. Loan exhibitions are exchanged also with museums abroad.
A feature of special importance are guide lectures given about 3 500 annually for school children in accordance with their school syllabus. However, those children who take special interest in art can join one of the numerous “circles” arranged for them by the Museum, which is an excellent way to fortify and broaden the knowledge they receive at school.
All this is but a short mention of only some facets of the versatile work carried out by the Museum and achieving each year still larger scope and new forms, following the growing cultural demands of the Soviet people. Each year grows the attendance of the Museum, having reached in 1960 the highest figure of 850 000.