Moscow is one of the main tourist destination cities on Russia tour. One of the main reasons to visit Russia is to learn about their art and culture. Although most people would choose St. Petersburg as their destination on travel to Russia, Moscow also has multiple places to teach you about Russian art and culture. One of the top places that you should visit on tour to Moscow if you want to learn about Russian culture is the State Tretyakov Gallery. Unlike the State Alexander Pushkin Fine Art Museum, Tretyakov Gallery has dedicated its work to Russian art and Russian artists instead of foreign masters of Europe. The founder of Tretyakov Gallery is one of the patrons of art, Pavel Tretyakov, who had dedicated his life to collect the most valuable artworks of Russian masters.
Pavel Mikhaylovich Tretyakov was one of the top businessmen of Moscow. He and his brother Sergei Tretyakov were famous philanthropist and patron of art. However, Pavel Tretyakov was also one of the top collectors of art in Moscow. He had started collecting art at the young age of 22 when he purchased his first collection of 10 canvases by Old Dutch masters. Pavel Tretyakov had a dream of creating a Russian National Gallery for everyone to enjoy. Because of that, he aimed to collect the most valuable and remarkable products for his collection. Although there is a magnificent museum in his name in Moscow today, at first, he gathered his collection in his house. By 1870, Tretyakov's collection was expanded a lot, and because of that, he had decided to reconstruct his mansion to have enough room for his gallery. Over the years, the Tretyakov gallery's popularity had increased, and by 1875, more than 30 thousand people have visited it, which meant that it became one of the Moscow attractive places.
In 1893, the Museum of Pavel and Sergei Tretyakov had finally established. However, even before the official opening, more than 150 thousand people had already visited the gallery. Pavel Tretyakov had continued to collect pieces of art until his last day alive. At the end of 1898, Pavel Tretyakov had died and buried inside the Church of St. Nicholas in Tolmachi. However, in 1948, his remains were relocated to the Novodevichy Cemetery, where many well-known figures of Russian history were buried. Even after his death, Pavel Tretyakov had continued his philanthropist acts since he bequeathed half of his estate to charitable purposes, including providing shelter for children, widows, and unmarried daughters of artists who had died. However, his most significant act of philanthropy would be creating the State Tretyakov Gallery, in which people who visit Moscow would see masterpieces of Russian artists in its purest form.
The State Tretyakov Gallery is one of the largest art galleries in Russia. Unlike the State Alexander Pushkin Museum of Fine Art that kept its focus on foreign art, it has dedicated its platform to Russian art from the 11th century to the early 20th century. Although the State Tretyakov Gallery consists of two separate buildings, the Engineering Building mostly hosts temporary exhibitions; the main building of Tretyakov Gallery houses some of the masterpieces of classic Russian artists, including paintings, icons, sculptures, and work of decorative arts. The main building of the Tretyakov Gallery is more than 12 thousand square meters, divided into 62 halls, and each hall has a different theme. Besides the art galleries, there are several cafes, restaurants, and gift shops inside the main building, which you can enjoy on your tour to Russia. Currently, the State Tretyakov Gallery has a collection of more than 170000 items, including many world-class masterpieces from Russian artists, such as Andrei Rublev's The Trinity, Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov's The Appearance of Christ to the People, and Vasily Surikov's Boyarina Morozova.
Although people who decide to visit The State Tretyakov Gallery during their Russia tour should expect any form of art. The collection of this museum is mostly split into two main categories, sculptures, and paintings. The latter also has three sub-categories, icons, portraits, and landscapes, and historical scenes. Although the Tretyakov Gallery's collection of statues is not very competitive compared to the number and fame of the fantastic collection of paintings, you can still enjoy several outstanding examples of sculptures made by expert Russian artists while visiting the gallery on a trip to Moscow. You can see works of artists, such as Mukhina Vera Ignatievna, Bulakovsky Sergey Fedorovich, Konenkov Sergey Timofeevich, and several other well-known artists in this gallery.
One of the State Tretyakov Gallery's main attractions on tour to Russia is the collection of icons. There are several famous icons in this collection that, if you're a fan of religious artworks, you will find this museum quite satisfying. There are several excellent examples of the 12th-century icons in this collection, one of which is the most famous icon in this gallery, the Trinity. Andrei Rublev painted the Trinity in the second quarter of the 15th century.
Another section of the gallery is dedicated to portraits gallery, most of which are the portraits of former rulers of Russia, significant figures in Russian history, and famous people, including several contemporary artists to Tretyakov, which he commissioned other artists to paint. Among the artists that you can find their portraits in the museum, we can mention Ostrovskii, Dostoevskii, Tolstoi, and Turgenev. You can also find two paintings of the founder, Pavel Tretyakov, in this collection.
The most significant part of the gallery belongs to the paintings collection. There are multiple examples of Russian masterpieces in this gallery, which can take several hours of your tour to Moscow's time if you want to see all of them. Among the masterpieces in this collection, you can find <The Girl with Peaches, which was one of the most beautiful works of Valentin Serov. You can also find Konstantin Flavitsky's Princess Tarakanova painting in this gallery as well as Ivan Shishkin's Morning in a Pine Forest. The list of famous paintings in this gallery is quite long. If you want a guarantee of visiting this gallery during your travel to Russia, the collection of paintings in this museum is massive and worth your time.
If you want to learn more about Moscow attractive places or the top places that you should visit during your travel to Russia, you can always check out our weblog, in which we also give tips and pieces of advice about how to travel to Russia.
