The Hermitage - an Abundance of Riches

Or maybe it's an embarrassment of riches. I've uploaded a lot of pictures, in no particular order in regards to which ones are my favorite (I've have more to say about that later). Here I just wanted to give a sense of the amazing number of classics that are housed here at the Hermitage. I've developed a serious love of Spanish painting, which would definitely lead me to include this haunting representation of Mary Magdaline from Titian at the top - along with a typically riveting work by El Greco the third painting down. The second painting is from da Vinci, although the light coming in from the window - competing with the lights from the ceiling - didn't allow me to do it justice. The fourth painting is Caravaggio's Boy Playing a Lute, which really jumped out at me because Gombrich, in the book I'm using this semester for my Aesthetics class, makes a very big deal out of the painting - and I do like Caravaggio a lot. It's funny how you'll be using a picture in class and then when you actually see it hanging in a gallery it really hits you in an odd way. In a largely unsuccessful attempt to fight the lights and the glass plate covering it, I focused in pretty dramatically on Perseus, Andromeda and the image of Medusa on the shield in this painting by Rubens. There are lots of Rubens here at the Hermitage - and it got me thinking about the number of museums I've visited that also featured quite a lot of Rubens. I don't know how many pictures he painted, but it must have been an extraordinary amount because he's represented all over the place. Rembrandt is also well-represented at the Hermitage, and it was difficult to choose only one - however, I liked how Rembrandt put the holy family in a very domestic setting in this painting, which somehow brought about a greater divinity. There are quite a few Cezannes in the museum as well, and even though the paintings covered a number of topics, I always come back to his representation of fruit, especially pairs (although I feel like I'm just channelling Woody Allen in Manhattan). A typical exotic subject matter from Delacrois, but still an arresting image - I guess I just, probably romantically, imagine the rider heading into danger or into the wilderness. There were several Monets at the Hermitage, but I ended up liking the one that was in some ways the least Monet-like. There's just something about his representation of the woman in the white dress in the garden which moved me. There were several van Goghs as well, although I didn't find some of them (including some Gauguins) until late in the day in an entirely different section of the museum - and it was in an area marked no photography, which normally would have never stopped me, but I was also out of juice in the camera. I ended up choosing this particular painting from van Gogh, although, again by van Gogh standards, it was pretty "controlled." There were a number of Rodans, all of them good, so it was difficult to settle on this one. I liked this representation of Bacchus by Chagall. And, finally, I really like Renoir's Girl With a Fan - she's beautiful, certainly, but there's also a simple complexity - or complex simplicity (if that makes any sense) in her facila expression. I kept coming back to this painting. I could fill up this space with many more paintings - and have some more posts designed for Gauguin, etc. - but enough for now. I'm going to go outside and watch the drawbridges rise up!