The Museums of Kostroma Land [antikvár]

SUMMARY The book presents painting, sculptures and drawings by both Russian and West European masters from the museums in the towns of Kostroma, Galich, SoligaMch, Chulihloma, Kologriv and the village of Ostrovskoye. Serious collecting, research work and local art studies in Kostroma began in 1889 when an Archive Committee of the Province was set up. The Committee suggested that a museum building should be erected. In 1913 the museum was put up to the design of N.Golitsyn in the style of 17 century Russian houses with projecting attics. It housed the historic and ethnographic collections of the Archive Committee. After the Great October Socialist Revolution the museum was turned over to the Kostroma Academic Society to become the Kostroma State Museum. The collection of fine arts was considerably enriched by contributions from the Department for Preservation of Historic Monuments and Works of Art of the People's Commissariate for Education in 1918, 1921 and 1926. In 1920, sponsored by the Section of Arts of the People's Commissariate with active participation of N. Kupreyanov and N.Iznar, who worked at the moment in Kostroma, a Museum of Artistic Culture was opened. However it didn't live long, and soon its holdings were turned over to the Kostroma State Museum. In 1920's the museum's collections were enriched by valuable items from the State Russian Museum and the Tretyakov Gallery. In 1945 a regional picture gallery was established as a section of the Kostroma State Museum. After the Kostroma State Museum was divided in 1966 into the Museum Reserve of History and Architecture and the Museum of Fine Arts, the latter took the whole building to house its exhibitions. For the museum it marked the beginning of intensive and systematic acquisition of new exhibits. As early as 1969 an exhibition of old Russian art was first opened to the public. The collection of Soviet artists, with local Kostroma painters among them, is being systematically added to. Presently the museum's collections number over four thousand items. A vast collection of significant artistic value (two thousand objects of painting and drawing) belongs to the Art Department of the Kologriv Museum. After returning to his native town in 1913, a celebrated artist. Academician G.Ladyzhensky, founded a private art museum where numerous and varied collections of painting, drawing, porcelain, arms and books were displayed. Later he bequeathed everything to his town. Another cultural center in the northern Kostroma region, Soligalich, has its own museum, opened in 1923. Pride of place surely goes to a number of portraits by Gregori Ostrovsky, which the lovers of Russian art could see displayed in Paris in 1979. Noteworthy are the paintings from the local-lore museums of Galich and Chukhloma opened in the early years of the Soviet-State. The fine art collections of the museums comprise portraits which were gathered from country estates, once owned by local nobility. The collections of the six museums, presented in the book, though abundant in first-class works of art, are by no means sufficient to represent to the full extent all the stages in the development of Russian painting. The exhibition of the Kostroma Fine Arts Museum opens with icons of the 16—I8th centuries, acquired in 1960—70's from all over the Kostroma region. In artistic value they rank high among the works of the old North-Eastern Russia's art that came down to our time. Among them there are icons of so-called Godunov's school, which followed Moscow tradition, an officially recognized artistic taste of the time. There are icons of even older local school of painting, greatly influenced by Rostov the Great, which attest a very high standard of craftsmanship in old Kostroma. Of special note are the group of 17th century icons and a collection of cult wooden sculpture of the 17—18th centuries. The section of the 18th century Russian art opens with portraits executed in old Russian manner by unknown painters. The portraits came from country estates that had once belonged to the local nobility. A unique charm of Russian provincial life of the late I8th and early 19th centuries is strikingly portrayed by this collection. 242