I. Tell about your last visit to the museum or art gallery.

Topic 28. Famous museums and art galleries

Famous Museums and Art Galleries

We can find and study masterpieces of old and modern art in various picture galleries and museums. Every country has museums and art galleries. Some of them are famous all over the world.

There are many museums in Moscow, Russia. One of the biggest museums is the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts which houses one of the world's largest collections of the ancient, oriental and classical art. You can see sculptures, paintings and other works of art by world-famous artists. The museum holds one of the biggest collections of Ancient Egyptian Art.

The Tretyakov Gallery is one of the biggest art galleries in the world. It was founded by a Russian merchant, Tretyakov, who gave his private collection of paintings to Moscow. The Gallery has a great collection of works by famous Russian painters such as Repin, Rublyov, Serov, Ivanov, Levitan and others. The Gallery consists of seven halls. You can see portraits, seascapes, landscapes and other genres of painting there.

St. Petersburg, which once was the capital of Russia, is famous for its museums, too. The Hermitage is one of the biggest museums in the world. A lot of permanent and temporary exhibitions are displayed there. The museum consists of six buildings. The most famous are: Winter Palace and the Hermitage. You can see portraits of Russian tsars, Roman statues, works of Western European Art, Egyptian Art and Oriental Art there.

If you go to Great Britain you should definitely visit the British Museum in London. It was founded in 1753. One doctor Ganse Sloan had a big collection of paintings. He bequeathed it to the state. Now the British Museum is one of the biggest museums in the world. You can see works of art in glass, stone and gold there. It has a department of Ethnography. This collection is so big that only a very small percentage of it is on show to the public. There's also a department of prints and drawings. There are also departments devoted to maps, coins, medals and philately. Visitors to the British museum can see a fascinating collection of clocks and watches.

The British Museum in London has a very big library. Many famous scientists, writers and politicians worked there. Such famous writers as Charles Dickens, Bernard Show read different books and wrote their own books in the British Library. There are more than 10 million books in this library. The British Library has a copy of each book which has been printed in Great Britain since 1757.

The Tower of London is another big museum in London that is worth visiting. It was founded by Julius Caesar and rebuilt by William the Conqueror. Many centuries ago it was a fortress, a royal palace and then a prison. Now it is a museum of arms and the place where the Crown Jewels are kept.

You can also visit the Museum of Madame Tussaud in London. This museum contains wax models of famous people. You will recognize here heads of state, members of the Royal family, world celebrities, legendary artists, actors and actresses, musicians, sports legends, famous writers, religious figures and a lot of other characters.

If you are fond of paintings you can go to the Tate Gallery. The founder of this gallery was Henry Tate, a sugar manufacturer. He was a very rich man and collected paintings. There are about 300 oils and 19,000 water-colours and drawings in the Tate Gallery. There are a lot of paintings by the 16th century English artists there. You can also see many works by the English painter William Turner. Most of his paintings are connected with the sea theme. You can see many paintings by foreign artists of the 19-20th centuries in the Tate Gallery. There are some paintings by impressionists and post-impressionists there. In the Tate Gallery one can see works by modern painters, Pablo Picasso among them. There are many interesting sculptures there. The collection is rather big. Henry Moore's works can be seen in this gallery. He was a famous British sculptor.

All museums and art galleries are very interesting to visit. Museums and art galleries give us an opportunity to learn facts about art, history and culture of different peoples and countries.