Museums and picture galleries
THE BRITISH MUSEUM
There are many interesting museums in London.
The British Museum 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. One can see many subjects of primitive art and antique culture. It is interesting to notice that there are a lot of old money, medals, manuscripts, coins, engravings.
It is necessary to pay attention to a very old original stone in the British Museum with Egyptian letters on it.
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 is a huge reading-room in the British Library. The diameter of this dome is 47 metres.
There are more 10 million books in this library. The British Library has a copy of each book which has been printed in Great Britain since 1757.
It will be 250 years from the founding of the British Museum in 2003.
THE TATE GALLERY IN LONDON
There are many sights in London. They are Westminster Abbey, Tower Bridge, Albert Hall (one of the biggest concert halls in London), Trafalgar Square and others.
If you are fond of paintings you'll 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.
This gallery was founded in 1897. Most of the National Gallery collections of British paintings were taken to the Tate Gallery.
There are about 300 oils and 19,000 water-colours and drawings.
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.
The paintings of this gallery impress everyone who visits it.
THE TRETYAKOV GALLERY
There are many interesting galleries in our country. The Tretyakov Gallery is one of the famous and well-known picture galleries in our country and all over the world.
The State Tretyakov Gallery is situated in a Russian-looking building in the centre of Moscow. This gallery is named after its founder Peter Tretyakov. He began to collect Russian paintings in 1856. He wanted these paintings to be seen by people.
This gallery and collections of paintings were nationalized in 1918.The first works in Tretyakov's collection were the paintings of the "Peredvizhniki". The collector bought paintings "Morning in a Pine Wood" by Shish-kin and "Ivan Tsarevich on the Grey Wolf" by Vasnetsov.
The gallery has got many halls. There are halls devoted to the great Russian painters of the 18th and 19th centuries. We can see pictures by such painters as Serov, Repin, Ivanov, Levitan and others.
You can see the landscapes "After Rain" and "Golden Autumn". These paintings by Levitan are beautiful. I like to see his paintings because he is one of my favourite artists. I compare his painting "Golden Autumn" with the poem "Autumn" by Pushkin.
There are some paintings by Repin in the Tretyakov Gallery. His paintings are connected with the history of our country. For example, his painting "Ivan Grozny Murders His Son Ivan". There are some portraits of Lev Tolstoy and a self-portrait of Repin in this hall.
I like the painting "Trinity" by Andrei Rublyov. This work reflects the life and soul of the Russian people.
This gallery has many new exhibits now. You can see works of the painters of the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century there. I like works by Gerasimov. I think that he is a very talented painter.