Студопедия

Главная страница Случайная страница

КАТЕГОРИИ:

АвтомобилиАстрономияБиологияГеографияДом и садДругие языкиДругоеИнформатикаИсторияКультураЛитератураЛогикаМатематикаМедицинаМеталлургияМеханикаОбразованиеОхрана трудаПедагогикаПолитикаПравоПсихологияРелигияРиторикаСоциологияСпортСтроительствоТехнологияТуризмФизикаФилософияФинансыХимияЧерчениеЭкологияЭкономикаЭлектроника






Museums and galleries






The British have always been known as great art collectors. During the colonial times the aristocracy and rich merchants filled their houses and castles with valuable paintings, furniture and ornaments which they brought back from their travels abroad. So their collections can be seen today in palaces and castles, country houses and, of course, in museums and various picture galleries. In 1753 by an Act of Parliament the British Museum was founded, and the state itself became a big collector. London is the world’s leading centre of museums and galleries, holding the richest variety of works of arts.

There are about 2, 000 museums and galleries in Britain which include the chief national collections, and a great variety of independently or privately owned institutions. But some of the most comprehensive collections of objects of artistic, archaeological, scientific, historical and general interest are contained in the national museums and galleries in London. Among them are the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Science Museum, the National Gallery, the Tate Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, the Geological Museum, the Natural History Museum, Madame Tussaud’s, the Tower of London and many other treasure institutions.

There are national museums and art galleries in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Edinburgh - the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland, the Royal Scottish Museum; in Cardiff - the National Museum of Wales; in Belfast - the Ulster Museum.

Situated in Bloomsbury, THE BRITISH MUSEUM is the world’s largest museum. It was built between 1823 and 1852. Most famous exhibits include the Rosetta Stone in the Southern Egyptian Gallery, and in the manuscript room, the Magna Charta, Nelson’s log-book, and Scott’s last diary The British Museum includes also the British Library, which is the national library of the United Kingdom and ranks among the greatest libraries in the world, such as the National Library of Congress in Washington or the National Library in Paris. The Library has the world-famous collections of about 12 million items of monographs, manuscripts, maps, stamps, newspapers and sound records. Publishers are obliged, by law, to supply the Library with a copy of each new book, pamphlet or newspaper published in Britain.

THE VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM is a national collection of fine and applied arts of all countries and periods. Of great interest are the costumes displays, the rooms of different historical periods, the jewellery and porcelain, the celebrated Raphael cartoons belonging to the Crown and the best collection of English miniatures to be found in the country. The Museum has about seven miles of galleries with various exhibits, including ethnic arts and crafts.

THE NATIONAL GALLERY exhibits all schools of European painting from the 13th century and includes works by Van Dyck, Rubens, Vermeer, Holbein, El Greco, Goya, Velasquez, Gainsborough and Leonardo da Vinci. It also includes the largest collection of Rembrandts outside Holland. There are over thirty rooms in the Gallery and lectures are given regularly by experts.

THE TATE GALLERY is really three galleries: a national gallery of British art, a gallery of modern sculpture and a gallery of modern foreign painting. Among the treasures to be found are modern sculptures by Rodin, Moore and Epstein.

THE SCIENCE MUSEUM houses the national collections of science, industry and medicine. Many exhibits are full size and there are many historic objects of scientific and technological significance. Additionally there are exhibits sectioned to show their internal construction and working models. The children’s gallery gives a dioramic history of the development of transport.

THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM is the home of the national collections of living and fossil plants and animals. It also has collections of rocks, minerals and meteorites, as well as coins, manuscripts and other treasures. At first these collections were all kept in the British Museum as part of its exhibits. But, over the years, so much was added to the collections that shortage of space became a major problem and, in I860, it was decided to split off the natural history departments and house them separately. The architect Alfred Waterhouse designed a suitable building, the construction of which was completed in 1880.

The building of the National History Museum, which is over one hundred years old, also houses a scientific research institution. More than 300 scientists are engaged in the identification and classification of animals, plants and minerals.

THE NATIONAL ARMY MUSEUM covers the history of the British Army from the formation of the Yeomen of the Guard by Henry VII in 1485 to the outbreak of the First World War in 1914.It also displays the history of the Commonwealth armies up to independence. The Museum is situated in Royal Hospital Road.

THE IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM gives a visual record of all the campaigns in which British and Commonwealth armed forces have been engaged since the outbreak of the First World War. Its portraits, books, photographs, maps and films constitute an important source of reference for historians.

MADAME TUSSAUD’S MUSEUM OF WAXWORKS in Marylebone Road is one of London’s great attractions.

Madame Tussaud first became associated with life-size wax portraits in 1770 when, at the age of 9, she helped her uncle open an exhibition in Paris. When she was 17 she made a wax portrait of Voltaire and followed this with death-masks of Marie Antoinette, Robespierre and other victims of the French Revolution.

She came to England in 1802, travelling with her exhibition for about thirty years before settling down permanently in Baker Street. The exhibition moved to its present site and the Museum was founded in 1884 not far from this street, which is famous as the home of the first great detective in nction, Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, who shared rooms with Dr. Watson at “221B”, Baker Street. Madame Tussaud continued to make wax models until she was 81.

Her figures were extremely realistic, and their costumes could be characterized by great accuracy. The range of her works was really enormous. A visitor to London’s great Wax Museum will see kings and queens, statesmen and writers, actors and musicians, artists and sportsmen, scientists, astronauts, world leaders and so on and so forth. Unsuspecting visitors will be struck by the Chamber of Horrors displaying many notorious criminals.

The last of notable events on view includes those depicting the historical Battle of Trafalgar and the Battle of Britain.

ABBOT HALL. Abbot Hall is one of the few places that you can see and enjoy art in a truly relaxed and friendly atmosphere. A vibrant but manageable selection of works is displayed with care, and can be enjoyed in the setting of elegant Georgian rooms of classical proportions. The setting, architecture and light filled rooms combine to create a special magic, giving you the impression of looking at art in the relaxed atmosphere of someone's home.

Today Abbot Hall has a very fine collection of British Art, including important key works by such artists as Romney, Turner, Ruskin, Ben Nicholson, Frank Auerbach and Tony Bevan. In recent years exhibitions of national importance have been shown at Abbot Hall with Lucian Freud in 1996, Bridget Riley in 1998/9, Paula Rego in 2001, Stanley Spencer in 2002, Euan Uglow in 2003 and Walter Richard Sickert in 2004.

Paintings from the 18th century collection are hung in the Georgian rooms on the ground floor so that they can be enjoyed in an appropriate setting. They include a very fine pair of views of Windermere by PJ de Loutherbourg as well as an important group of portraits by Romney from various different periods of his life. George Romney was born locally and apprenticed in Kendal before settling in London where he became one of the leading portrait artists of the day. There is also an important group of work by another local artist, Daniel Gardner, as well as examples by Allan Ramsay and Thomas Lawrence. Displayed in the same rooms is a fine collection of miniatures, dating largely from the 18th and early 19th centuries.

Abbot Hall has a significant collection of watercolours mainly from the second half of the 18th and the first half of the 19th centuries. There is a large group of topographical views of the Lake District including works by such artists as Dayes, Hearne, Cristall, Varley, Copley Fielding, Constable, Frederick Nash, Hills and Severn. In addition there are fine examples which do not relate to the local landscape such as the David Cox of Hastings, and an early J.M.W. Turner of Dover. Other important works by J.M.W. Turner include his large watercolour of Devil's Bridge in the St. Gothard Pass of 1804 and the recently acquired 1821 watercolour of Windermere. The other exceptional group is the collection of 40 drawings and watercolours by John Ruskin. Only one drawing and one watercolour relate to the Lake District, with the remainder covering a wide range of subjects including natural history, mountains and topography in Germany, Switzerland, Italy and France as well as Britain.The gallery also holds a watercolour and an oil painting by the Cumbrian artist William James Blacklock.

The collection covers the whole century and concentrates more on painting than sculpture, although there are three-dimensional pieces by Hepworth, Jean Arp, Schwitters and Frink. There is good representation from the St Ives School with three important works by Ben Nicholson and a fine group of paintings by Winifred Nicholson. The collection includes works on paper by artists such as Piper, Sutherland, Christopher Wood and Gertler, and some important prints by Picasso, Matisse, Braque, Henry Moore and David Hockney. In recent years the gallery has been active in adding contemporary British works to its collection and these have included Bridget Riley, Alison Wilding, Richard Wentworth, Frank Auerbach and an important recent painting by Tony Bevan.

In 2003, Abbot Hall acquired Paula Rego's Triptych, one of the most important works produced by the artist in recent years.

THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF SCOTLAND. The National Gallery of Scotland, in Edinburgh, is the national art gallery of Scotland. An elaborate neoclassical edifice, it stands on The Mound, between the two sections of Edinburgh's Princes Street Gardens. The building, which was designed by William Henry Playfair, first opened to the public in 1859.

The National Gallery shares the Mound with the Royal Scottish Academy Building. In 1912 both were remodeled by William Thomas Oldrieve. When it re-opened, the gallery concentrated on building its permanent collection of Scottish and European art for the nation. The archive and study facilities at the National Gallery include the Prints and Drawings Collection of over 30, 000 works on paper, from the early Renaissance to the late nineteenth century. And the reference-only research library, which is available to the general public. The library covers the period from 1300 to 1900 and holds approximately 50, 000 volumes of books, journals, slides, photographs and microfiches, as well as archived material relating to the collections, exhibitions and history of the National Gallery.

THE TOWER OF LONDON is the capital’s top tourist attraction. Built to impress and dominate the people of London, it has been a severe symbol of power throughout its 900-year history.

The Tower of London was founded by William the Conqueror in 1078 on the north bank of the Thames, from which he could govern and control the capital of his new kingdom. Successive kings added to the fortification and further building went on until the 19th century.

For centuries the Tower was Britain’s most imposing and important centre for historical activity and royal intrigues. In its long history the Tower has been a fortress, a royal residence, a state prison and the Royal Mint. Here can be seen Tower Green, the site, where two of Henry VIII’s queens Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, met their deaths, the Bloody Tower where “Little Princes”, Edward V and his brother, the Duke of York, were murdered in 1483, and where Sir Walter Releigh spent some 13 years writing his “History of the World”. Famous prisoners, who were executed in the Tower, include the Earl of Essex, the Duke of Monmouth, Lady Jane Grey and Guy Fawkes, who planned to blow up the Houses of Parliament. Statesmen, bishops, poets, plotters have all met their end in the Tower. Even in the 20th century traitors have died here, several spies were shot during the World Wars.

Visitors today can view the instruments of execution and torture, an arsenal of weapons, and the nation’s treasure, the Crown Jewels, dating mostly from the Restoration (1660).

TOWER BRIDGE - the gateway to London - was built in 1894. It is the most famous and distinctive bridge in London with two Gothic towers that rise from the river bed.

Most cities and towns have museums and other treasures devoted to arts, archaeology and natural history. Rich in museums, for example, are Oxford and Cambridge. Many of them are associated with the universities, such as the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, founded in 1683 and the oldest in the world, and the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. In York, founded in 1882, is the Yorkshire Museum, containing a wealth of Roman remains and medieval sculpture not to Mention a fine natural history collection. The four museums of Norwich cover a wide range of subjects illustrating the background and history of East Anglia.

Many private art collections in historic family mansions, including those owned by the National Trust, are open to the public. An increasing number of open-air museums depict the regional life of an area.

 


Поделиться с друзьями:

mylektsii.su - Мои Лекции - 2015-2024 год. (0.008 сек.)Все материалы представленные на сайте исключительно с целью ознакомления читателями и не преследуют коммерческих целей или нарушение авторских прав Пожаловаться на материал