Do You Prepare For A Museum Visit?
Is a Museum visit a part of every travelling experience?
Moscow is a city that commemorates history with appreciation and is a home to over 50 different museums. Of course, when we travel and arrive to a new city – we want to visit a museum. However, is that really the best use of our time?
The most famous museum in Moscow is the Tretyakov Gallery. Monumental structure with over 100 000 works of art – displaying pieces from every year in history of Russian art. It’s quite a collection. It takes hours to tour the whole museum and it is practically impossible to see everything.
I am a fan of art, and I enjoy visiting museums and admiring creative work of the artists – in all forms. I believe art inspires and gives us an opportunity to see the world through artist’s eyes – at least the moment captured on the canvas. Pieces of history captured with brush strokes and colors.
Regardless of its beauty, it is a perspective from the past and it takes time and knowledge to be properly understood.
Tretyakov Gallery experience
When I first arrived in Moscow, a friend asked me if I went to the Tretyakov Gallery, and I said I did go, and our conversation ended after two sentences with “It’s amazing, isn’t it?”. How such a monumental art collection could be summarized in 2 sentences?!
Well, it’s because it is overwhelming! When I left the museum I remember that I saw numerous paintings that wowed me; however, I didn’t remember what they were or who were they by even though I had a small notebook where I took some notes. Hence, I decided that the next time I go to a museum, the size of the Tretyakov Gallery, I will go after I did my homework – in terms of research; and, because there is something I really, truly want to see there.
Salvador Dali exhibition
Contrary to the Tretyakov experiece, I also visited a Salvador Dali exhibition displaying his art in multimedia format – you could lay back and relax on a lazy bag and let him show you his world.
My point is that Salvador Dali exhibition was a more impactful and consciously inspiring experience for me because
1) I know what I saw; 2) I had some knowledge about the artist and the nature of his work; 3) I knew what I wanted to see there.
Yes, I am comparing two completely incomparable branches of art – I didn’t want to say one is better than the other.
Lessons Learned
The lesson learned from this experience and How to prepare for a museum visit:
- If you are staying in a city for a couple of days only – don’t go to a museum you only know exists because it’s where all the tourists go, so you must visit too and check-in on social networks to see how much likes you get. No, that’s not the point of a visit to a museum – hopefully you’ll agree?
- If you are going to a spacious museum like Tretyakov Gallery, do your homework first – know what you want to see. Do a bit of research and choose the pieces that you wish to see. Otherwise you’ll come out exhausted with an impression you saw everything but you remember nothing. Quality over Quantity !
- Past contains numerous valuable life lessons; however, it is more interesting to live to witness the present of the culture you are in. Visit a market, local shops, buy newspaper and start a conversation with a random person.
Good luck with your future explorations!
This post was brought to you by Maja, currently studying Russian at Liden and Denz
