Visiting a museum
My first idea was to go to the Open – Air Ethnographical museum, but I refused from this idea when I saw that it is minus 25 degrees outside. I have been in Fine art, Latvian art, Applied arts, the History of Medicine, the Riflemen museum and many other museums except the Foreign art museum finally I decided to go there. It is housed in the Riga castle; also the museum of History of Latvia is placed there. At the moment in this museum is a very interesting exposition is available which is called “Paradigmata Graphices”. Mostly works are from private collections. It is quite ancient art of the 16 th century. There are about 150 graphics exposed by various graphic artists from France, the Netherlands and England. I`m not a complete layman in art but these graphics were new for me. I had an opportunity to have a guidance, but I decided to wonder through halls all by myself. There is some magic in being unguided, one can concentrate on own thoughts. The main exhibition is a public collection of exhibits by vast and varied artists. The halls of museum are divided by countries and types of exhibits. The painting hall includes water – colours, oils, canvases, landscapes, nudes, seascapes, marvelous flower – pieces and a lot of single portraits. In other hall there were enormous roman and Greek sculptures and wood – carved saints, which all are works of art of great value. The Egyptian hall contained of small Egyptian statues and sculptures of pharaohs. An original Egyptian mummy attracted my attention a lot. There were very interesting roentgens of this mummy which proved that there really is a person inside. Also there was a very extensive collection of Greek, Roman and Italian ceramics in black and in red picture techniques. I really admired the precision of pictures made by ancient artists on these small pots and beautiful plates. At the time when I visited the museum a few promising painters and paintresses were practicing in one of the halls. What striked me most was their huge talent, their use of colours was brilliant and their paintings were full of lights and beautiful shades. These painters looked at their finished works with great warmth and feeling. This museum left a lasting impression on me. I find that the museum of Foreign art is worth visiting. It is opened from 11 am till 5 pm every day except Monday. The rich exposition of graphics will be on display till 4 th March.
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