Taidetta, tarinoita, journalismia

The Red Room. Sirpa Pääkkönen For me one reason to return to Hermitage in Saint Petersburg again and again is Henri Matisse . When I was very young, I watched his paintings in art books and admired his bright and joyful colours and strong shapes. Emotions spread. Matisse gave me happiness and joy. When I very many years later stand in front of Matisse’s paintings in the Hermitage I can feel the same emotions which I felt as a young girl. That’s why art is so powerful. Portrait of Lydia Deletorskaya. St. Petersburg's Hermitage has one of the world's finest collections of   French artist Matisse's (1869-1954) art. A couple of years ago, the collection was moved from the main building to the General Staff Building   at the Palace Square, where the magnificent spaces for the museum's impressionist art, the 1850s, and the changing exhibitions, were renovated. Matisse's stunning paintings are enough for more than one room. The Hermitage’s ...

The Hermitage cat in the main staircase, photo by the Hermitage. In Saint Petersburg you can quite easily meet wild cats who live in courtyards of big buildings. Some friendly grannies feed them or they get their meals from wastebaskets or they hunt mice. Those cats I’ve seen very many when I’ve visited Saint Petersburg. What I would like to see are the Hermitage cats with their special reputation. But it’s not easy. You hear about them but you don’t see them if you don’t take into account books published from the Hermitage cats. Those you can buy in the museum. Now I don’t tell the whole truth, because I really have seen the Hermitage cats, but not in the museum. I have seen them in the Cat’s Republic in Saint Petersburg. It’s a special cat coffee shop where nearly 20 Hermitage cats have moved after they have retired from their work at the Hermitage art museum. So they wor k at the museum. They live in the basement of the museum and catch mice and rats and s...