Art reflects life, so the saying goes. Real, live art appeals to our hearts and minds, to our feelings and ideals and it proclaims life. Art belongs to the people. The history of art beginning in the Renaissance and continuing on to our day and age confirms this. An artist is a worthy son of his time if his art is addressed to the people, when it deals with life, when he welcomes the sunrise as a wonderful symbol of man's finest hopes. It is close contact with the life of his people that gives an artist's work its power. One can find and study masterpieces of old and modern art in various picture galleries and museums. There are nearly a thousand museums in Russia, some of which are world famous. The largest collection of Russian art is the Tretyakov Art Gallery in Moscow — a real treasury of canvases by prominent Russian painters and contains priceless collections of icons, paintings and sculptures dating from the 15th century as well as contemporary Russian painting and sculpture. One of the largest and most remarkable museums of the world is the Hermitage in St Petersburg. More than three hundred halls hold its exhibitions of inestimable artistic value. The museum's collections are comprised of the work of various periods in the development of art, from ancient times up to the present day. Famous painters from different countries are represented there. The Russian Museum in St. Petersburg is another picture gallery which contains the richest collection of Russian paintings of 18-19th centuries and the best collection of Russian sculpture. In the Pushkin Museum of the Fine Arts in Moscow the art of the Ancient East and Western Europe is represented. This museum possesses a unique collection of copies of the finest sculptures of antiquity. It is in this museum that many famous foreign expositions of the Fine Arts are displayed every year.
