A Gallery Full of Plunder

After my first day at the Hermitage Kate said I sounded like a bit of a wanker when I said something along the lines of...

"Well the buildings magnificent, the state rooms are amazing, but the actual art is kind of so, so. I mean a second rate Michaelangelo here, a third rate Tiepolo there, too much Matisse. I'd rather visit the Uffuzi."

But after going back twice, once for a whirlwind half an hour (student cards make these kind of things possible) and the second for a more relaxed stroll, I've kind of changed my tune.

I got a chance to revisit paintings by El Greco, Cannaletto, the aforementioned Tiepolos, the magnificent Rembrandt collection, the wonderful works from Picasso's synthetic cubist period and I even found a couple of pictures by Pieter Bruegel the Younger which really took my breath away.

So I guess on reflection it really is a fantastic art gallery, maybe not the duck's nuts but that's a judgement I'll reserve until I've seen at least some of Western Europe's finest. What made the Hermitage so special for me was the gallery itself, this gorgeous palace that housed so much history. While I was in Thailand I read Malcolm Bradbury's amazing novel To The Hermitage about a visit Diderot payed to the Palace at the behest of Catherine II. To think you're walking in the same halls as so much history is, like so much of our St. Petersburg experience, breathtaking.

And finally I feel, similarly to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, that I'm only just scratching the surface.