2. The National Treasure of Russia

1. The Depository's collection of historical and artistic pieces began to take shape in 1922. It comprised articles of jewelry from the eighteenth century to the middle of the nineteenth century and the Russian Crown Jewels, which were previously kept in the Diamond Room of the Winter Palace in St. Peter­sburg. These articles, known as the Russian Diamond Treasury, made up the nucleus of the future collection.

2. The Diamond Treasury is one of the world's major collections of unique precious stones and rare pieces of jewelry. It is one of the "big three" (the other are the Tower of London and the Teheran Markazi Bank): depositories holding exceptional treasures.

3. Intended by Peter I to store Russia's Crown Jewels, the Diamond Room held the tokens of Imperial power, of which the main were the crown, the orb and the sceptre.

4. The political significance and enormous value of the crown jewels, which were the symbol of power, necessitated special custody regulations. The list of officials responsible for their safe-keeping and their duties were specified in Ukasy issues by Peter I in 1719; for example, each of the officials had to secure the treasury doors with its own lock. But in the years that followed the monarchs began to use pieces from the Diamond Room to bestow gifts of various kinds, including gifts to high-placed persons abroad; some of the articles were redesigned according to current fashions and some were sold.

5. After the outbreak of World War I in August 1914 the stock of the Di­amond Room was taken to Moscow along with some of the other treasures so as to forestall the possible threat Petrograd. From 1914 to 1920 valuab­les from the palaces and country estates of the Russian Imperial family were also brought to Moscow. A large part of these was installed in the Armoury Chamber of the Moscow Kremlin.

6. But in 1927 and 1932, in keeping with the rulings of the USSR Council of People's Commissars and the Board of the State Bank of the USSR, some of the treasures were sold abroad.

7. Along with the famous pieces crafted in the eighteenth and ninete­enth centuries, this display includes unique selections of nuggets, magnifi­cent specimens of uncut diamonds from Yakutia and gemstones from the Urals, East Siberia and other sites, which the Depository received from the 1930s to the 1990s. There is also a new line: jewelry crafted in our own time; many of the pieces, specially designed for the display by masters from the Depository's own workshop, the pieces are remarkable for their technical excellence.

8. In the 1980s and the following decade a full-fledged collection of art objects began to take shape on the basis of the Depository's stock. It in­cludes exhibits by Russian and foreign jewellers, gold and silver tableware, and decorative appointments from the mid-eighteenth century to the 1980s.

TASK:

1. Answer the questions:

1. When did the Depository’s collection begin to take shape?

2. Where were articles known as the Russian Diamond Treasury, previously kept?

3. When was the stock of the Diamond Room taken to Moscow?

4. Were any of the treasures sold abroad?

5. What does the today Collection include?

2. Render the text.

3. Pop Art

International movement in painting, sculpture and printmaking. The term originated in the mid-1950s at the ICA, London, in the discussions held by the Independent group concerning the artefacts of popular culture. This small group included the artists Richard Hamilton and Eduardo Paolozzi as well as architects and critics. Lawrence Alloway (1926–1990), the critic who first used the term in print in 1958, conceived of Pop art as the lower end of a popular-art to fine-art continuum, encompassing such forms as advertising, science-fiction illustration and automobile styling. Hamilton defined Pop in 1957 as: ‘Popular (designed for a mass audience); Transient (short term solution); Expendable (easily forgotten); Low Cost; Mass Produced; Young (aimed at Youth); Witty; Sexy; Gimmicky; Glamorous; and Big Business’. Hamilton set out, in paintings such as Јhe (1958–61; London, Tate), to explore the hidden connotations of imagery taken directly from advertising and popular culture, making reference in the same work to pin-ups and domestic appliances as a means of commenting on the covert eroticism of much advertising presentation.

The most cohesive group of British Pop artists, and those to whom the label was first consistently applied, emerged at the Royal College of Art between 1959 and 1962. It included the American-born R. B. Kitaj as well as younger students such as David Hockney, Allen Jones, Peter Phillips, Derek Boshier and Patrick Caulfield. Although Kitaj and Hockney in particular were quick to shun the Pop label, they all shared a detached and ironic attitude towards style and imagery, regarding both as elements that could be appropriated from other sources and quoted at will. Other British artists associated with Pop art later in the 1960s included Clive Barker (b 1940), Anthony Donaldson (b 1939), Gerald Laing (b 1936), Nicholas Monro (b 1936), Colin Self (b 1941) and the American-born Jann Haworth (b 1942).

American Pop art emerged suddenly in the early 1960s and was in general characterized by a stark and emblematic presentation that contrasted with the narrative and analytical tendencies of its British counterpart. At its most rigorous, American Pop art insisted on a direct relationship between its use of the imagery of mass production and its adoption of modern technological procedures. Whereas British Pop art often celebrated or satirized consumer culture, American Pop artists tended to have a more ambiguous attitude towards their subject-matter, nowhere more so than in the mixture of glamour and pathos that characterized Andy Warhol’s silkscreened icons of Hollywood film stars, as in The Marilyn Diptych (1962; London, Tate).

Compared to the disparate nature of British Pop art, from the early 1960s American Pop art appeared to be a unified movement. Its shared formal characteristics included aggressively contemporary imagery, anonymity of surface, strong, flatly applied colours and a stylistic unity often associated with centralized compositions. Each of the American artists was quick to establish his or her identity, often with the ironic suggestion that the art was like any consumer product or brand name to be marketed. Foremost among them were Warhol’s testaments to machine-line production and to capitalism, such as 80 Two-dollar bills (1962; Cologne, Mus. Ludwig), and Roy Lichtenstein’s formalized enlargements of the frames of comic strips, often violent or melodramatic, for example Drowning Girl (1963; New York, MOMA; for further illustration see Lichtenstein, roy; see also Still-life). Oldenburg produced sculptural paraphrases of ordinary objects, often on a huge scale, as in Floor-burger (Giant Hamburger) (1962; Toronto, A.G. Ont.), while James Rosenquist favoured dream-like combinations of grossly enlarged familiar images, which he painted in the manner of billboard advertisements, such as I Love you with my Ford (1962; Stockholm, Mod. Mus.). Tom Wesselmann specialized in provocatively posed female nudes and in domestic still-lifes of consumer products, for example Still-life #30 (1963; New York, MOMA).

TASK:

I. Answer the questions:

1. When did the term Pop Art originate?

2. What does it mean?

3. How did Hamilton define Pop?

4. When did the most cohesive group of Britain Pop artists emerge? Name the artists.

5. When did American Pop art emerge?

6. What contrast was between American and British arts?

7. Could you name some American Pop art artists and tell about their works?