Art, museums and galleries

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 is truthful only when it serves life, and only when the artist hopes to arouse a warm response in the heart of the viewer. This was the case in the days of Giotto and Raphael, this was the case in the subsequent stages of man's artistic development, and this is the truthful relationship of art and life in the day of Renato Guttuso and Rockwell Kent.

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 15^th 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.

Globalization i n its literal sense is the process of transformation of local or regional phenomena into global ones. It can be described as a process by which the people of the world are unified into a single society and function together.

This process is a combination of economic, technological, sociocultural and political forces. Globalization is often used to refer to economic globalization, that is, integration of national economies into the international economy through trade, foreign direct investment, capital flows, migration, and the spread of technology.

Globalization has various aspects which affect the world in several different ways such as:

· Industrial - emergence of worldwide production markets and broader access to a range of foreign products for consumers and companies. Particularly movement of material and goods between and within national boundaries.

· Financial - emergence of worldwide financial markets and better access to external financing for borrowers. As these worldwide structures grew more quickly than any transnational regulatory regime, the instability of the global financial infrastructure dramatically increased, as evidenced by the financial crises of late 2008.

· Economic - realization of a global common market, based on the freedom of exchange of goods and capital. The interconnectedness of these markets however meant that an economic collapse in any one given country could not be contained.

· Political - some use "globalization" to mean the creation of a world government, which regulate the relationships among governments and guarantees the rights arising from social and economic globalization. Politically, the United States has enjoyed a position of power among the world powers; in part because of its strong and wealthy economy.

· Informational - increase in information flows between geographically remote locations. Arguably this is a technological change with the advent of fibre optic communications, satellites, and increased availability of telephone and Internet.

· Language - the most popular language is English.

o About 75% of the world's mail, telexes, and cables are in English.

o Approximately 60% of the world's radio programs are in English.

o About 90% of all Internet traffic uses English.

· Cultural - growth of cross-cultural contacts; advent of new categories of consciousness and identities which embodies cultural diffusion, the desire to increase one's standard of living and enjoy foreign products and ideas, adopt new technology and practices, and participate in a "world culture".

· Ecological - the advent of global environmental challenges that might be solved with international cooperation, such as climate change, water and air pollution, over-fishing of the ocean, and the spread of invasive species. Since many factories are built in developing countries with less environmental regulation, globalism and free trade may increase pollution.

· Social - increased circulation by people of all nations with fewer restrictions.

o Spreading of multiculturalism, and better individual access to cultural diversity. \

o Greater international travel and tourism

o Greater immigration, including illegal immigration

o Spread of local consumer products (e.g. food) to other countries (often adapted to their culture).

o Worldwide fads and pop culture.

o Worldwide sporting events such as the Olympic Games.

· Technical

o Development of a global telecommunications infrastructure and greater transborder data flow, using such technologies as the Internet, communication satellites and wireless telephones

Globalization – the growing integration of economies and societies around the world – has been one of the most hotly-debated topics in international economics over the past few years. Rapid growth and poverty reduction in China, India, and other countries that were poor 20 years ago, has been a positive aspect of globalization. But globalization has also generated significant international opposition over concerns that it has increased inequality and environmental degradation.

Дата добавления: 2015-09-03