The cross-cultural year between Italy and Russia, celebrated in 2011, is quickly picking up the pace with the several exhibitions of outstanding Italian artists visiting Moscow - in exchange to a reciprocal visit of the collections from Russian museums.

      In particular, the visitors to the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow will see Giotto's Madonna and the Child (Madonna col Bambino at the Museo diocesano di Santo Stefano al Ponte, also known as Madonna di San Giorgio alla Costa, in Florence), and the famous polyptich from the Museo dell'Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore. In exchange, the Florentines will be able to first-hand explore the icons by Andrei Rublev, Dionisius, and the Pskov School.

      Meanwhile, the visitors to the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan can see the works of French painters that had been bought by the Russian art collectors and donated to the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. The exhibition includes paintings by Claude Monet, Paul Cezanne, Henri Matisse, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Gauguin, and Pablo Picasso. This is the first time these precious specimens of world's painting are exhibited in Italy. One of the art collectors, Ivan Morozov, went to Paris to personally buy Picasso's Portrait of Ambroise Vollard. Over 15 years, in which Morozov spent 200-300 thousand francs annualy, he collected over 200 works of European artists.

      The exhibition in Milan runs until February 5th, 2012.

      Source: Cultura.