Drawing visiting a museum children's drawing. Little art historians: when to take your child to the museum? Akhmatova Museum in Fountain House

Children and museums.

Believe it or not, the museum is a place where you can go with small children too! And don’t be afraid or think that museums and children are incompatible. And if you want to instill in your baby a sense of beauty from a tender age, then such trips are highly recommended! And in this article we will look at how to properly organize visiting museums with children , important aspects carrying out such cultural program for your child.

Many parents think that children in preschool age will not remember a trip to a museum, paintings, or their authors. Then what is the point of going to a museum? It is important to understand here that young children do not absorb information in exactly the same way as adults. This also applies to the perception of paintings. Children see them figuratively, comprehend them emotionally, and let the pictures they like most deeply pass through them. Also, some parents are afraid that it will be difficult for their child to comply rules of conduct in the museum for children . But everything is in your hands! If you carefully consider the preparation of this event and follow general recommendations, then a trip to the museum can be turned into an amusing trip, pleasant and useful!

My bad childhood experience.

I remember well one of my first childhood experiences of visiting a museum, the Tretyakov Gallery. An exhibition of Marc Chagall was brought there. And, as usual, a large intelligentsia, thirsty for art, lined up. Among them were my parents. And I was still very small, no more than 7-8 years old. We stood in this dull line for 2 hours. I was cold and tired. When we got there, as you understand, I didn’t want to watch anything at all.
I probably remembered this trip to the museum with horror for a long time. Fortunately, this experience did not discourage my lifelong love of art. And now, with great pleasure, I visit exhibitions in various museums and galleries, and with special love, the Tretyakov Gallery. Now I know what exactly cannot be done, or rather, what needs to be done in order to visiting museums for children evoked only joyful emotions, leaving pleasant memories! And I want your children to also go to museums with interest and delight!

• First important rule: Going to a museum should not be tiring for a child. Choose a time of day that is convenient for your baby so that he is not tired or sleepy. It is best to go to the museum in the first half of the day.

• Also, try to go to museums on a weekday. On weekdays there are always fewer people, and you will feel much freer in the halls of the museum.

• Any cultural event- This is a serious burden for a child. A visiting museums for children - especially. Therefore, for the first time, it is better to spend no more than 30-40 minutes viewing works of art. There is no need to try to cover everything - it is unrealistic, and it is simply not necessary. If a child is captivated by just 3 paintings, that’s already great! It’s better to stand for 10 minutes in front of one painting than to rush around the museum for an hour and look at the top. Leave the other pictures for next time.

• Looking for familiar paintings in exhibition halls, perhaps the child will be attracted to some others. Try to come up with a story for your child based on this picture, and dream up together. In general, follow your child's interests. At different ages, children are fascinated different topics: fabulous, human, philosophical, natural, about animals, etc.

• And at the end of your tour, be sure to stop by the museum shop. You should not leave the museum without a gift.

Rules of conduct in the museum for children

A museum is a place where it is necessary to strictly adhere to rules of behavior, which is usually difficult for young children. They always want to run around and touch everything with their hands. And, unfortunately, museum workers often reprimand children and their parents very harshly. To avoid this and not ruin your mood, try to talk through these rules in advance, but not in a boring didactic tone.

For example, you can appeal to the child’s feelings, ask him to “pity” the paintings. We can say that they are very many years old, many of them survived wars, fires, and other disasters, and they are very fragile, they must be protected so as not to cause harm. Then other people will be able to admire them for a long time. Therefore, you should not touch them with your hands, touch them, or take pictures with a flash (this will cause the paint to fade).

But if the child conscientiously follows the rules of conduct in the museum for children, then the “young art lover” can be promised a reward at the end of your trip. It could be some kind of thing or game from the same museum. Now sold in museum shops a large number of interesting educational games based on pictures: lotto, memories, puzzles. The gift will not only a pleasant memory about visiting museums by children. It will allow you to continue to return to these paintings, play and instill a love for them.

Preparing for a trip to the museum: how to interest a child.

Now about the most difficult part. Which exhibitions should you visit with your child? Which paintings should I choose? And how to interest a child? Let's look at these questions. First of all, you can’t do this without preliminary preparation. If you have never looked at paintings together at home or discussed them, then it will be difficult for your child to perceive paintings in a museum. Interest must first be stirred up, a foundation and background knowledge must be laid. This may take more than one week.

Visiting museums with children: our trip to the Tretyakov Gallery.

I'll tell you about our experience. The first time my daughter visited the Tretyakov Gallery was 3.5 years old. And our first “guide” was the book “Walks through the Tretyakov Gallery” with Andrey Usachev. The book is beautifully designed: on the spread on one side there is a reproduction, on the other there is a poem for this picture. The poems are very different: short and long, lively and dynamic, some deep and philosophical. We read this book almost from the cradle, since I really liked it myself. And they returned to her again and again. Therefore, we built our first entrance to the Tretyakov Gallery precisely on the basis of this book. We just walked around and looked for our familiar and favorite paintings. And my daughter was sincerely happy when she noticed “Horsewomen” by Bryullov, “The Swan Princess” by Vrubel, “Troika” by Perov, “Morning in pine forest"Shishkin, and, of course, the most beloved - "Children Running from a Thunderstorm" by Makovsky. Then she repeatedly asked when we would go to the Tretyakov Gallery again. Our next trip took place recently, when she was already 5 years old, together with the participants of our creative workshop “Droplets of Art”. Read about it soon.

Excursions for children: yes or no?

You yourself know how different tour guides are. Some are able to ignite a fiery spark, while others only cause boredom and despondency. In any case, the stories based on the paintings should be lively, with elements of riddles, reasoning, and searches for answers to questions. Do not overload your child with information about the artist and the date of creation. It doesn't matter at all until a certain age.

I tried to tell as much as possible about all the subtleties and details visiting museums for children . I hope that your trips to the museum will bring you and your child a lot of joy, and that the tips above will help you avoid possible errors and difficulties. I wish you and your children a pleasant and inspiring introduction to the world of art!

Alexandra Troshina

Some parents may ask: why go to museums at all? First of all, for the sake of pleasure. The charm of nature, beauty human body, feelings frozen on the canvas, the play of light and shadow... However, unfortunately, not everyone knows how to notice this beauty. Perhaps it's all about the intense rhythm of life. But it is much more likely that people indifferent to art were simply not taught to understand painting or sculpture in childhood. And learn this in mature age Not everyone succeeds. Therefore, it is important to start a child’s “museum education” on time.

When should you start taking your child to a museum?

The most favorable age for introducing children to art is 4–5 years. Before taking a child to a museum classical painting it makes no sense. For a child at the age of an active explorer (from 1 to 3 years), when he needs to touch everything, climb everywhere, the Tretyakov Gallery, the Russian Museum, the Louvre and others like them are unlikely to be suitable for these purposes. From the age of 4 the period begins role-playing games– and then children are, in principle, ready to perceive museums.

Now we are not talking about deep knowledge of styles and trends. The main thing is that the child enjoys simple contemplation and through the picture the child tries to comprehend the beauty of the world around him. How can I help him with this?

How to tell your child about art? Useful books will help

Perhaps you are not a big art connoisseur. There's nothing wrong with that. And if you don’t know what and how to tell your child about art, what paintings to introduce first, books will come to your aid. Now in real and virtual bookstores you can find many good publications about painting for children, which will become a convenient help for parents. By the way, reading such books and looking at high-quality reproductions will greatly improve your cultural level not only the child, but also mom and dad.

Everyone knows that kids remember information best in poetry. “Walks through the Tretyakov Gallery” by Andrei Usachev is ideal for this purpose. Read poems about famous paintings to your child two or three times, and now he will recite them from memory.

And at the same time, the child will remember the paintings and the names of the artists.

It is not difficult to master the genres of painting in poetic form. You can use the old song based on the poems of Alexander Kushner from the cartoon “Plasticine Crow”. It talks about the main genres of painting in a very fun and understandable way for children.

If you see it - in the picture
A river is drawn
Or spruce and white frost,
Or a garden and clouds,
Or a snowy plain
Or a field and a hut, -
Required picture
It's called a landscape.

And here is a verse about still life:

If you see in the picture
Cup of coffee on the table
Or fruit drink in a large decanter,
Or a rose in crystal,
Or a bronze vase,
Or a pear or a cake,
Or all items at once -
Know that this is a still life.

And there is also something about the portrait:

If you see what's in the picture
Is anyone looking at us?
Or a prince in an old cloak,
Or a steeplejack in a robe,
Pilot or ballerina,
Or Kolka, your neighbor, -
Required picture
It's called a portrait.

And then, when the child in the museum has a good grasp of genres, he can play with mom and dad at the sight of any painting. fun game“Who will define the genre first?” It is especially interesting if mom or dad “accidentally” answers incorrectly and gives the baby the opportunity to correct the mistake. After this, can we really say that an art museum is boring for a child?

But let's get back to the books. You can’t ignore the book by the famous art critic Françoise Barb-Galle “How to talk to children about art” - it tells how children perceive paintings of different ages, and what to pay their attention to.

From time to time, take your baby to " computer museum": just sit down with him at the monitor and look through the reproductions. There are many websites about art for children with thematic selections of paintings. For example, you can look at paintings about a specific time of year, about children or about holidays... And just have a heart-to-heart talk about these paintings.

A child in a museum: first experience

So, the child is mentally prepared to visit the museum. Let your excursion become a real holiday for the little inquisitive man. To make sure this happens, use simple rules.

The basic principle is only positive emotions! A child in a museum should be interested and understand what it’s about we're talking about. Therefore, standard museum excursions. For some time, mom or dad should become a guide for their baby.

It is a fact
A conversation about rules of conduct in a museum is necessary. Don’t put pressure on the child with all sorts of “don’ts,” but calmly tell him that such beautiful building and you need to behave beautifully. Agree that the baby will not touch anything. Explain that this was invented to ensure that the exhibits were preserved as long as possible.

There is no need to turn every child’s visit to a museum into a ritual so that the child does not associate it with any special actions and responsibilities. Tell your child about the walk in advance, maybe even prepare for it by looking at reproductions of paintings. Another time, take your child to a museum or exhibition completely unexpectedly. Just, while walking around the city, say: “Let’s go in and see that picture that you liked last time?” Or: “Wow! Look: the new exhibition “Our City in Paintings by Artists”! Let's watch!"

A child in a museum: show easy-to-understand stories

To maintain your child’s interest in the museum, pay attention to subjects that he understands. The smallest “art critics” will be happy to look at a chicken or a cow, a rural house or a river with a bridge (“like a grandmother’s in the village”), fruits and vegetables on the table, the sea, the forest, children playing and much more that they encounter in everyday life.

Of course, not all stories will be interesting to the baby. It is unlikely that he will look at numerous portraits for a long time royal families Middle Ages. Although some of this can also be shown to him: it’s curious what the kings and queens looked like, about whom they write in fairy tales...

A four-year-old child can already be shown historical paintings, everyday scenes, and biblical paintings. mythological themes. Looking at a painting is like traveling in a time machine! Real pictures from the past are frozen here, and you can see what the cities looked like, how people dressed, what they did...

Five years - best age to start introducing your child to myths Ancient Greece. Children are not only interested in intricacies mythological stories. They also perfectly remember the entire genealogy of gods and heroes. And then they are happy if they see them in a museum and recognize the plot in the painting themselves. The same can be said about biblical themes. But first, if you haven't already, read the children's Bible to your baby. The picture will not make the right impression on the child if he does not understand what is happening in it. At home, you can consolidate the acquired knowledge: watch a cartoon or film on the “topic”, find on geographical map desired country, look through the children's encyclopedia.

4 games you can play with your child in the museum

To keep your baby from getting bored, play with him useful games in the museum. They will train his thinking, speech, and imagination.

1. Memos

Invite your child to look at the picture and then turn away. Let him now try to answer your questions from memory. For example: “How many apples are there on the table?” or “What color is the girl’s dress?” Then switch roles.

2. Storytelling

Near the painting with interesting story stay longer. Together with your child, describe it in detail: what is depicted, what kind of characters they are, what they are doing, what they are wearing, what they are talking about, etc. Try to write a story.

3. Emotions

Draw your child's attention to the emotions expressed by the characters in the picture. Let the little art critic try to determine: what are the heroes? Maybe joyful, cheerful, happy, thoughtful, sad, offended?

4. Fantasy

Helps develop imagination abstract painting. Similar paintings arouse children's curiosity. An incomprehensible green spot may seem like a frog to a baby, and a yellow smear may seem like the Moon. Find such an “incomprehensible” picture at the exhibition and ask your child: “What do you see here?” You might be surprised by his answer...

There is an exit!

It is important to feel the moment when the baby begins to get tired and leave immediately. This way you will maintain your child’s interest long enough. high level. And next time he will willingly agree to come to this or another museum again to see something already familiar or completely new and unusual.

Make it a rule, every time after visiting a museum, to buy postcards with reproductions of paintings at the exit: children really love all kinds of souvenirs. In addition, postcards will be an excellent “cheat sheet” for you and your baby. They can be hung on the walls in the nursery or used as bookmarks. Or just collect it and store it in a box. And take it out from time to time to review and remember the very pictures that made the greatest impression on you. By sorting through the postcards, the child will quickly remember both the artists and the names of the paintings. For him, buying postcards can become a kind of ritual and will increase interest in going to the museum.

The main thing is for the child to understand that art is not boring at all! And if, impressed by what he saw, he wants to create his own “masterpiece” - great! Let him draw “copies” of the paintings he likes, let him create something of his own, develop, get smarter, become better... After all, this is precisely the main role of art.

– Why should a child go to a museum?

- Yes, there seems to be no need. Children grow up in villages without museums at all, and nothing, good people become. Therefore, there is no clear and unique answer to this question. But, you know, I remember very well my childhood impressions of the incredible beautiful home, which we once came to with our parents. We walked up the grand staircase past the large columns. We found ourselves in some special space where I, a very little girl, felt like a princess in a magical land.

Even though I only knew them in reproductions, I really liked two works at the time – the landscape with the Parthenon by Polenov and “Red Vineyards” by Van Gogh. And when, once at the Pushkin Museum. Pushkin, I saw both, and decided for myself that I didn’t want to leave here.

Many years later, when I had been working in a museum for a long time, the idea occurred to me that each of us chooses a profession based on the basic impressions that we once received in childhood.

I have been working with children for fifteen years and I know that a museum for a child is much more than an entertaining walk. This is a way out of the space of familiar impressions, out of the confines of your home, out of everyday life. This is a great and special journey, which, I would like to believe, is often a pleasant experience of their life. This is an acquaintance not just with works of art, but with people of other eras and cultures who dressed differently, rode horses, rode sleighs...

All this greatly expands the child’s historical horizons. Of course, in children up to a certain age - up to the fifth grade for sure (10-11 years old) - in principle, chronological consciousness does not exist, at least, there is no sense of time. Nevertheless, a visit to the museum helps children broaden their historical horizons and gain a deeper understanding of own story. It is obvious that it is no less important for a child than for an adult to feel that he is not taken out of the context of time and life.

A museum is a contemplation of beauty that teaches children to notice the beauty around them, in own home, in the yard, on the street, but equally, it teaches you to notice the ugly, that which hurts the eye and you want to hide. I have heard more than once from parents that after visiting the museum, children try to clean their room and hang their own drawings on the walls; girls become more attentive to their appearance and all children, without exception, begin to operate with such concepts as “dress in XVIII style century”, “in the style of a queen”, “like an ancient Greek muse”.

Stay in the museum, study outstanding works arts, willy-nilly, instill not only in a child, but also in any person, a certain taste and desire to recreate this special space where you live.

If you ask any of us about the impression he experienced when he first came to the museum, then in response we will hear either “wow, how beautiful it was there,” or “God, those huge slippers that fell off our feet, and the museum babes on the chairs, and there’s also a long line.” The first impression is the most important, the biggest and the most meaningful for children.

– One priest once spoke about his first visit to early childhood Tretyakov Gallery. When his parents asked what he liked best, he took them to a nook where there was a huge red fire extinguisher. Not everything in the museum space is understandable to children, and if they are interested, it is often not at all what adults expect. Are there any recommendations that can help parents make visiting the museum interesting and understandable?

– Imagine, you are a parent. Your child has begun to walk. It was the first time you came to the playground with him. What are you doing? First of all, you voice the space, consistently give a verbal explanation of everything: “Look, baby, here is the sandbox, and here is the sand. Take a spatula and pour sand into the mold. We turn it over, knock it, and we get a cake. It’s interesting.”

The same thing happens when we go to the zoo. We tell you in advance about the upcoming meeting with the world of wild animals. And when we approach one enclosure, then another, we never forget to say: “This is a monkey, and this long-necked animal is a giraffe, and here, look, a huge hippopotamus is swimming in a puddle. Funny, isn't it?

For young children, especially those living in remote areas, any departure or uprooting from their usual way of life is stressful. Of course, the first thing parents should do is prepare their children for visiting the museum. Tell them that tomorrow, for example, an incredible journey into the world of paintings and sculptures awaits them. Even if the child does not know either the first or the second word, he is already receiving preparatory information verbally.

Secondly, you should learn to voice everything that you see in front of you: “Look, this is a museum, and this is the main staircase along which you and I will now enter this fairy-tale palace...” For my students, I try to make the museum not like -not an inaccessible and pompous place, but a house whose inhabitants you can always get to know. For children this immediately becomes relevant. They know very well what a house is and what the inhabitants of the house are. Sculptures, paintings, vases, outfits, and any other antiquities turn out to be simply unexpected inhabitants for them.

Thirdly, it is necessary to have a lively dialogue with children and not impose your point of view. You need to follow your child and give fascinating explanations to any of his questions, even if you don’t know the correct answer. Don't be afraid of your assumptions. Imagine, you want to show your child some room that is interesting to you, but he suddenly gets stuck by the rope that encloses the exhibit. Give him the opportunity to touch this string. And then notice that it is attached to the posts, and the posts block the path to the sculpture. Ask about who she portrays? What is it made of? Does the child like it? With what? And finally, summarize: “Now you know exactly why this shiny rope is needed.”

Five paintings instead of football

– Of course, there are those who go to museums regularly; they have everything written down in their diary largest exhibitions six months in advance. But there are also many people for whom visiting a museum is hard and boring work. “Friends go, but why am I worse?” What recommendations would you give in this case?

– You see, parents share the experience that they themselves have. And if they are closer Soccer game or a bike ride, they will prefer Bitsevsky Park and the stadium rather than a trip to the museum.

– But what if you still want to try, and even take the child?

– Every major museum today has a website where you can read about both the museum and its exhibits. Make your trip easier by choosing no more than five works of interest to you from among the exhibits.

For example, if you go to Museum of Science and Industry, then let it be five interesting devices, preferably as different as possible. If you are going to art gallery, then choose several paintings in different genres: historical plot, landscape, still life, and definitely some painting or sculpture depicting a child.

Study the layout of the museum in advance, find out where your exhibits are located geographically. It is advisable that they are not scattered over a large space. Go to the museum with your child for no more than half an hour to forty minutes. The main thing is not to try to show him everything at once. Leave it until next time. Show “your” works, tell us about them in your own words, and then feel free to go for a walk. I guarantee you that the impressions will be the strongest and most positive.

– Let’s imagine that you already have the habit of visiting a museum. The child has mastered its space and knows where the hall with Roman sculptures, Greek vases is, and where the Egyptian mummy lies. But here he is alone with the exhibit. How to teach a child to enjoy interacting with a work of art?

– We call this method Socratic. I don’t know whether Socrates used it in the form I will propose, but art historians and teachers call the “question and answer” method exactly that.

If you notice your child stopping at an exhibit, ask him what interested him. It is unlikely that he will answer: “Oh, of course, this gallant rider, or this large-scale demonstration captured my imagination.” Most likely, the child will talk about some dog, a shiny pistol, or another tiny detail that you did not attach importance to.

The fact is that the first thing a child sees is at eye level. Children generally see objects from small to large details. But it is in the power of an adult to unwind the tangle from the private to the content of a work of art, to bring the child into dialogue. It is the dialogue that will allow him to continue to examine the work and teach him to see the scale and general content.

For example, you can say: “It’s really an interesting gun, but do you know who it belongs to? Who do you think this man was? And in what state is he depicted: resting, in a hurry to go to war, maybe wounded?” Come up with questions, because with them you will help the child enter the work of art. Try to become your child’s guide in this matter. The longer it stays with one piece, the better.

Which one is the best main advice? No more than five works for careful study and one visit. As stingy as I might sound, as much as you may worry that you paid for an expensive ticket and only saw five or six works, you know, it’s like eating a good meal. It's better to leave the table a little hungry.

Do you know which one is the best? a big problem among people traveling abroad, those who visit expensive museums? This is an irrepressible desire to contain the inconceivable, to embrace everything at once, as if for future use.

Understand that it is impossible to hold on to this. If I come abroad, I say to my daughter: “We are now going to see the most beautiful work of Raphael, but while we move through the halls of the museum, imagine that we are walking along beautiful park. All these paintings with landscapes and people - just trees and just passers-by. Smile at them and relax.” For my child and students in the museum, I try to create an atmosphere of relaxation, to instill in them that the museum is best vacation for the soul.

Rewiring your brain and running

– Why for the soul?

– Because this is not a rest for the body at all. Main difficulty for a child in a museum is that you can’t touch anything here with your hands. But tactile sensations are the most important component of a child’s development. Therefore, I highly recommend that parents, knowing that they should not touch paintings and sculptures, do not pull the child back, but allow him to touch the floor, the walls, especially if they are marble, ropes, handles, and everything that is allowed to be touched.

At the same time, it is also important to play up the fact that one thing can be touched, but we will not touch the paintings - they are important courtiers, which are not allowed to be approached. In the museum you can crawl, sit on the floor, laugh, be surprised, admire, experience new tactile sensations, feel like a Lilliputian in the land of Gulliver, and there is only one rule: you cannot touch the exhibits with your hands.

You see, a child does not rest in a museum, because he constantly has to strictly control himself, besides, in museums there is a flat floor, and on a flat floor the legs always get more tired. Finally, museums have a lot of people, which can be tiresome. This is why we think that going to a museum is difficult. Children naturally want to run. I'm not even talking about the fact that today's generation of children find it difficult to walk, much less concentrate their attention for long periods of time.

But it is in this regard that museums have a huge therapeutic effect not only on children, but on people in general. Museums, especially classical ones, allow you to stop the eternal flickering of frames, reconfigure, overload your brain, forcing it to concentrate for a minute or two on one object.

It is very important. The race for events, news, information, trying to get ahead of everything and keep up with everything is simply killing us. And the ability to stop a moment prolongs a person’s life. A museum is a place where you can have a real feast for your soul.

– How to do this?

– Rest for the soul is the opportunity to stop a moment. Any museum is a time machine in which you can travel both to the past and to the future. Whether it's a space museum or a museum contemporary art. Here you can freeze and stop to fantasize and dream.

You can imagine yourself being present in one or another picture. Don't be lazy to do this. This is really interesting. Many museums, especially my favorite Pushkin Museum, were created for this purpose. The entire architecture of the museum, the entire space of its premises, as conceived by the authors, should transport a person to a certain era, immerse him in certain period culture of humanity.

But the catch is that what is interesting and understandable to us is not always understandable to a child. What seems beautiful to us may be perceived by children as ordinary and ordinary. And vice versa. Therefore, the task of a parent - this is really important - is to look at the world through the eyes of his own child. Sometimes in a museum it’s enough to squat down and look at a painting from your child’s eye level to discover a completely new perspective, his perspective.

And yet, there is no need to rush to stuff your child with a lot of knowledge. New knowledge and information is best absorbed by a child during puberty, from 10 to 15 years. No matter how uncontrollable a teenager may be, his head is still an open cabinet in which knowledge will perfectly fall one after another in due time. Up to the age of ten, saturate your children with impressions. Give them empathy.

I had an unforgettable experience when I once went with my six-year-old daughter to Raphael's hall. There was a famous and stunning sculpture of a mortally wounded boy being carried by a dolphin. I noticed that my child was attracted to the work, and I specifically stopped to talk.

- What do you see? – asked my daughter.

“Dolphin... Boy... He’s wounded, and the dolphin is trying to save him,” she said with pauses.

And then I noticed how tears flowed from her eyes. At that moment, I realized that the main thing had happened that made it worth going to the museum. This is the power of art - it evokes empathy.

Moderation is everything, or don't be prudes

– How often should you go to the museum?

– Now there is a trend when parents give children in Russia elementary education, and then send them to study in Europe. At the same time, they turn to us at the museum with a request, saying that we want to nourish the child as much as possible so that he goes abroad prepared. In this case, museums meet such parents halfway and conduct intensive classes with children.

But, in my observation, even once every two weeks is too much for a child. First of all, because children cease to perceive the museum as a place of relaxation. It becomes another school, duty, work, labor for them. But what is important is that the museum remains a place that people want to come to and that they miss. Let the museum be a holiday, an encouragement, a place of favorite leisure, but not a place for school. Therefore, I am convinced that you should visit the museum with your child no more than once a month.

I really appreciate the heritage of the ancient Greeks and especially their slogan: “Measure is everything.” The Greeks were sure that a sense of proportion was a gift from the gods to man.

It’s good for parents to feel for their children, to remember themselves as little, so that they understand: in their children’s heads there are a lot of different interests and information besides museums. It is very important that parents know when to stop their zeal.

– Radio and television offer a lot of educational programs about museums and art. It seems that we are no longer perceiving the museum as a space for the elite. Or is that not true?

“I was raised by my great-grandmother because my parents worked. In the summer I visited her in a village near Moscow. In her ordinary peasant house, a varnished reproduction of “Alyonushka” on canvas still hangs. And also “Hunters at Rest” and “Winter Hunt Scene”. These reproductions are at least ninety years old.

You see, used to be art was in every person's house. Yes, it could be just one antique cabinet, just one reproduction famous painting. But that is precisely why a person, coming to the museum, did not feel it alien to himself. Soviet reality, with its small apartments in block houses, has completely replaced sculpture, beautiful clocks, and bulky carved furniture. But today photographs have been driven out of our homes. paintings art.

The sense of reality and the concept of beauty have changed. I like IKEA as an idea, but I am sad that today the “Ikea worldview” triumphs. It is not surprising that living among high-tech, among photographs on a tablet, we inevitably feel like strangers in this space in a museum.

Remember when I said that memories are important to us? So, if schoolchildren come from southern Butovo or a town near Moscow by bus to the Pushkin Museum, I know exactly what they need to be shown in the museum. They need hits, pictures from their textbooks: a spearman, a discus thrower... As soon as they see these works, they blossom before their eyes. Although their textbooks contain monstrous quality reproductions, the moment you encounter a work of art, recognition arises. The museum ceases to be foreign and foreign to them.

– What then do you see as the main problem, why people don’t rush to museums?

– No matter how beautiful a landscape a person lives in, he will still draw, depict animals on the walls of caves, and carve sculptures from wood. Without art, people's lives would be incomplete, because art is a deep human need. And the main mistake we make as parents is that we consider art to be a sublime world that we need to grow into. No, that's not true. You need to enter this world yourself and learn to let your child into it.

Thank God, a large number of wonderful books have appeared in stores, which game form introduce children to the masterpieces of the world visual arts, and museums also publish such books. This is “The Charm of the Russian Landscape”, and “ Historical paintings", prepared by the Tretyakov Gallery. In them, the reproduction is accompanied by a short fairy-tale text, available for reading before bed. The Pushkin Museum has published a series of books for children, for example “ABC”, which early age includes the child in the understanding that art is the norm of life.

But there is one more important nuance. Religious consciousness is experiencing a revival today. Art museums are a huge help in this regard, for example by visualizing gospel events before the child. But the museum is also an opportunity to show icons painted not by contemporaries, but by deeply religious artists, many of whom were monks. Show works in which artists glorified God.

This is an opportunity to teach important religious, philosophy lesson children. To consolidate what for many is already the foundation of their lives, just as it was once the foundation for people of the distant past. Believing parents themselves must know and understand works of art in order to be able to explain their content to their children. But for some reason this is not obvious to everyone, alas.

At the museum we encountered another problem: a very sharp reaction from Orthodox parents, many of whom pointedly stopped taking their children to the Pushkin Museum. Also, some Orthodox schools no longer come to our exhibitions as classes. Main conflict was caused by the fact that in the museum we introduced children from Orthodox schools to ancient nudes. They showed them, for example, Michelangelo's David, Aphrodite, the spearman. After the conflict, we were forced to provide legends to the exhibits with tags with age restrictions.

I am convinced that one of the biggest mistakes parents make is holding their children within sanctimonious boundaries. Parents must understand that today the Christian attitude towards the body is alive in us, but in distant centuries there were other people, with a different idea of ​​the essence of man, with a different way of thinking and living. To hide this from a child, to forbid him to look at an ancient sculpture, means to traumatize the child, who, generally speaking, is alien to vice. It is from those who were forbidden and instilled with shame from the sight of a naked body from an early age that they grow up to be complex people with deviant behavior and excessive interest in sexuality.

Children are innocent. Therefore, there is no need to attribute to them what they do not possess. You need to understand that classic art museums cultivate flexibility of consciousness in children. And if you're concerned about ethical issues, start taking your children long before they reach the age of ten, before they develop a conscious sense of shame.

If from 5 to 10 years a child develops the habit of being surprised, admiring, and enjoying beauty, then in the future he will never be embarrassed, awkward, or unhealthyly interested in nudity. For such children antique sculpture will forever be a work of art.

– Don’t you think that many people are also stopped by the high entrance fees set in museums?

- Wait, how much does a movie ticket cost now? I won’t speak for everyone, but I got the impression that what comes easy to people, they don’t value. I have been working in the museum for almost twenty years and I can authoritatively say: such attendance as it is now (when the ticket price is quite high) has never happened before. To be more precise, it was in the 50s and 60s. At that time, fashion and lifestyle were dictated by the intelligentsia, that is, teachers and associate professors of institutes. By the way, they introduced the fashion for hiking and kayaking, rock climbing, bard songs and interest in avant-garde art.

You see, the worldview always comes from above and descends to the people. And when a simple tram driver saw that his neighbor, a physics professor, was going with his whole family to the museum, he pulled himself up to this bar.

In the nineties, it’s not to say that people had absolutely nothing (tickets to museums, by the way, were very affordable), but it was a period of different values. Media people had different preferences. And although exhibitions at the Pushkin Museum were then opened by Chernomyrdin, Gaidar, Luzhkov, there was no current craze for art among the political elite. That's why middle class I treated art calmly for quite a long time.

I remember I was a student, but I was already working in Pushkin Museum. And many acquaintances, having learned about this, could not hide their slight disdain. Could I, a “nerd” in their opinion, compete with them, who worked in cool companies... for the production of laces, with high salaries.

A lot has changed now. First of all, the elite, having probably satisfied their primary needs, turns to art and begins collecting it. Today, there is probably not a single rich person who does not have some, albeit minimal, collection of works of fine art. And since they are interested in this, it means they need to understand art, which means they start going to museums, bringing their children and friends here, sponsoring exhibitions. Gradually, this fashion descends lower and lower, finally reaching the level of a simple manager and again - a tram driver.

But there is one more nuance, psychological. When a person sees that the prices of museum tickets are increasing, he automatically fears that they may become more expensive. And since the price is so high, it means it’s something worthwhile. By the way, thanks to Medinsky, who ordered that admission to the museum for children under 16 (18) years of age be free.

I really hope that one day museums in Russia, like in England, will become completely free. But we need to not forget that there is another experience. In Italy you will pay for every sneeze, including visiting the temples where the works of the great masters are located. Museums for Italy are one of the important sources of state budget revenue. Therefore, I don’t like the inflated prices for exhibitions in Moscow, but I don’t see a big problem here either.

To summarize, I will list ten simple rules, compliance with which will protect you from typical mistakes and teach you how to go to the museum.

Rule one.Don't try to separate art for adults and for children. It's for everyone.

Rule two.Don't think that museums are for schoolchildren. If you want your child to fall in love with museums and to accompany you to any museums in Europe and Asia, start taking him to museums no earlier than five years old, but no later than ten. This is the most favorable period to make children fall in love with art. Then leave them alone.

Rule three.Prepare your child for visiting the museum. Tell us about what he will see and what he will be able to do in the museum. Lastly, tell us what not to do.

Rule four.Don’t try to show your child everything at once. Choose five works and spend no more than half an hour in the museum.

Rule five.Try to look at the world through your child's eyes. Squat down and use the Socratic method: ask questions to help your child discover the content of the work of art.

Rule six.Feel free to not know. Have a dialogue with your child and tell him what you see for yourself.

Rule seven.Don't rush to stuff yourself with knowledge. Give your child time to experience empathy for a work of art.

Rule eight.Try to turn the time spent in the museum into an exciting vacation, and the museum into a place where it is easy to fantasize and you can experience new tactile sensations.

Rule nine.Take your children to the museum as soon as they remind you of it. Have no doubt: even a nihilistic teenager, who was instilled with a taste for beauty before the age of ten, will sooner or later return to you.

Rule ten.Don't think that museums are only about the past. History repeats itself, and everything new is well forgotten old. Visiting museums is always more than an experience. After all, works of art educate a person’s eye and shape his taste.

You need to create interest in the museum long before visiting it:

Tell us about the museum, rules of conduct in it - explain that all the strict rules were invented to ensure that the painting is preserved as long as possible. That there are paintings that are many centuries old; they have survived wars, fires, floods, they are easily damaged - they are very fragile and require the most careful handling. Even if you touch them clean hands, you can scratch them or introduce invisible harmful microorganisms to the surface. And over time, countless photo flashes can “burn” and discolor the paint layer.

Familiarize yourself with reproductions of paintings in advance. Review illustrations of museums with your children. Ask your child questions: “Would you like to see the original paintings, find out which museum is in our city?”
Preparation for visiting the museum and the event itself should create a festive mood in the child.

Don't go to the museum on rainy days- according to tradition, it is believed that it is better to go in rainy weather, which implies that people go to the museum only when there is nothing else to do. Going to a museum should not be a way to kill time. By the way, on a sunny day it is much more pleasant to look at paintings than on a cloudy one. And standing in line at the cloakroom with wet jackets and umbrellas is a rather dull experience, which can poison a child’s first impressions.

Do not tell in advance what you are going to show your child. You will deprive him of the joy of independent discovery. If you begin to express your own impressions, feelings and assessments in every possible way, what will be left for him? Give him the opportunity to concentrate and collect his thoughts. Of course, if you just stand silently in front of the picture you want to attract his attention to, this is unlikely to help him. But talking too much and too confidently is perhaps even worse.

You must be ready to answer any child's question.

Give your child freedom of choice- don’t try to force the pictures you like on him. Trust him own choice, your personal opinion is only for him a starting point. Determine what he pays attention to. Follow him from hall to hall: sooner or later he will stop before something, even if before that he manages to indifferently pass by some generally recognized masterpiece. You can return to this masterpiece with him later. Your task is to prepare and encourage the child to meet the beautiful for the first time; it is not for you to decide where and when it will happen. His choice may surprise you, upset you, go against your own tastes, and yet it is best to start with exactly what he chooses.
In the future, you can limit yourself to a detailed examination of 2-3 paintings in one room.

Don't prolong your stay at the museum, don't try to see everything- any trip to a museum - no matter what - is a serious burden for a child. He will have to walk slowly, not make noise, not touch anything with his hands - this is not easy. Young children generally tend to view museum halls as a welcome space where they can run around to their heart's content. It is a thousand times more useful to spend five minutes in front of one work than to watch everything “over and over” for an hour.

Leaving the museum buy postcards with reproductions- plan your time so that you can finally choose and buy postcards. Postcards are wonderful and easy souvenirs; They can decorate the walls in the nursery or use them as bookmarks. The child will collect them, sometimes scatter them, lose them, but when he finds them again, he will be delighted with them, like old acquaintances. At first it will be easy beautiful pictures, but then these miniature reproductions will help preserve and revive early childhood impressions.

After visiting, ask your child what he liked best.
Awaken the child’s desire to tell the elders and youngest in the family and his peers about what he saw.

A systematic visit to the museum with your child will allow you to introduce your child to art, teach him to see the beauty of the world around him, and help develop his speech and thinking.

Dear parents, we will be glad if you share your experience (both successful and unsuccessful) of introducing your child to art on our forum, and we will also share ours.

Preparing for your first trip to the museum

To new experience the child was positive, you need to prepare for your first trip to the museum. It is important to choose a museum based on their interests and the gender of your child. You can involve your child in the process of choosing a museum or exhibition theme. To interest your child, tell him about the museum’s exhibitions, about the most interesting exhibit, and even more interesting, take a virtual tour on the museum’s website.

I remember very well one of my first trips to the museum. It was Zoo museum in St. Petersburg. I saw a huge skeleton of a dinosaur and was very scared. But my parents were with me. The fear went away when I heard fascinating story about this dinosaur. And then this museum became one of my favorites, especially since I really wanted to become a zoologist and studied animals. I liked to slowly wander around the shop windows, look at stuffed animals, and watch art students making sketches of animals. That time, my family and I stayed in St. Petersburg for a week, and every day I asked to be taken to this museum. My parents patiently drove me around and continued to introduce me to the museum’s exhibits. I did not become a zoologist, but throughout my life I retained a love for the animal world and awe before the next opening of a new museum.

Parents need to prepare themselves for visiting the museum. Children ask a lot of questions, so choose the ones that suit you best. interesting exhibitions and study them on the museum’s website, find out the history of the museum. In this case, your communication will be rich.

It is interesting to show your child one or two reproductions of the paintings that you plan to see in the museum. In this case, it is necessary to explain that the reproduction is much smaller than the original, less bright and distinct.

It often happens that parents take their child with them to exhibitions and museums that are incomprehensible and uninteresting to the child. And adults communicate in such cases mainly among themselves. The child is allowed to independently study the paintings or museum exhibits. And almost nothing remains in memory.

Don't forget that the child has preschool age involuntary attention predominates, so the first trip to the museum should not exceed 30-40 minutes. Focus on one exposure, and next time look at something else.

A child's first visit to a museum should be remembered for the rest of his life, so it is important to pay attention to details. Before entering the museum, stop and look at the building itself. Having purchased admission ticket to the museum, give it to your child to present at the entrance.

Don’t forget that in addition to the exhibitions themselves, museums have many other things interesting for children. The color of the walls, the large spaces of the halls, sofas, railings, ceilings and beautiful chandeliers, the shine of gold, very large objects, sculptures and paintings. Be sure to allow your child to explore all this. Draw your child's attention to the behavior of people in the museum. Explain in advance how to behave in the museum and why.

When I took my son to the Tretyakov Gallery for the first time, we immediately agreed that as soon as he said “I’m tired,” we would leave. I took him to my favorite hall to see Vrubel. The child was not inspired by Vrubel, but he really liked it bright picture M. I. Scotti “At the Carnival in Venice.” When I asked what remarkable things he saw in this picture, he pointed to the joy that the picture evokes, to the feelings and experiences of the characters, to actions, the meaning of which is determined by the whole picture as a whole. All this various aspects artistic image. My son was very impressed by the size of A. A. Ivanov’s painting “The Appearance of Christ to the People.” Then we stopped for a long time at the terrible and bewitching painting by M. N. Vorobyov “An Oak Crushed by Lightning.” On the way back we stopped at a cafe and had a lot to discuss.

In many major museums there are children's group groups interactive excursions and master classes, but, as a rule, this is an offer for children from 5-6 years old. If your child is younger, you will have to become a tour guide for him for a while. During the conversation, you can tell the child facts from the history of the artist’s work on the painting or sculpture the child liked, from his biography, and give information about the artist’s or sculptor’s method of work. Or you can offer to choose the most joyful or most alarming picture in the hall and ask the child to justify his choice.

Parents are often interested in whether there are works of art that children should not get acquainted with. Of course not. Children enjoy studying paintings written in different genres. But of course, preschoolers like painting more, the color is very attractive to children of this age, so it’s better to introduce children to graphics later. Paintings and sculptures from nude It is better to show it in a series of other works without focusing attention on them. You can also find paintings with scenes of violence in museums. You should not discuss them in detail with children.

Invite your child's friends on an excursion. Children are interested in discussing what they see with each other.

Don’t forget to buy your child some small change at the souvenir shop and treat him to a cake in the cafe. This will turn a trip to the museum into a small holiday. Don't forget to take your camera with you to capture interesting points excursions: against the backdrop of museum exhibits and travel through its halls. Photos will help the child remember what he saw and tell his family and friends about his impressions.

It is important to take your child to the museum more than once. On your second visit, you can start the tour from a familiar hall, and then continue exploring the exhibition. Not all parents from small towns have the opportunity to take their children to larger museums. In this case, art books and albums with reproductions of paintings from the museums your child visited can come to the rescue. This is a very interesting family leisure time - looking at albums, recognizing paintings, telling stories about artists, styles and genres of painting.

Also, when choosing children's books, parents should pay attention to the illustrations. Many outstanding artists illustrated children's books. And the child will be very happy to see the works of artists familiar from children's books.

After visiting a museum or exhibition, a child may want to draw something similar himself. Parents must support the child’s initiative, create conditions for children's creativity, arrange a home exhibition, or maybe take the child to an art studio to develop children's talent.