Description of the attraction
Among the most interesting sights of Ottawa, the National Gallery of Canada, one of the leading art museums in the country, undoubtedly deserves special attention.
The National Gallery was founded in 1880 by Governor General John Douglas Sutherland Campbell. At various times, the home for the gallery was the Supreme Court building located on Parliament Hill, the Victoria Memorial Museum (today the Canadian Museum of Nature), a nondescript office building on Elgin Street, and only in 1988 the gallery moved to Sussex Drive, where it is located today …
The National Gallery of Canada owns an extensive collection of painting, drawing, sculpture and photography. The exhibition presents a very impressive collection of works by famous European and American artists, but most of the collection is still the work of Canadian masters, including Tom Thomson, Emily Carr, Alex Colville, Jean-Paul Riopel, as well as works of landscape painters from so called the "Group of Seven". The gallery owns a significant collection of contemporary art, including the work of the talented American artist Andy Warhol. In the National Gallery you will also get acquainted with the works of such outstanding masters as Rembrandt, Bernini, Pizarro, Rubens, Picasso, Cezanne, Van Gogh, Monet, Matisse, Chagall, Dali, etc.
Of particular interest, no doubt, is the interior of the Rideau Street Chapel. The chapel was part of the monastery of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, but in 1972 it was dismantled, subsequently restoring its interior in one of the halls of the National Gallery of Canada. Also noteworthy are the bust of Pope Urban VIII, the work of the incomparable Lorenzo Bernini, the work of the Italian Renaissance artist Francesco Salviati and one of the most famous works of the Anglo-American artist Benjamin West - Death of General Wolf. It is worth, perhaps, to pay attention to the "Voice of Fire" Barnett Newman, the acquisition of which in 1990 for $ 1.8 million caused a lot of heated debate.
Near the central entrance to the gallery there is a huge nine-meter bronze sculpture of a spider - "Mama". This is one of the most famous works of the American sculpture by Louise Bourgeois from the "Spiders" series.
