Early museums began as private collections of wealthy individuals, families or institutions. They displayed rare or curious natural objects and artefacts in so-called wonder rooms or cabinets of curiosities. The <a href="http://museums.eu/museum/details/791/capitoline-museums">Capitoline Museums</a> are the oldest public collection of art in the world. It began in 1471 when Pope Sixtus IV donated a group of important ancient sculptures to the people of Rome. You can see medieval and Renaissance art, ancient Roman statues, coin and jewellery collections, etc.

The Capitoline Museums

The <a href="http://museums.eu/museum/details/785/vatican-museums">Vatican Museums</a> are a group of museums located inside the Vatican City. It traces its origins to the sculptural collection begun in 1506 by Pope Julius II. It displays works from the collection built up by the Roman Catholic Church throughout the centuries and includes masterpieces of Renaissance art.

The Vatican Museums (Musei Vaticani)

The <a href="http://museums.eu/museum/details/16117/royal-armouries-tower-of-london">Royal Armouries in the Tower of London</a> is the oldest museum in Britain. It opened to the public in 1660. Royal Armouries is located at three sites across England:<ul><li>In a purpose-built museum in <a href="http://museums.eu/museum/details/1402/royal-armouries-museum-leeds">Leeds</a>, West Yorkshire</li><li>A Victorian fort at <a href="http://museums.eu/museum/details/7396/royal-armouries-museum-fort-nelson">Fort Nelson</a>, Portsmouth, Hampshire</li><li>Its historic home at the <a href="http://museums.eu/museum/details/16117/royal-armouries-tower-of-london">Tower of London in the White Tower</a></li></ul>

The Royal Armouries in the Tower of London

The <a href="http://museums.eu/museum/details/1364/ashmolean-museum">Ashmolean Museum</a> in Britain is the oldest university museum in the world. In 1677, it received the cabinet of curiosities from Elias Ashmole. The museum houses an extensive collection of items with artistic and archaeological significance. Notable exhibitions include biblical manuscripts, drawings by Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Michelangelo, watercolours by Turner, a ceremonial dress owned by Lawrence of Arabia, and more.

The Ashmolean Museum

The private collection was bought by the university and city of Basel in 1661 and opened to the public in 1671. The collection is now part of a rich historical and cultural heritage in the city of Basel. The main focus is on paintings and drawings by artists active in the Upper Rhine region between 1400 and 1600 and in the 19th and 21st centuries.

The Amerbach Cabinet

The <a href="http://museums.eu/museum/details/5711/muse-des-beauxarts-et-darchologie">Musée des Beaux-Arts et d'archéologie</a> in Besançon was established in 1694 when an abbot, Jean-Baptiste Boisot, gave his personal collection to the Benedictines of the city to create a museum open to the public. The museum is famous for its extensive collections of archaeology, paintings, and drawing cabinet and includes Egyptian mummies and works of art from famous Italian, French, and Spanish painters.

 The Musée des Beaux-Arts et d'archéologie

Founded in 1717, Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (<a href="http://museums.eu/museum/details/15970/kunstkamera">Kunstkamera</a>) in St. Petersburg is one of the richest ethnographical museums in the world.

The Kunstkamera 

The <a href="http://museums.eu/museum/details/418/british-museum">British Museum</a> in London was founded in 1753. Sir Hans Sloane's personal collection of curios provided the initial collection. Today its collections number more than seven million objects from around the world and illustrate and documented the story of human culture.

The British Museum

The <a href="http://museums.eu/museum/details/5340/uffizi-gallery">Uffizi Gallery</a> in Florence started in the 15th century by Cosimo de’ Medici. It is one of the most famous museums of paintings and sculpture globally, containing universally acclaimed Primitive and Renaissance paintings. It includes works by Giotto, Simone Martini, Piero della Francesca, Fra Angelico, Filippo Lippi, Botticelli, Mantegna, Correggio, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo and Caravaggio.

The Uffizi Gallery

The <a href="http://museums.eu/museum/details/15967/the-state-hermitage-museum">State Hermitage Museum</a> in St. Petersburg, founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great, contains over three million works of art and artefacts of the world culture. It includes paintings, graphic works, sculptures and works of applied art, archaeological finds and numismatic material.

The State Hermitage Museum

The <a href="http://museums.eu/museum/details/773/museo-nacional-del-prado">Museo del Prado</a> in Madrid. Founded in 1785 by Charles III of Spain, the significant royal collection represents the foundation of the Museum's collection as we know it today. Today, we can see great masterpieces such as The Garden of Earthly Delights by Bosh, The Nobleman with his hand on his Chest by El Greco, Death of the Virgin by Mantegna, The Holy Family known as The Pearl by Raphael, Emperor Carlos V on Horseback by Titian, The Foot Washing by Tintoretto, Self-portrait by Durër, Las Meninas by Velázquez, The Three Graces by Rubens, and The Family of Carlos IV by Goya.

Museo del Prado

The <a href="http://museums.eu/museum/details/358/belvedere">Belvedere</a> Palace of the Habsburg monarchs in Vienna opened in 1781 with a collection of art. It holds the greatest collection of Austrian art dating from the Middle Ages to today.

The Belvedere Palace of the Habsburg monarchs

The <a href="http://museums.eu/museum/details/702/louvre-museum">Louvre Museum</a> opened to the public in 1793. It contains nearly 35,000 objects from prehistory to the 19th century.

The Louvre Museum in Paris

The first collection was established around 1790. The collections were officially opened to the public in 1817, making it the oldest institution of its kind in Romania. The museum comprises:<ul><li>European Art, Romanian Art and the Library (in the Brukenthal Palace),</li><li>Contemporary Art and the Museum of History (in the Altemberger House),</li><li>the Museum of Natural History, Museum of Pharmacy and Museum of Hunting.</li></ul>

The Brukenthal National Museum in Sibiu, Transylvania

The Museum was founded in 1773. It is the oldest in Latvia and the whole of the Baltics. The Museum is situated in Old Riga, in a remarkable architectural monument of the 13th–20th centuries - the ensemble of the Riga Dom. The rich and diverse collections of the Museum came from an art and natural sciences collection of a Riga doctor, Nikolaus von Himsel (1729–1764). It houses over 5000 000 items, grouped in about 80 collections.

The Museum of the History of Riga and Navigation

A list of some of the oldest and finest museums in Europe that you can still visit.

Stashed ideas

The world’s oldest museums

It’s easy to feel intimidated because you’re not an expert on the Renaissance and you can’t quickly name the difference between the Baroque and the Rococo. But it all comes down to one thing: Your reaction is the one that counts. There is no value in mouthing the conventional wisdom. Identifying your reaction, in its emotional, intellectual, and spiritual dimensions, is the whole point of the enterprise.

When Art Feels Too Much

Curators, professors, gallerists and critics have all devoted themselves to the study and appreciation of art. But the experts’ job is not to supply answers that you must commit to. They can instead help you, if you want, to come up with your own questions: "How was something made? What other artwork is relevant? Is there a hidden story or a backing idea that isn’t apparent?" Remember that an expert opinion is still an opinion. It’s not a judgment that you necessarily have to agree with. Once you realize that, you will likely find these experts extremely helpful.

Aren’t There Experts on This?

Want to find meaning and inspiration in art but aren’t sure where to start? Even if you’ve never set foot in a gallery before, we'll help you learn how to trust your inner critic, how to appreciate the big ideas and small details of a piece, and how to discover new art, both in and out of the museum.

Arts

How to Enjoy Art - A Year of Living Better Guides

<ul>
<li>Medieval art</li>
<li>Renaissance 1300–1600</li>
<li>Baroque 1600–1730</li>
<li>Rococo 1720–1780</li>
<li>Neoclassicism 1750–1830</li>
<li>Romanticism 1780–1880</li>
<li>Impressionism 1860–1890</li>
<li>Post-impressionism 1886–1905</li>
<li>Expressionism 1905–1930</li>
<li>Cubism 1907–1914</li>
<li>Futurism 1910–1930</li>
<li>Art Deco 1909–1939</li>
<li>Abstract Expressionism 1940s</li>
<li>Contemporary art 1946 — present</li>
</ul>

Most important art movements

We all come to art history from some perspective. From this perspective, we are likely to build our mental map of how individual artists and styles of art fit together. When we want to place an artist on the art timeline, we should keep in mind that generalisations are useful only up to a point.
For example, Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky would fit into the movement known as Expressionism (1905-1930). But, his work took on different forms as he associated with various artists in other European cities.

Fitting art into a timeline

After placing the art you are viewing on a timeline, the next step is to build up a sense of time and place that is specific to the artwork and artist.
<ul>
<li>Did the artists have friends or contemporaries that may have influenced the style of the work?</li>
<li>Did the artist have a teacher?</li>
<li>Did the artist write about their work?</li>
<li>What materials were available to the artist?</li>
<li>Was the artist male or female?</li>
<li>Might race or other specifics of the artists' identity play a role?</li>
<li>Did the artwork get shown in public? What were the reactions of the first viewers?</li>
</ul>

Build up a sense of time and place

The way we interact and understand art is dependent on how the narrative of art history has been produced.
For example, art flourished during the Renaissance. One of the main sources about artists of this time comes from the book 'Lives of the Artists', written by Italian Giorgio Vasari during the 16th-century. Vasari draws a similarity between the passage of time and the artistic achievement of Italian artists. In writing about his fellow countrymen, Vasari wanted to promote the Italian Renaissance to the elevated position of high-achievement in all of art history.

History is interpretation

The idea that art is about progress is appealing to historians because it gives a simple linear-narrative framework. But this view tends to be exclusive in that it views Western art as the main story of art history without considering Islamic art, Turkish art, Japanese art, or West Africa's art.
Vasari was an Italian living in Florence and interested in how the art around him was made. We should remember that all art history is tilted with a bias towards the storytelling.

Many forms of art have developed independently

When I first began learning about the history of art, I remember I wanted to understand one thing above all. I wanted to know the timeline. In other words, the grand story of…

Self Improvement

A Beginner’s Guide to Art History

A museum is a place and an institution that collects, maintains and interprets valuable articles of human history and nature and makes them available for viewing to the general public.

Museum

<ul>
<li>The word "museum" comes from Ancient Greek "mouseion" which meant "seat of Muses." It was used as a place for contemplation.</li>
<li>In Rome, "museum" was a place used for philosophical discussions.</li>
<li>In the 15th century, the word "museum" was used to describe the collection of Lorenzo de Medici in Florence.</li>
<li>Only in the 17th century was "museum" used to describe collections of curiosities.</li>
<li>In 1677, the collection of John Tradescant was moved to the University of Oxford and made available for public viewing. It marks the moment when “museum” starts being an institution and not just collection of items.</li>
</ul>

The meaning of "museum"

Over time, museums expanded to accommodate different types of artefacts.
There are now open-air museums that have preserved buildings as objects, ecomuseums, virtual museums, history museums, maritime, military and war museums, and many more.

Alternative forms of museums

<ul>
<li>The oldest known museum was Ennigaldi-Nanna's museum, a private collection that was collected by Princess Ennigaldi and dated from 530BC.</li>
<li>Museums started opening for the public in the Renaissance. The oldest public collection of art is the Capitoline Museum. It began in 1471 with a donation of sculptures by Pope Sixtus IV to people of Rome.</li>
<li>The oldest museum in the United Kingdom opened in 1660. It is the Royal Armories in the Tower of London.</li>
<li>The private collection of Sir Hans Sloane was a basis for the British Museum in London and founded in 1753.</li>
</ul>

Famous museums

Museums are places where we hold are history so that it would not be forgotten, where we hold our art so that we could enjoy it and nature so that we could learn from it. Learn and enjoy history of museums.

The world’s oldest museums

How to Enjoy Art - A Year of Living Better Guides

A Beginner’s Guide to Art History

History of Museums - From Oldest to Modern Museums

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The world’s oldest museums

How to Enjoy Art - A Year of Living Better Guides

A Beginner’s Guide to Art History

History of Museums - From Oldest to Modern Museums

It's time to Read like a Pro.

Explore the World’sBest Ideas

200,000+ ideas on pretty much any topic. Created by the smartest people around & well-organized so you can explore at will.

An Idea for Everything

Powerful Saving & Organizational Tools

🥡

Think Outside the Box

🎓

Lifelong Learning 101

Take Your IdeasAnywhere

Organize your ideas & listen on the go. And with Pro, there are no limits.

Listen on the go

Never worry about spotty connections

Get Organized with Stashes

💵

Self-Made Billionaires Secrets

🧠

Inside The Mind of Elon Musk

It's time to
Read like a Pro.

Explore the World’s
Best Ideas

Take Your Ideas
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