One of the most famous museums in Ottawa is the National Gallery of Canada. Its glass and granite building with octagonal towers was designed by the famous architect Moshe Safdi and built in 1988. True, many during the external inspection is struck not so much by the building itself, but what stands before it. And this is neither more nor less than a nearly ten-meter-long metal spider that is quite an eerie kind.
The gallery was established in 1880 by the Governor of Canada and in the early years occupied one building with the Supreme Court. Subsequently, the gallery moved to the Victoria Memorial Museum (now the Canadian Museum of Nature). In 1985, a new museum of modern photography was attached to the gallery. And in 2000 the new building of the gallery was included by the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada in the 500 best buildings of the country built during the last millennium.
The gallery has a large and diverse collection of paintings, sculptures and photographs. Of course, the main emphasis is on Canadian art, but here you can also see a lot of works by American and European artists. The gallery also has a selection of works by indigenous people and Inuit. A very impressive collection of contemporary art, among which you can see the most famous works of Andy Warhol.
Among the great masters of past centuries, represented in the gallery, Piero di Cosimo (15th century), Lucas Cranach the Elder (16th century), Rembrandt Van Rijn (17th century), Honore Daumier (19th century), Rubens (17th century), Auguste Rodin. The 19th and 20th centuries are represented by such geniuses as Gustav Klimt, Fernand Leger, René Magritte, Henri Matisse, Pete Mondrian, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, Camille Pizarro, Jackson Polok, Vincent van Gogh, Salvador Dali, Georges Braque, Paul Cezanne, Mark Chagall.
The biggest work in the museum's collection is the whole interior of the chapel Rido Street, which was part of the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart of the Mother of God. The interior was created by George Quillon in 1887, and after the cathedral was closed in 1972, the decoration of the chapel was dismantled, deposited, and then collected back inside the museum gallery in 1988
The sculpture of the spider with the charming name "Maman" was created by Louise Bourgeois in 1999 . Spider-size about 10 x 10 x 10 m made of bronze, stainless steel and marble (the latter created 26 eggs that lie in the maternity belly) . This is one of the largest sculptures of its kind in the world . The giant mammy caused a huge stir and traveled a bit Did not half the world . She visited the Tate-Modern gallery in London, in spanskom the Guggenheim Museum, the Museum of Mori in Tokyo, the Rockefeller Center in New York, the Pompidou Museum in Paris, Switzerland, Qatar, Korea and even in the St. Petersburg Hermitage; and to Canada she came from Mexico . Sculptor herself claims that her creation is an ode to her mother who was "smart, ready to protect and come to the rescue - like spiders" .
Practical information
Address: Sussex Drive, 380.
The Gallery is a short walk from Parliament Hill and Chateau Lurie. You can get there by buses OC Transpo No. 9 (to Sussex Drive and Brewer Street, one block from there) and No. 1 (Dalhousie Street and St. Patrick Street stop, two blocks from there).
Working Hours : 10: 00-17: 00 daily, except Tuesday. On Tuesday 10: 00-20: 00.
Admission: 12 USD for adults, 10 USD for students and pensioners, 6 USD for children 12-19 years. Family ticket (2 adults and 3 children) - 24 USD (November 2014).