>> rose: welcome to the program. tonight, we go to the museum of modern art and take a look> he really is one of the most important artists in the 20th century. very many people place him and picasso together as the two major people. also with do chum. he is a person with a very long career and varied career and important career. what's important for us with the cut-outs is in this late work he was signaling to younger artists a new way of thinking about form and bringing together color and drawing. >> he just had an enormous impact both during his life. artists came to visit him to his studio in nice and also in a whole generation. i think that kind of the

reduction of form is essential that you can see with the art es and the same kind of reduction. >> we conclude with mikhail piotrovsky director of the state hummer tij museum in st. peter's burg. >> it's culture russia. it's exactly how russia appreciates european culture. it says we're part of european culture. so it's very important always to show to everybody russia has many faces. >> rose: henri matisse and,ñr the hermitage museum in st. petersburg when we continue. >> rose: funding for "charlie rose" has been provided by the following: >> rose: additional funding provided by:

>> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information worldwide. captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: henri matisse is often regarded as the father of modern art. he used cut-outs during the later years of his left. he described this process as drawing with scissors. at the exbusiness at the museum of modern art highlights hisman you'll other career. 100 cut-outs with drawings, sustain, glass and textiles. also mark the post conservation debut of the moment of the swimming pool. joining me to talk about matisse

is caller buckberg andhauptman f drawings and prints. i'm pleased to have them at this table. tell me about matisse. >> he's one of the most important artists in the 20th century. people place him and picasso together as the two major people. also with duchamp with a varied career and incredibly important career. what's important for us in the cut-outs is in this late work he was signaling to younger artists such as elseworth tele a new way of thinking about form and bringing together color and drawing. >> rose: and the influence he had on a general race of artist was. >> he just had an enormous impact during his life. many artists came to visit him in his studio in nice but also a

whole generation. i think that kind of the reduction of form to which is essential you can even see in something like the artist associated with minimalism where there's that same kind of reduction. >> rose: this is the most exhaustive exhibition. >> of the cut-outs. so it's great opportunity for visitors to see the cut-outs from the very beginning to the end of matisse's career. and also of course at the museum you can see other workseoçó by matisse in the permanent collection. it's a great location to see all of matisse's work. >> three not been an exhibition in new york city since 1961 which happened shortly after his death and not one in the united states since 1977. so we are pleased to be bringing this work to a whole new odd yubs maybe one new generation or two new jebreal rations. >> rose: which is part of the permanent collection. >> we have a small percentage, about 5 percentage of the works. there are a few museums with

great collections, pompadeau in nice, and moma has a great collection and washington has a great collection. >> rose: let's talk about just to give people a wednesday. let's talk about him. first we'll cease the swimming pool. this was done in the later summer of 1952. and had to go through this extraordinary restoration. tell me about it. >> matisse made the swimming pool in his dining room in his apartment in nice. it was in a room facing away from the sun. it had been renovated by matisse and his wife in 1938. that room was covered with burlap. he went, said to his assistant will you take me to my favorite swimming pool in concaan i want to sketch divers. there are no divers take me home i'm going to make my own swim pool and that's exactly what he did. he put up white paper about five and-a-half feet and then supposedly at night he cut mono

chrome blue forms and had them pinned to the wall. it was work that covered all of the walls of his diningnn room. after his death in 195 had, this was two years later, the work was trace, sent to paris and was mounted as were many of the large scale works after his death. his wife and his daughter marguerite oversaw the mounting. at that time they had it mounted on to burlap even though they knew burlap was not considered conservation teller. it was already by 1985 when moma acquired it the burlap went from tan to brown. over the years it went even worse to orange brown and in 2008 i finally said to myself this is time for a conservation procedure. i had three goals. one to return the work to the original color balance, white, blue and tan. second was to install it at the proper height. and the third was to recreate the architecture of the original room so when the visitor came

in, he or she would feel immersed in the swimming pool not walk through it as it had been done before. and as we have mentioned before, the conservation took about 2000 hours spread over five years. i had first thought the burlap would be perhaps easy to remove, and finally what happened was i put it face down and i unwove the fabric strand by strand by strand. >> rose: put him in perspective. because he did this, these cut aways either in bed or in a wheelchair. >> yes. >> rose: or sitting upí somewhere. >> sometimes sitting up. there was a special desk he used where he could sit up in bed and work. and he had had an operation, a kind of very difficult operation in 1941. and so it was a very difficult recovery, and he sometimes referred to that period after the surgery and his recovery as his second life. and i think he had a real sense

that he had a new lease on life, a new opportunity to make something new. and so sometimes people say that the cut-outs are a product of weakness or sickness but in fact what we see is what the cut-outs did for him not what he couldn't do. because you see in the exhibition this incredible ambition and this incredible invention. he invents an entirely new form and he takes it as far as he can go. so it's a great lesson about how an artist can push something even at that point in his life. >> i feel that he started in his mid 70's. he lived to 84. and here was a man advanced age whose created to cut-outs, some are small but some are very large. the swimming pool if you were to put it end to end is 54 feet, large decorations with 362 inches wide. he was also overseeing the chapel in vance. other products, ceramics for clients in the united states.

it's notli a nine of weakness bt of incredible exuberance. he was not going to give up. he worked day and night. >> rose: this is from 37 to 38 and you can see the beginnings. >> it really is the beginnings and it's before matisse realizes he's invented a new form. it's a time when using cut paper was what we've been talking about as an expedient. it was something that made his life a little bit easier. we think about painting being a very labor intensive act. if you paint and you scrape off the paint and paint again and scrape again. somaities would often use cut paper to compose his forms and to try out colors. so this is right at the beginning of the exhibition. the first thing you see in fact. in addition to see the use of cut paper early on before matisse realizes he's invented something. it also has a great materiality

and a sculptural quality. and you see all of the elements. the painted paper and also the tacks or later pins matisse would use to later assemble these work. they weren't initially glued. this is an emblem what all of the works looked like in the studio. they had flexibility that we wanted to call the viewer's attention to. >> rose: almost choreographed and spontaneousiññi at the same time. >> it's true. because he would cut pieces, he would discard some, he would pin them on and then he would move them around. it was an incredibly dynamic process. he was living not only this but the large ones on his wall. he was looking at them all the time. as you look at the period photographs from one day to the next and the next you see one element is moving from one work to the next and back. sometimes he is putting two works together to make a larger

one. it really is an incredibly dynamic process. >> rose: did he and picasso influence each other? >> yes, i think they did. >> rose: were they competitive? >> well, they were competitive. they knew they were the two great titans on there century. and matisse in the south of france because they lived not very far apart, and there are still memories of visiting matisse at that time. >> rose: didn't matisse say something about north and south because he was from north of france and picasso was from spain. >> matisse was from the north and actually he came from a textile region. so his interest in textile and the use of pinning that you see in the cutouts i think relate to those early yearsniñ and then of course he moves to the south and he loves the light of the south and he you really see that. >> he's living in nice. >> he's living in nice and also

for a period in vance which is a short trip away because there's some fear nice wasn't safe in world war ii and was in this house of the dreams so it's kind of perfect for this kind of work. >> rose: the next work is 1943 in the fall of icarus. here it is. >> this is a very special work because it's the forms are still pins. and one of the i think observations, maybe what you might think is a small observation but which had amazingly large implications for us is that when matisse composed his works, he would pin the forms. either to a board or layer as the works got bigger he would have assistants opinion the form to the studio wall. something pinned can be unpinned and changed. that led us to understand that the studio was a place of flux

and change asv5b matisse would continually pin the form and make changes and repin. supporting that idea we saw until materials of the work were access to a trove of photographs in the matisse archives where we were actually to see the way individual works would move and change and forms would move from one work to another. and so icarus, which is the story of course of icarus getting too close to the sun and falls to the ground and still has those pins. and of course there's that very poignant partp0 of that composition where his heart itself is pinned to the body. >> rose: tell me about matisse and color. >> well, matisse's too great loves and contributions were color and drawing. he's a great colorist and he started off as a great colorist and worked his entire career but he was also a great draftsman and matisse's drawings from many

different periods are incredibly wonderful and important and varied. and with the cut-outs he was able to mary these two of them. at the time he always felt these were two conflicting desires. but with the cut-outsit cutting, drawing with scissors. so that he was able, with the cutting, to create both the contours, so the contour's incredibly important but the contour in color and that's the great joy of these work. >> rose: even though he was a political artist some people had suggested this is an attempt at commenting on not so aggression. >> one of this work and the works related to this for the book of jazz which is one of the great artist books of the 20th century and matisse used cut paper to compose for that book. and it's happening during the war. so it raises the question of how does an artist invent under such terrible circumstances.

how do you go on. we ask our serves that question and many other art historialookt question. was he affected by the war his wife and daughter were both arrested for their work in the resistance. he was very worried about them and worried about his friends and colleagues. he was comfortable and so he was sometimes send supplies and food to those friends who he knew were suffering. so he deeply felt the war. but i think he's making jazz at this time and it's with jazz that he understands that he's invented something. and what he calls a cutout operation. he comes to natural the cutout is not just an expedient but a full blown method and then he takes off with it. >> rose: next is a lagoon also from ill stated book jazz. here it is. >> this book jazz is really devoted to the them of the circus but there are moments where he's thinking about a trip

to tahiti in 1930's and there's three lagoons and thinking about the water and the experience of being in the water in tahiti. what's interesting about the lagoons is they're very abstract and it shows matisse who always has kind of a foot in reality but kind of pushes towards abstraction with the cut-outs. you see the beginning of that in the lagoons. you see the i with a he uses massachusettsives and negatives. so in this work, if you look at that white form and flip it, you see that it fits into the white running along theqt very top. >> rose: the next one is composition black and red just to see, this is from 1947. and this shows the way an minute can be created using either the positive or negative. >> it's a great example because on the left you see he has cut a lead form and then it's negative or surrounds what's just above it. but to the right, the pinning form is actually the negative of the white but that positive

white form moved to another work on the same wall in vance and now exists in another works. so it's both positive and negative in one work and then works moving from one composition to another. >> rose: the next one is tail blue window. >> this is a study for the apps window or design for the apps window for the vance chapel. matisse described his work as the chapel as one of thinks great masterpieces. the project started when a former nurse of his would become a nun came to him with a design for stained glass window that she had made for a new chapel that was going to be built adjacent to the nun's residence. and he looked at the design and kind of spent some time with it and then made his own design. so what started as a design for one window turned into an entire, a design for every element of the chapel. from the stained glass, thekl2

vestments of the priests, the decor, everything. >> rose: he saw this as a personal challenge, the design of the chapel. >> he did. and it was years in the making, years of funding. there were shifts in the architecture, and so the window that we're looking at now which is the main window and the church is the second version. so he went through three tries before he settled on what he would consider the final version. >> rose: the next one. >> in 1952, time life commissioned from matisse a stain glassed window for their headquarters in rockefeller center. they asked for something on the christmas theme and he created first and then a stained glass window called christmas eve of noel. he was due for one season and the window were given to moma so they're both now in our collection. it's a wonderful example of him using painted papers for a final product, the final product is

very similar. but he was very aware that when you came into a different medium, the colors and the surface, the sheen would change. and we know that he was happy with it and we know he saw it because there's a photograph of him looking at the final window in front of his own window before it was shipped to new york. >> rose: this is like a score from an orchestra or something. >> exactly. he talked about the pocket being the score and the final version being theñ performance by the orchestra. >> rose: this is the parakeet. >> after cutting the form he composed this work on his studio walls and actually it went around the corner. and it went around a radiator.

what it shows one of the thing it shows is that the way matisse used his own studio walls. he always had ambition to work large and it always helped for the commissions and he never really got them. so the walls of his studio, he kind of in a way not on forever but quite a distance, so he was able to have the assistance pin those works and break beyond the bounds of evil painting and get to a kind of size and expanse he always hoped for. and so when he describes being almost inside this work, he says he's made a little garden which he can walk. it also, he was also interested, we're very focused on the color. and the relationships of colors in these works. but he was also interested in the way the light worked around the works. and the way they have a kind of9 presence. so he's very interested in that

as well. >> rose: how did he work. with the scissors and with the assistants and with the pens. >> he purchased large rolls of paper. the assistants were always women. cut large rectangles of paper. they then painted those rectangles of paper with wash. it's essentially watercolor with a white added to it to make it opaque. >> rose: he wanted them painted. >> that is a bit of a controversy. one assistant says that they actually mixed colors, and a later assistant says that they always used the color straight from the tube. but he would go to the art supply stores himself with the assistant. he would pick the tube. he was specific not only about the colors he wanted but he wanted to make sure the tubes had not spoiled in the window over time he was not getting something he didn't want. but the color is an enormous range. there are 17 oranges, there are 7 yellows.

there's an incredible range. although in reproduction sometimes you think it's very simple. it's actually incredibly complex and sophisticated. >> rose: this is 1952 now. talk about this. this is the first real attempt to portray the human figure. >> of course this is a subject he had tackled over and over again throughout his career, if you look at matisse's paintings, you see the figures, nude figures often women. but so it's not surprising that he would have used cut paper to take on a subject that was very familiar to him. rmt he had actually a lot of trouble with it. in the first work which is actually called four he begins with that and he begins composing and he's really challenged. he can't get it right and the assistants describe how their fingers hurt from the pinning and unpinning and he puts it aside and takes out a sketch book and he draws that figure over and over and over again until he learn it. matisse never drew on colored paper and cut it but he was always drawing next to it. this is one of discoveries of

the show, that he would, the way he would use drawing as a way to learn the form. once he learned the form he set the sketch book aside and he was able to cut this work, the assistants say, with complete ease and he cut three of them in a span of one hour. and what's interesting i think about looking at these as compared to some of the others we've looked at, the others, even something like parakeet and the mermaid you see the way he composes the works from many different colors and different forms. with the blue nude and you can really see this. in this one he cuts the paper using a single sheet. he can you tell us the blue and separates it and he lets white ground below and that describes the torso and thehn thighs and shins. it's the white let's let through that allows the figure kind of come to life. i think one of the other thing

is that you look at it and you know it's made out of paper. and you know paper's flat. but these works have a real three dimensionality. and it goes back to the puzzle. >> and the visitor comes to see the swimming pool, some of the figures are blue and some of the figures are actually only in white and the water around them which is blue is defining the figure. so he is he is tending this principle. >> and it's at this time, this happened in 1952 where he reduces his pallet to blue and white. everything else is very colorful but in this moment in 52 he's working only with this beautiful blue. >> rose: would most art critics identify this period as his richest period. >> the cut-outs? >> rose: yes. >> well we think it is. >> very early period was really a leading artist in the very

early period, it was incredible avant-garde. and also in the early part of the century, later on in his radical invention period was incredibly radical work and people think of that also as incredibly important. >> rose: some critics say he's too pretty. >> he wanted to be pretty. people use decorative as a negative and they use the wor -ineither of those words were negative to him, they were really positive and so to us it is also a positive judicial i was just going to say one of the question that we asked ourselves in exhibition is this a break from the past or a continuation. in a way it is a little bit of both. he did what he calls construction by means of color. he was creating work by using color whether small dacts of

paint or big color a little bit later. and so you see that use of color. and then but at the same time he inhaven't this entirely new form. so in that sense it's a rapid cull break and a change. >> rose: the next slide. we have a couple more. >> this is what matisse called a snail. >> rose: 1953. >> close to the end of his life. it's very large. and interestingly he not only cuts some of these ends but he also tore them. so it's really large rectangles of work. and it is the placement of these rectangles in this shape of the snail that gives you the used of the movement of this very small animal. >> rose: the next slide. >> this is 1950. >> this is often considered matisse's most painterly cutout because it's a subject that would be familiar from his painting, a figure wearing a reasonable -- robe inone of the things that's

interesting about this work is his treatment of that table with the pink top and brown legs because it has a sense of perspective. you have dimension in space in the work where some of the other exoksz have a kind of flat miss where it's more about as karl was saying the decoration where you might think about pattern and tile and thing that are flatter. but this has real three dimensional space you can imagine entering. >> rose: finally judicial this was the fourth and final verg of the commission of the ceramic for the broafdy family in los angeles for his modernist house. he first happened the dimensions wrong so he did a work much too large. the second was too large. the third the brody's did not like and didn't accept and they finally accepted this. it was made into a ceramic it was in that house until their death a few years ago. it is now in the los angeles county museum. >> rose: he once said in the

letter the walls of my bedroom are covered with cut-outs. the result is more importance than it would seem. >> and that was actually early on when he's really making smaller scale cut-outs. he's just finished jazz. and he's cutting paper and having them pinned to the studio walls. so it's, he even has a sense at that point that there's going to be something even though he doesn't know. >> rose: more importantqit mig. >> exactly. >> rose: over the years critics and public have come to realize that this is in fact true that what he said has come to pass and what we're trying to show in this exhibition with seeing so many of them together is how important this work is and i think if you see one, it's wonderful. but when you see this large group together you really understand what the accomplishment is. >> rose: that great. >> his work was great. >> rose: thank you very much. i should mention to all of you wherever you are the cut-outs will be on view at moma until

february 8th, 2015. february 8th, 2015. it is a huge success here in new york. thank you. >> thank you for inviting us. >> rose: back in a moment. stay with us. >> rose: the state hermitage museum in st. petersburg is one of the great cultural institution founded by kathryn the great in 1764 opened it to the public in 1852. this year the hermitage celebrates the 250th anniversary. he's held the position since 1992. i have known him and it's a pleasure to have him at this table. >> thank you. >> rose: what's it mean to you for this museum. >> first of all it's my home. i grownm up in this museum, my father was in this place.

when i was a child it was the hermitage. it's a great symbol of russian culture. it's medieval world art but it's exactly how russia appreciates european cultures, it shows we're part of european culture. so it's very important always to show to everybody what russia has many faces. this is one which you will love. >> rose: take a look at this film. we've got a clip here just to give you the trailer.

>> rose: is it different than the louvre and the met and prada and other museums. >> yes, it is different a little

bit. it's like the great symbol of the nation, maybe like prada but even more. for russian it's part of the love to the nation, it's love of hermitage. and it is great history and nicholas the second and you feel this history. collecting is mostly imperial collecting you feel the history of the russian empire. it's all connected. all main events and then something to hermitage with hermitage and so on. >> rose: the centrality of kathryn the great in creating the collection. >> yes. well she was fantastic woman. it's quite important today feminism. shejyand she was fully non-russ.

german. no drop of russian blood. but it was on the russian somehow. she understood what russia needed, what people needed, what it's all about. and me has done all the right thing to promote russia as a great institution and collections. she knew that to be a great state it mean great army, good economy and great collection in the museums. >> rose: i'm always struck by the huge capacity of great leaders to view their role and their country as a significant part of the sweep of history. and they understand the context of it, they understand what comes before and they understand where they want it to go. and the greatest among us ofaders get it, and tells about it and make it their mission. >> it's extremely important. but while this shows the need is great. understands most and the future.

because shows things that we live for the future and we live because of the past, it's very important to understand today's nothing. tomorrow is important. >> rose: even after the russian soviet republic, soviet union fell apart and disintegrated. a moment in which vladimir putin said the worst day of his life. there was always the culture to hang on to. >> yes. >> rose: we are a culture. >> it's extremely important to explain to ever because culture is over everything. when the world is integrated, when we live in difficult situation, the)j culture kept it altogether. and sometimes we have to say culture is more important this and that. >> rose: it's even part today of the conflicts in ukraine and along the border there in

georgia, ukraine. because -- >> also in this situation where people say what do you think about this and that. what we think about all this is we must keep our culture relation. we must keep our culture relations. we must work the bridge and culture has a bridge which has to be blown up. blown up a lot of bridges today it's terrible but it's reality. but why i'm here in new york we have friends of hermitage where we're discussing discuss exhid showing this film and people are coming to us. so culture even in difficult situations. >> rose: did you see the flm called monument's men. >> yes. when it was making the movie and providing the material, i think it's a wonderful wonderful book and film. i like book better. >> rose: yes.

it's rarely that you don't. it's exception when a film is better than a book. >> it's very important showing that people can risk their lives or give their lives to culture. >> rose: yes. this is work preserving. we have to rick our lives to preserve this because it is our heritage. >> it is our great heritage and the culture. and art has its own rights. >> rose: a couple thing about kathryn. she hid the collection. >> at that time she was collecting it was not very public. it was secluded. it was open for the people who come. it was her own collection but showing was quite a lot of people have seen it because every investor was taken withiv those pictures. common people didn't come. but it was a way to see. >> rose: doesn't it have

something to do with clusion the title and the term and the idea. >> that idea of collecting. it's all seclusion. it's the private collection becoming open and we should open from the beginning calling public museums. so i think hermitage is important more and more open from the time of nicholas the first opened it to the public. after the revolution became very much opened now it is even maybe more than needed open. it's the evolution of museums. >> rose: kathryn continued to buy art even when financial circumstances were difficult and war was front. >> yes. she just wanted to show the first collection which she bought was a collection which was collected for fred the second and he had had mow money to buy the)eó collection, she

bought it. a clever way she didn't pay a penny for this, it's because of the debt of some merchant. she had her agent in a perfect way. it was all the gesture and a gesture not only for the yow side world, also for the public. which she had around the peoples. we can buy art. >> rose: you think it's important for museums to expand beyond their principal location. >> it's very good question because yes, museum must expand because we must make our collection accessible. everything what we have. but it must be a dynamic system because if you just build one building after another, one building after another certain moment you don't have enough money to pay electricity and sometimes you don't have the collections of the same legal. so it must be dynamic in hermitage. you have what's called great hermitage with central buildings

and then we have built big buildings for open storage. we have to show everything what we have accessible forh,rpublice furniture and so on. then you have hermitage outside back in russian outside of russia making the exhibition. it's the kind of expression which is dynamic goes in and out. because yes we must have to show everything what we have but in a good and proper way. >> rose: is there a fascination and appreciation of contemporary art in russia? >> well, like in every country in the world, a lot of the people hate contemporary art. the same thing is for russia. but russia is one of the cradles of contemporary art avant-garde. what we tried to do in hermitage, what we wanted to show is contemporary art is just

art. you can i hermitage you can seethat art , you have to try to understand. if you tonight understand contemporary art and say oh i don't understand it, actually oh út'qp:q look at this there goesu understand really what it is. so i think we are doing a good job of involving more people in different generations and discussions about contemporary art. and maybe they will not love it but everybody must understand it. you must look at it. >> rose: as you said, you hosted the traveling he can business of the manifesto, right. >> yes. european exhibition of contemporary art, very important one. we decided to do it, we didn't know that the situation political situation we will be so traveled. we are very proud that;g#wñ our colleagues in europe managed to organize it and get it running.

it was a grea was ach other. >> rose: how much influence and your sense of art did your8k father boris have on you. >> a lot. not only my father but also he was orientalist and i also am. so i was grown up looking at him how you have to live and how you have to behave and then how you work with people. so certainly a lot. and i'm lucky having a father whom i have seen all my life working. >> rose: director for 25 years. >> 25 years, 26 years. but he worked all his life for hermitage. before he was a student and his life in hermitage. >> rose: you lived in the hermitage. >> partly in a building near hermitage and then we moved to

another building. but that's all in the beginning. we're all family. so a little bit old fashion, not modern. but this museum is a family. >> rose: i'm always struck by museum director who describe walking through the museum and communing with the paintings at night and having the capacity the see them alone with oz noiseand no one else there ao revisit and revisit and revisit. >> this is fantastic, and while we try to have people see to bring friend and guests to see. not only to a director because when you're a director it's your own pew seem and that way you're the director. even at night you look at what is wrong. i prefer to go at night to other museums in the humple -- hermitage so you can enjoy. >> rose: for what purposes are you in new york. >> because of the film, in many countries it's a fantastic film.

also we have the meeting then of the friends of the hermitage foundation museum. every year, it's a fund raiser because our goal is to bring to hermitage is to have american art be presented in hermitage. and also you recognize american and russian artists and to say thank you. and this year also we are getting i think it's on the way a collection of american decorative art by one of our great friends helen english. she's a well-known person in contemporary art and decorative art, glass and other things. and it will be a great event

artistically because it's rather small and very important because nowadays for two years we don't have museum he can changes between us and the united states. it's very important to have cultural friendship information. >> rose: both about history and in the future, one is it the wholetu idea of recovering art stolen from them by the nazis? has that involved you? >> yes. it involve us in different ways. maybe when we firms met discussing the hidden treasure that german paintings which have been kept in hermitage after the war was taken. so yes definitely. we don't have, what we have taken to russia, so it has taken a lot of art from germ after the war for compensation what was destroyed. most was given back, some of it still remains and we're discussing it. we have found a recipe with our

german colleagues. we make exhibitions, we publish books because it belongs to the people. what we don't have in this collection is a german collection. it's not art, what germans have stolen and artists have stolen from soviet union most of it is already back where you found it and we don't have this stole i things which was stolen fromn e jews. but with all these stories and the collections all the new ones, some issues arise which have been stressing. german museums, most of the things is nazis also confiscated the avant-garde from german museums. some of them is found that persons can get it back. the museums can't because the german law nazi law still somehow considered to be normal so it's confiscated, it's very difficult to get it back.

so sometimes museums are in difficult position. but we are very much in the world in discussions and talking to our german colleagues about this and other colleagues here in america. >> rose: looking into the future there is a google art project. >> it is not only the google art project. there are museums and every museum is doing his website. they have fantastic technologies and one of this because they are mostly almost promoted or something. it's very important issue how much do you use all this technology. you use it a lot, we use it a lot. there's still must be line between the virtual and real. because the main thing which what museums are about, we have real things. they have their own energy and people tonight understand. people are standing in line with all the google projects and decide people are standing hours

in line to look at the real thing. so we have to find this balance which is sometimes not easy. it's in between so we have to use it in addition to real things and real scholarship in the medium. >> rose: what did the film, i think it's called russian art. >> russian art. >> rose: what did that mean? >> well it's fantastic. it was done by one ofspñi the bt film directors in the world, the best in russia, a philosophical one. it is the story of a person going through hermitage and history of hermitage and russian history. with the perfect understanding what is russian art, what is now art, culture. culture goes on and museums go on. it was wonderful to see how it was screened in national gallery

in washington. i seen a lot of washington is not like russian new york. people worked in russian issues for state department and they're not great lovers of political russia. they've been fascinated. they love to see this russia which they studied which they know. it's the positive side. i think the good example of russia, culture institution and cultural history. this is what we want to bring to our colleague friends to bring this image of russia as great art for world art. >> rose: obviously everybody knows, many do, that theicr president of russia vladimir putin was the deputy mayor of st. petersburg where hermitage is. is he from st. petersburg. yes. >> rose: you know him well. >> yes i saw him well because of

st. petersburg and being involved with cultural institutions in russia and he's always paying attention to the cultural institution. >> rose: some think and fear that he wants to in a sense retake and recreate greater russia. >> you know, i think all russians want to recreate the great russia. understandings are different. so i think what's important museum like we tell the story of imperial russia which everybody wants to recreate somehow. we told the true story by object. it is a frame which help you to understand what really is needed to create not going to the past. not going to the past, not going, just creating something which will look as good as the good side of imperial russia. what we'reeverybody and i hope k that he understands it. >> rose: one of the thing that's interesting about art, it comes from artists who enjoy the expression and try to reach into

themselves and create their vision of the world. some worry that there are elements of censorship and coercion in russia that are anti-typical to that. >> there are two sides of this. one is about the censorship. we'd have a very important conference in st. petersburg. they have discussed two kind of censorship. the censorship of the government and the censorship of the public, censorship of society which nowadays is much more stronger and sometimes worse than censorship of that country. every country has its flaws. sometimes our new laws are not very good ones but they're laws. and if things go inside this censorship, inside the law it's okay. when we prepare to make fan fess

owe, the foundation asked me what was will be provide us something. i said no. only keep in the lines of russian law and if something inside russian law someone won't like it i'll defend it. so it's possible to show a lot of things and discuss a lot of things even in the realms of the law and very strong issue like in manifesto everything was asking youd, everything was shown from revolution. nobody demanded to take things down because it was done in a proper language and who knows and understands. suddenly but we come from soviet union. we know how to live in the situation of censorship. it's not the worse thing in thep world we can manage. >> rose: when i mentioned vladimir putin, what one phrase or characteristic most, most defines the man that you know? not the perception in the world

or the united nations or in the state department of the united states but you as someone who knows him. what one quality for you defines him? >> one for me which is very important. when he became president, and i seen on television he was in kremlin and one of the journalists was asking him, aren't you, well how would you think about all this luxury here, it's so grandeur. he said you know i've seen hermitage. and this is very important because when he became the president, first because nobody knew who he is, people were asking me all around the world what's putin. you know, it is the first ruler of russia after nicholas the second who came there a big city. the first one who knows fluent languages but doesdhis first la. but coming from a city like st. petersburg it is important.

all the good things of him comes from st. petersburg. >> rose: the characteristics are one is. >> he's cultured. >> rose: cultured. >> he has a good cultural background which means he has good taste. he understands the importance of culture. and he tries to help culture to research. and he is intellectual more than all other rulers of russia before him. >> rose: he's more intellectual than any previous. >> any previous rulers of russia. >> rose: after the revolution. >> yes. this is important for us. it's a big development for russia. and while intellectual and university all of these things are very important. >> rose: we always ask this because of the russian cultural heritage. are there great novelists writing today in russia that capture the sweep of history the way that tolstoy did.

>> i'm afraid not. >> rose: nor here either. >> i'm afraid not. maybe we'll see. but something is emerging, some good writers now are, we have more best good writers than 15 years ago maybe. >> rose: their stories are about the same thing that all great novelists write about. love, jealousy, rage pride. >> when they manage to write today's life, so that they discuss the internal problems will be okay. >> rose: it's great to have you here. >> thank you very much. >> rose: it's good to have you back in new york and congratulations on the coming anniversary. 250 years of hermitage. >> thank you. i am sending you an invitation. >> rose: thank you. thank you for joining us. we'll see you next time. for more about this program and early episodes visitat pbs.org .

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