Unborn Babies Get First Taste of Art at Russian Museum
By Maria Kiselyova
The St. Petersburg Times
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Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
An expectant mother looks at paintings Wednesday during a special tour of the State Russian Museum devised by an obstetrician for pregnant women.
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Staff at St. Petersburg’s State Russian Museum hope to create generations of children who will appreciate art from birth, with special excursions for pregnant women. For three years now, Natalya Kuznetsova, senior researcher at the museum, has organized excursions there for expectant mothers. Every tour has a theme, for example, the image of water as an element, or the Virgin Mary. During the former, the women look at and learn about paintings by the famous seascape painter Aivazovsky, while the excursion focusing on the Virgin Mary takes place in the room devoted to icons from medieval Rus. The program was created together with Dr. Marina Komova, an obstetrician and gynecologist who first came up with the idea for the excursions. Komova, who has practiced prenatal psychology since 1992, believes that before being born, children should receive some information about the world— both positive and negative. She believes this information can easily be received in a coded form via art. There is however a limit to how much babies should be exposed to while still in the womb. On the excursions for pregnant women, Kuznetsova tells them everything she tells “ordinary” visitors, but doesn’t show them pieces of art featuring death, blood or illness. “I wouldn’t include ‘The Last Day of Pompeii’ by Karl Bryullov in the tour, or ‘The Death of Nero’ by Vasily Smirnov — it would provoke negative emotions in the woman and the baby would get frightened, too,” said Kuznetsova. The women are allowed to listen to the excursion seated, which is not usually the case with other visitors. Antenatal excursions currently take place twice a week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays at 11 a.m. On Saturdays, Komova comes to the museum, and after looking at the pieces of art, the expectant mothers meet her to discuss the theme of the tour. The Saturday meetings are particularly popular, with up to 50 women gathering at the museum. Gayane Markaryan, 25, visited the special excursion for the first time this week. She said she would continue to attend, since she believes that simply looking at beautiful things has a positive influence on the child’s development. “The weather is no good for taking walks right now, so the museum is a good option,” she said. Natalya Petsh, 24, said she had been on about 10 excursions since she found out about the tours several months ago. Some women continue to attend the prenatal tours at the Russian museum even after giving birth, bringing with them children aged from four months to two years old. Komova says these babies and toddlers react to the art with even more understanding than older children — they are quiet and listen attentively to the excursion . She believes this is because they remember having heard Kuznetsova’s voice before they were born, and have received positive emotions about it from their mothers.
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