national art gallery

Lots of History and staff are helpful, not easy to use a baby stroller inside as moving from one level to to the other is through the Stairs, but managable

Official name "National Gallery of Armenia", located on Republic Square, this art museum has an entrance fee of only about $1.70 USD per person and can easily fill 2-3 hours of your day. It presents a large collection of art ranging from Greek to Roman to Armenian to American, spread over 5 floors of an expansive building. Unfortunately the museum is very strangely organized, or actually not organized at all, I should say. You'll find 1000 year old works of art next to 50 year old works of art of entirely different origin and style. As you traverse the museum, absolutely no story is told, no progression of time or style is portrayed, since the whole thing is poorly organized. There are panels listing the artist name, country, and date, but no additional information. Whoever is the curator of the museum must not enjoy color, because at least 80% of the paintings were extremely dark and gloomy with minimal use of any color. When we walked into the one and only room that had some colorful paintings, it was such a rarity that we stopped and remarked "color!". I'm not saying the dark artwork is bad, but if you're looking for vibrant and colorful works of art, you will not find it here. A number of historical paintings were directly exposed to sunlight and I believe this will damage the paintings over time -- something should be done about this. We visited on a cold Sunday winter afternoon and I believe we were the only tourists in the entire building. But there were at least 50 women working there -- at least one per room. Most would very awkwardly and annoyingly breath down our necks as we looked at art. We do not look Armenian -- and this must have been fascinating to these women, because I have never been stared at so much by museum staff in my life. Some would lock their gaze on us for the entire time we were in the room, making us feel incredibly uncomfortable, like we were doing something wrong. Other staff would sit gossiping loudly with each other in the corner or in the windowsills, while others would be conversing loudly on their cell phones. Overall the attitude and behavior of the staff was a major deterrent and made me not enjoy my experience. Still, this museum is a must-visit if you are in Yerevan, particularly because there are not all that many museums in Yerevan. If it's a cold winter day, or rainy, then go here. Just prepare yourself for a very "average" experience. But when the weather is nice, you may find your time better spent elsewhere.

National Art Gallery is located in very heart of the down town. You should definitely pay a visit. The National Gallery of Armenia was founded in 1921 by the decision of the Soviet Armenian Government, as the Art Department, one of the five departments of the State Museum. Ayvazovski, Saryan, H. Hagopian and many other well known painters are presnted here.

The Armenian works were worth the visit. Other works displayed weren't all that special if you're used to galleries in Europe.

Definitely worth a visit. The main museum of Yerevan...the country, covering the history and art. Glad we had a local to explain what was what...would have been a whole different experience without.

Great art is housed here but disappointingly taken care of with open windows on a hot day, no climate control, no explanation of any of the art, with a little TLC this could be a great musuem.

It is not a famous art gallery in Vienna or in Venice! You will not find some great works of Michelangelo there BUT I do really believe that you will definitely see the colors you`ve never seen before!

This museum is not easy to find as it is above the Armenian history museum. Most of the floors are ok, but on level 3 through some not so well marked doors are huge rooms of altar paintings rescued from churches and replicas of wall paintings in actual sizes. Some of these are maybe 10 meters by 5 meters. This is worth the visit. Lookout for Arpene who is one of the security ladies. She had us in tears with her knowledge and positiveness. Look out for the real wall paintings when visiting the actual churches. This is a must see!

its small, convenient and although not the first thing to see if you are on limited timeframe, its worth going. where else are you going to see so much armenian art?

The building that houses the Natonal Art Gallery or the National Art Gallery of Armenia is superb. Unfortunately, as others have commented, most of the galleries are not temperature controlled and there is a lot that can be done by UNESCO and others to properly preserve these beautiful art pieces by Aivazovsky and others. The art itself is definitely worth seeing. Few places house as many Aivazovsky pieces as this Gallery does, and they are absolutely spectacular!!!!

Please sort some air conditioning out. It's like roaming in a furnace with only one piddly fan in each space churning out recycled hot air. I had to escape from the heat, but not before discovering the work of Martiros Saryan, which made the entrance fee worthwhile.

They do indeed have the 3rd largest number of Italian masters in the former Soviet empire....the tragedy being that most galleries are not climate-controlled, so the paintings hang in 32C heat. Can't UNESCO assist?

There aren't a lot of Armenian painters, so you don't have to do much to qualify being put on the walls in the Art Gallery. I would recommend to use the time somewhere else.

I enjoyed exploring this museum's numerous floors. Depending on your preference, you can make it through relatively quickly or spend hours in here. Even though it contains a nice amount of Armenian art, I would have loved to see even more examples. Definitely stop by; it's worth your time.

They had several Serov's we wanted to see. Surprised to see an early Chagall. Elevator takes you to the top floor but you have to walk down. why? who knows? It's an ancient soviet building but the art is well preserved with temp control.We were unfamiliar with Armenia art and they had 2-3 floors that we enjoyed. If you love art, as we do, then there is no bad art gallery. There was one tour group but otherwise we had the place to ourselves with the guards in each room outnumbering us. One unique in the world feature, you can take pictures but each time the guard sees you doing so, they give you an 800 dram ticket ($2) so you pay at the end.Novel approach. We didn't bother, though there were a couple of pieces I was tempted to pay for photographing (without flash of course)