2015 Russian Art ca. 1700–1900

The memorialization of the history of the struggle with French invasion of Russia carried out by the emperor Nicholas I and its role in the formation of state ideology is only fragmentarily studied by Russian scholars. The research focuses on two predominant subjects. The first one is a reconstruction of the creation of “A Description of French Invasion of Russia in 1812” (first edition: St. Petersburg, 1839) by the court historian A. I. Mikhailovsky-Danilevsky and exploration of his interactions with his royal customer. As a rule, this large-scale project is studied in isolation from other activities undertaken by Nicholas I in this direction. The other subject of interest is the creation of the “visual history” of the Patriotic War of 1812 represented in 12 large-format paintings of major battles commissioned by the emperor to a Bavarian artist Peter von Hess. The process of creating the series is brilliantly reconstructed by Russian scholars.
Based on archival sources and studies of our predecessors, we managed to establish the fact of a direct involvement of the court historian A. I. Mikhailovsky-Danilevsky in the working process of the artist P. Hess whose series of paintings was aimed for special “memorial room” of military history of Russia in the Winter Palace. By focusing on a micro-history of this artistic commission, we were able to compare the censorship edits that were made in the text personally by the emperor and visual interpretation of the history of war. This allowed us to highlight the priorities in Nicholas’ vision of the military history of Russia and to point out his “corrections” in the history of the war. In particular, a notable change in understanding the role of certain commanders and “common people” in the Patriotic war, which was initiated in the works of A. I. Mikhailovsky-Danilevsky, then was fully expressed in the article by F. Bulgarin and further developed in the visual series by P. von Hess.
This allows us to deeply analyze the process of rethinking and “rewriting” of Russian national history by Nicholas I.

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This article is devoted to the water color series “The Russian Alphabet. Gift to Russian children in memory of the French invasion of Russia in 1812”. This series includes 32 miniature plates which are based on famous Russian caricatures of Napoleon and the French army.
This unique alphabet is stored in the State Literary museum. It has never been researched by art historians or displayed for the public. But engraving sets of “The Russian Alphabet” are well-known to specialists. It is believed that the alphabet had been made by the Russian sculptor and engraver Ivan Terebenev. After careful research we contend that the series was painted by the Russian miniature-­painter Mikhail Terebenev (brother of Ivan Terebenev).
The paper offers comparison of the water color and engraving series and traces the process of the Russian Alphabet creation from preliminary sketches to the final edition.

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The second half of the 18th and early 19th century is the time when the issues of theory of restoration became a subject of a systematic study in Russia. This period is marked by the change of attitude to modifications carried out in course of restoration in the Renaissance and in the 17th century. As a result some of them were removed. Special works on the issues of reconstruction were published. The works of I. I. Vien, P. P. Chekalyevsky, A. N. Olenin are important sources for the examination of the approaces to the issues of restoration.
A conference secretary of the Academy of Fine Arts P. Chekalevsky in his “Discourse on the Free Arts” postulates independent aesthetic value of fragments. Recognition of the value of a ruined monu­ment appears especially important from the point of view of an artistic school and an attitude to the problem of cultural heritage.
The first work offering an attempt of theoretic conceptualization of the issues of sculpture restoration to be published in Russia was “The Thesis on the Influence of Anatomy on Sculpture and Oil Painting” by I. I. Vien. It provides theoretic explanation of the necessity of using the knowledge of ana­tomy to solve restoration problems.
The first and so far the only work in Russia dedicated to the issues of sculpture reconstruction with the use of gypsum molds is “The Experiment of Restoration of an Ancient Statue of Cupid Stretching the Bow” by A. N. Olenin. In order to carry out a scientifically based reconstruction of the position of human arms stretching a bow, A. N. Olenin gathered a significant ethnographic material and presented the proofs to justify its use.
V. I. Demut-Malinovsky who was entrusted to perform gypsum plastic reconstruction managed to avoid anatomic errors. The illustrations used by A. N. Olenin in his work clearly demonstrate the credibility of his arguments.
The book of A. N. Olenin reflected a new concept of restoration formed as a result of both the study of ancient heritage and the works of European authors and general development of historical scientific ideas of the second half of the 18th century and laid the foundation for further development of theoretic restoration principles of the 19th century.

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The subject discussed in the report could provide a new look at the works of Alexey Venetsianov, as well as at certain aspects of Biedermeier style.
It was long ago pointed out that the Enlightenment, despite its didactic character, was a sort of a continuation of the ideas of the Renaissance at a new level. The ideal was considered as a synthesis of the natural elements of the world around, the triumph of scientific and technical knowledge was proclaimed, a new type of an artist-the-scientist emerged, etc. Such a “Renaissance” aspect of the En­lightenment was reflected in a special human-oriented, non-official form of classicism, to which the Biedermeier style — namely its early, “high” period (from the 1810s to the early 1830s) is closely linked.
The Renaissance ideals were manifested in Biedermeier artists’ interest to a concrete, diverse reality, which they treated as a reasonably arranged system which could be perceived by both direct observations and theoretical knowledge. This explains a special, truly represented spatial-light environment of the early Biedermeier paintings where people, being self-absorbed, listen to “something more important” rather than talk to each other.
Notwithstanding the fact that Renaissance features were typical for the whole “high Biedermeier”, in Venetsianov’s works — due to national and individual characteristics of the artist — they are especially obvious. Although he was the father of “Russian Biedermeier”, Venetsianov however surpassed it: his works are at the intersection of Biedermeier and human-oriented classicism. The artist took interest in individuals rather than in environment or in interiors, as the representatives of the Western Biedermeier did. He treated his models as a part of the beautiful, reasonable universe. The specific “corporality” of Venetsianov’s paintings, which is related to the features of national mentality, is, however, merged with the “divine corporeality” of the Renaissance paintings. In the current report these and many other features of Renaissance art in the works of Venetsianov will be discussed in detail. Certain aspects of the work of the Russian artist will be compared with the works of some Renaissance masters.

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Boris Vipper wrote an article “Silvester Schedrin in Italy” in 1946 which was published in the “Soviet Art History” only in 1975. In this paper he defined Neapolitan artist Raffaele Carelli (1795–1864) as “teacher and inspirator” of Schedrin. We do not know why but Vipper thought that Carelli died young in 1815. This wrong fact in the artist’s biography had strong impact on Vipper’s implications. In the art historian’s opinion Carelli seems to be “a talented predecessor of Schedrin and forerunner of plein air in the European painting of the 19th century”. In this case Neapolitan landscapes by Carelli must have been created earlier than similar works of Schedrin, because Russian artist appeared in Naples only in 1819. This fact forced Vipper to decide that Carelli had great influence on a painting style of Schedrin. Nevertheless, the art historian noted artistic superiority of Schedrin’s landscapes in comparison with Carelli’s works. There are no authentic pieces of art by Carelli dated earlier than 1833. That is why it is clear that Carelli worked as an artist in the middle of the 19th century. Therefore Carelli either could have seen some works of Schedrin or was a skilful follower of the manner of Neapolitan landscapists of the 1830s.
It is not surprising that details of Carelli’s biography were forgotten, because he was a second-rate artist even in comparison with other artists of Neapolitan landscape school of the 19th century. Proba­bly he realized that fact himself. Carelli was exhibited for the last time in 1835, after that he gave up art and got into teaching and antique-trade.

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The indescribable idea of the sublime fascinated and challenged a famous 19th century artist Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky whose dwelling upon this concept gave rise to countless visual responses. The paper examines the earliest known version of his piece known as “Walking upon the Sea” from 1849 that has been recently rediscovered and displayed after restoration and conservation within the State Art Collection of the Royal Compound in Serbia. The report offers the analysis of this particular image, a peculiar combination of the stormy sea at night and religious theme that embodies artist’s inner self observations, his thoughts, worldview and perceptive power of the years to come. Aivazovsky was a man of Romanticism and a visionary genius as well. He was occupied with the ideas of the infinity, great drama and of the divine that challenged viewers’ senses of space and time. “Walking Upon the Sea” is an art piece of its time, a manifest reflection of skepticism of the era of groundbreaking experiments, innovations and discoveries. Special attention is paid to the elements of the painting revealing the author’s interest in tuning viewers’ emotions and artistic devices to gain a new dramatic impact on them. Apart from this, there is an attempt to interpret his choice of a religious theme which is apparently incompatible with the romantic worldview and how it was correlated with a romantic category of the sublime. Aivazovsky will return to this theme at least twice in his later career. The paper contains the analysis of the artist’s symbolic lanuage and the means he used to set his inner eye into the core of his artworks.

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Whereas panoramas and dioramas in Europe and the USA have been thoroughly explored and the research is still in progress, such artistic phenomena have so far been almost absolutely ignored by specialists in Russian art. In recent years dioramas in Soviet art have eventually been comprehensively studied by A. A. Druzhinin. However, there is still no work tracing the development of panoramas and dioramas in the 19th-century Russia. Most of the pieces remain obscure, though this kind of art once enjoyed immense popularity.
The intention of the paper is to shed new light upon a significant, but hitherto unknown episode in the development of panoramas and dioramas in the Russian Empire, namely a panorama “View of Palermo” (1846), painted by Birman after a sketch by K. F. Schinkel and presented in St. Petersburg by Andrei Adamovich Roller (Andreas Leonhard Roller, 1805–1891) — a German-born artist long active in Russia. He arrived to St. Petersburg in 1834 already as a renowned master and spent there 45 years working as a decorator and the first machine operator of the Imperial Theaters. Stage scenery created by him was greatly admired by both the public and critics. The researchers are not unanimous in high appreciation of his heritage, but his contribution to the development of scenography in Russia is anyway widely known. He also tried his hand at the art of panoramas and dioramas which is cognate to that of scenery. These works remain thus far forgotten.
Panorama “View of Palermo” was dedicated to the trip of Nicolas I, his wife Aleksandra and their daughter Olga to Sicily in 1845–1846. In Palermo Olga got engaged to Charles I of WÜrttemberg. To keep precious memories of this journey several pavilions were constructed in the same years, such as Olga’s Pavilion in Colonist Park (by A. I. Stackenschneider), Teahouse, or Renella, in Znamenka Park in Peterhof (destroyed), etc. “Panorama of Palermo”, now lost and forgotten, should recover its place in history among them.
The paper offers analysis of documentary and visual materials from Russian State Historical Archive, Central State Historical Archive of St. Petersburg and periodicals of Roller’s time, revealing this page in the history of panoramas in Russia.

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People fascinated with Siberia in the 19th century were mainly researchers, collectors, travellers, artists and adventurers, as well as exiles who passionately discovered the unknown, not only geographically and botanically, but also culturally and spiritually. It was a fashionable custom to keep a diary during a journey and to create albums with views of cities, depictions of the monuments and citizens. In contrast to the expeditions across Europe, those to the Asian continent, in particular to Siberia, were dangerous and rare. The paper discusses the first Siberian expeditions, which were undertaken by Polish artists: Jan Krzysztof Damel (1780–1840), Leopold Niemirowski (1810–1833) and Bronislaw Zaleski (1819–1880).

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Russian literature of the 19th century borrows principles, themes, images and ideas from picto­rial art, which formed the aesthetic the world view, and was included in the sphera of philosophical discourse. As a result, cultural background of the epoch is created by the interaction and interpenetration of different artistic codes, both verbal and visual. The subject of the writer’s creative interest is not only paintings, but also the history of their creation, as well as the artist and the broadest approach to his work. In this aspect ekphrasis, as an aesthetic phenomenon, related to the category of beauty and included in the literary text as a literary reception, seems the urgent problem of modern aesthetics.
The object of this report is the aesthetic phenomenon of ekphrasis in Leskov’s text. The paper exa­mines how painting models verbal expression and aesthetic impression from paintings creates the meaning, on the example of “Zahudaliy rod. Family Chronicle of princes Protozanov (From the notes of Princess V. D. P)” (1874) by Nikolai Leskov.
Writer “attributed” portraits of central characters of the chronicle to Johann Baptist Lampi the Elder (1751–1830) and Orest Kiprensky (1783–1836). However, the analysis revealed a reference to the subjects and pictorial manners of other artists who were not mentioned in the text: Dmitry Levitsky (1735–1822) and Karl Bryullov (1799–1852). We managed to establish particular canvases, which served not only as material for a work of art, but also had the aesthetic impact, which gave birth to the author’s intent. These are portraits of “Empress Catherine II with allegorical figures and the Fortress of Truth” (1793) and “The Countess E. D. Samoilova” (1792–1796) by I. B. Lampi the Elder, “Portrait of Countess E. S. Samoilova” with double authorship by I. B. Lampi the Elder and Karl Bryullov, portraits of “E. N. Khrushcheva and E. N. Khovanskaya” by Dmitry Levitsky (1773) and “Shishmaryov Sisters” (1839) by K. Bryullov.
On the whole, the effect of ekphrasis, representing the visual image to the reader, is not associated with the rhetorical function of the method, which originated from the word (as it was in ancient tradition), but with the aesthetic impression from the works of art — in this case from the series of cere­monial portraits, which created a verbal image.

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Focusing interdisciplinary research on the history of a Moscow city mansion of the 17th–20th centuries, the author undertakes a study of the progressive accretion of cultural potential in local material objects of urban space. In fact, it is this accumulation process that converts an architectural site into a ‘cultural nest’, a bearer of historical and civilisation heritage. The author traces the formation of sustainable and developing in time socio-cultural complexes that are directly related to or associated with such sites and, above all, with the destiny of their inhabitants, guests, observers and chroniclers of everyday life.
One of the pivotal moments which had a decisive impact on architectural appearance and on the fate of the mansion at No 9, Povarskaya, in general, relates to the late 19th — early 20th century. This period is associated with the ambitious restructuring of the old-Moscow estate of the early 19th century, as well as with the change of its function into a representative mansion of the new cultural and business elite of Russia. The transformation of the mansion in “il palazzo delle arti” in imitation of the Renaissance artifacts is connected with the last owners of the estate, among which there were the Botkin, the Shchukin, the Zetlin and the Wissotzky families, as well as with architects Ivan Kuznetsov and Adolf Zeligson, painters Mikhail Vrubel, Ilya Repin, Valentin Serov, poet Afanasy Fet, composer-­academist Alexander Gretchaninov, and later many artists of the Silver Age of Russian art.

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