Olga Schedrova
Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts, Russia
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.