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Monday, 16.07.2007
Russian Museum
What the Hermitage is for lovers of Western European and international art in general, the Russian Museum is for connoisseurs of Russian art. 400,000 exhibits bear witness to ten centuries of art history. The Russian Museum competes only with Moscow’s Tretyakov Gallery in its collection of the best of Russian art.
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You can find anything here – from mediaeval icons to the works of contemporary Petersburg artists. Besides the classics of the academic school – such a Venezianov, Brullov, Ivanov and Feditiv – the ‘peregrinatory artists’ Repin, Perov and Savrassov, and the masters of the ‘World of Art’ such as Benois, Dobushinski and Bakst, the Russian Museum contains a first-class collection of works of the Russian Avant-Garde between 1910 and 1930 – including Malevich, Kandinsky and Filonov. And ‘Socialist Realism’ also finds its place here.
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From Princely Palace to Imperial Museum
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The classical Palace dominating the Square of Arts was not originally intended as a museum. Alexander I had it built in 1819-1826 for his younger brother, Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich, which is why it also often known as the Mikhail Palace.
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The renowned planner and architect Carlo Rossi was entrusted with building not only the palace, but also all houses on the square and on the Mikhail Street leading to Nevskii Prospekt.
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Inzhenernaya ul.4
Next metro: Nevsky Prospekt/Gostinyj Dvor
Opening hours: 10.00am – 6.00pm, Mondays to 5.00pm
Closed: Tuesdays
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Russian art at that time was still confined to a single room in the Hermitage. By the end of the 19th century, however, it had become clear that Russian works needed their own home: Russian art had developed explosively and now demanded to be treated with the utmost respect. And the Hermitage also urgently needed to make room for its constantly expanding collection.
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The Russian Museum finally opened on the 7th March, 1898. The Mikhail Palace had been purchased and radically transformed, unfortunately at the price of many original Rossi interiors.
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The first collection comprised Russian paintings from the Hermitage, the collection of Alexander III from the Anitchkov Palace, works from the Academy of Arts, and from the Tsar’s summer residences. After the Revolution, the collection grew due to the nationalisation of top class private collections from the Petersburg nobility.
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Four palaces and the diversity of Russian art
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Today, the entire collection of the Russian Museum encompasses four buildings, each of which is an architectural masterwork. In the Stroganov Palace on Nevsky Prospekt, extensive restoration work means that currently only temporary exhibitions take place.
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The Marble Palace contains a branch of the Ludwig Museum, and is the most daring and modern of the four, often exhibiting installations and performances by Russian and international contemporary artists. Since 1994, the Engineers’ Castle also belongs to the Russian Museum; it is also undergoing restoration.
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Last but not least, the Benois wing on Canal Griboyedov, an annex to the main corpus on Square of the Arts, houses large and often spectacular temporary exhibitions – such as “The Russian Portrait” and “Russian Avant-Garde”.(sb/rUFO)
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