|
The Arts in Russia throughout History
This overview course pursues a two-fold goal: to introduce the history of Russian visual arts through a survey of its most prominent achievements and to examine the role of art in the life of Russian society through investigation of the masterpieces of non-Russian art accumulated and admired in Russia. During the semester we will explore the development of Russian art from Scythian gold artifacts of the pre-Slavic period through the establishment of Christianity in Russia in 988 to the present day. We will discuss the art and architecture of Novgorod, one of the oldest Russian centers, on our daylong visit to the city. We will examine Russian icon painting through the 15th century and the art and architecture of Muscovy through the 17th century on a special trip to Moscow (optional). Russia becoming a European state was signaled by the assimilation of the western artistic traditions of the Baroque and Classicism as seen in St. Petersburg architecture, which we will explore on our many tours of the city. The 18th century imperial building programs and Russian secular paintings will be considered within the context of the then prevailing artistic trends in Europe. We will look at the realism of the 19th century art preoccupied with social issues in conjunction with the treatment of the same themes in literature and works of theoretical thought. Emphasis will be placed on the changes that occurred in Russian art at the turn of the 20th century when realism gave way to the modernist trends collectively known as the avant-garde. The course also includes investigation of Russian folk art tradition. These classes will rely on superb collections of folk art in the Russian Museum and in the Museum of Russian Ethnography.
Week 1 - Tuesday
Introductory tour of the Hermitage Museum: history of buildings and collections. The Hermitage occupies now five buildings, including the Winter Palace, the Small Hermitage, the Old Hermitage, the New Hermitage and the Hermitage theater. All of them will be explored during this special tour. The Winter Palace though built for Elizabeth but first inhabited by Catherine II offers a magnificent example of the Baroque style by B. Rastrelli. This was followed by the construction of the Small Hermitage (by Valen de Lamotte,) and the Large (now the Old) Hermitage. The Hanging Garden, occupying the central part of the Small Hermitage is still one of the wonders of the Catherine’s epoch. The Hermitage theater, a masterpiece of Classicism, was designed according to Catherine’s wish (by J. Quarenghi).
Week 1 - Thursday
Westward turn: foundation of the city of St. Petersburg and its earliest architectural monuments. This class will include a walking tour of St. Petersburg with visits to Peter and Paul Fortress, the city’s oldest building, or the Summer Palace of Peter I with the original interiors, which remained largely unaltered. Alternative possibility is a visit to the Menshikov Palace as an example of luxurious palace architecture of the early 18th century.
Week 1 - Saturday or Sunday
All-day trip to Peterhof: tours of fountain park-and-palace ensemble: creative appropriation of the European artistic achievements. The grandeur of the first ensemble of Peterhof, which embodied the growing might of the Russian state, set a standard for residences of this type in Russia. It was Peter’s idea to unite the Upper Palace and the great cascade, concentrating the largest number of fountains and sculpture. The Lower Park was set out like a typical formal French garden with numerous fountains. It consists of three parts – the central, the eastern – Marly, and the western – Monplaisir and represents the splendid example of the synthesis of architecture, sculpture and nature. All major architectural sights are included in the tour.
Week 2 - Tuesday
Old Masters at the Hermitage: Italian, Spanish, Dutch and Flemish art. We will follow the development of Italian art from Giotto’s contemporaries to the High Renaissance represented at the Hermitage by Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael, Giorgione and Titian. Noteworthy examples of work by Italian Mannerists and by the founders of the Bolognese Academy – the Carracci cousins, a masterpiece by Caravaggio and a prominent collection of Italian Baroque will introduce us to the progressions of Italian art. We will then turn to the exploration of the Europe’s Golden Age marked by the highest achievements of the national art schools in the 17th century. We will examine Spanish art exhibition that presents significant works by Diego Velazquez, Francisco Zurbaran, Jose Ribera and Bartholome Esteban Murillio. The class will proceed in the galleries of Flemish art, boasting over thirty paintings and sketches by Rubens, over twenty portraits by Van Dyck, works by Frans Snyders and Jacob Jordaens. This class will cover also the exhibitions of Dutch art, comprising a record number of more than twenty paintings by Rembrandt and hundreds of finest landscapes, genre paintings, still lifes, etc., by the so-called ‘Small Dutch Masters.’
Week 2 - Thursday
Before the Slavs: archaeological collections of the Hermitage. The Scythian Gold. The Treasury of the Hermitage includes world-famous masterpieces of Scythian art such as massive golden shield plaques shaped as a stag and a panther, arms and armor decorations, artworks in Greek-Scythian style made of precious metals, including vessels, jewelry. They represent a most successful amalgamation of Greek advanced and refined craftsmanship and Scythian solid ideology. Visit to either the Hermitage Restoration labs or wood painting workshop.
Week 2 - Saturday or Sunday
All-day trip to Novgorod. Introduction to defensive, ecclesiastical and civic architecture of uriev Monastery (12c.) with its unique multi-domed cathedral from before the Tartar conquest and also The Savior Transfiguration on Il’in Street with frescoes by Theophanes the Greek (14c.). Tour of the open-air wooden architecture museum and of the icon museum.
Week 3 - Tuesday
French art at the Hermitage - tutorial in the galleries. This one of the largest collections of French art in the world allows studying its development from the Middle Ages up to the beginning of the 20th century. The class will begin with the 15th – 18th century French art, including few French Renaissance portraits as well as works of French Classicism excellently exemplified by Nicolas Poussin’s and Claude Lorrain’s paintings and Rococo style masterpieces by Antoine Watteau, Francois Boucher and Jean-Honore Fragonard. We will then proceed to the French art 19th – 20th centuries that eminently represented at the Hermitage. We will see the complexity of the late 19th century art scene with the competing tendencies of Neo-Classicism, Romanticism and Realism. We will then proceed to the galleries of the French Impressionists with paintings by Monet, Renoir, Degas and Sisley and continue at the exhibition of works by Post-Impressionists – Cezanne, Van Gogh and Gauguin. The culmination of this class will be investigation of the Hermitage most glorious collection of works by two giants of the 20th century art – Picasso and Matisse. Recently the exhibition was enriched by the opening of art from the private German collections secretly kept in the deposits of the museum until 1995. This exhibition includes “Place de la Concorde” by E. Degas as its major masterpiece.
Week 3 - Thursday
Russian Museum, visit I: from icons to European styles in Russian painting – Classicism and Romanticism This one of the world’s largest and best collections of Russian icons includes masterpieces of the 12th century and icons by distinguished regional schools (Novgorod, the Northern Schools) and by great artists Andrei Rublev, Dionisy, Simon Ushakov. We will then focus on early 18th century works of secular art by leading painters I. Nikitin, I. Vishniakov, A. Matveev. The Enlightenment era is represented by over forty canvases by F. Rokotov, numerous portraits by D. Levitsky including students of the Smolny Institute, over thirty works by V. Borovikovsky, A. Losenko’s earliest paintings on the nation’s own history. Romanticism is exemplified by Kiprensky’s artwork regarded as a manifesto of this style in Russia. Carl Briullov’s huge canvas The Last Day of Pompeii (“The Last Day of Pompeii turned the first day for the Russian brush”) is in the Russian Museum, as well as A. Ivanov’s final sketch for his most important painting The Appearance of Christ to the People. Numerous are paintings by A. Venitsianov who introduced peasant theme in Russian art.
Week 3 - Saturday or Sunday
All-day trip to Tsars’ Village (Pushkin) and Pavlovsk park-and-palace ensembles. Topic: mid-18th – late 18th century Russian architecture styles: Baroque Palladian Classicism. A constellation of artistic worlds in its own right, Tsar’s Village is a system of ensembles each representing its own artistic world. In the middle of the 18th century it was a heart of flourishing Baroque style. Next to it grew “the world of Greek and Rome revived” represented by the Agate Baths designed by Charles Cameron to the wish of Catherine II in 1770s. A visit to Pavlovsk allows discussion of the Palladian style in Russia. The palace first designed by Charles Cameron combines the features of a Palladian villa and the traditional concept of the suburban manor house. Other prominent architects to work there were V. Brenna, G. Quarenghi, A. Voronikhin, C. Rossi. The palace is remarkable for its interior decorations and for outstanding collections of the applied art. The Pavlovsk park is the largest in St. Petersburg suburbs. The scattered around the park sculptures and pavilions most naturally set in the landscape all represent exquisite examples of Classical style.
Week 4 - Tuesday
The Imperial St. Petersburg: walking tour of the city’s Classical style architecture ensembles and visit to St. Isaac Cathedral and the Colonnade. The tour includes viewing of the square-and-buildings ensembles by Carlo Rossi who took part in remodeling of twelve squares and thirteen streets of the city. Attention is paid to the major Classical style buildings in St. Petersburg erected by Andrei Voronikhin, Adrian Zakharov, Auguste Montferrand. We will climb up the colonnade of St. Isaac Cathedral to view the city from the height of 333 feet. It is now possible to visit an important classical interior in the majestic General Staff building by Rossi (the exhibition “Under the Sign of the Eagle”).
Week 4 - Thursday
Russian Museum, visit II: from Realism through Russian avant-garde. Realism in Russian painting took its shape in mid-19th century in the art of the so-called ‘Wandering artists,’ democratically minded painters who sought to cure social ills by means of their realistic depiction. We will see works by major ‘Wanderers’ – Vasily Perov, Ivan Kramskoi and others. The museum has excellent collection of works by Ilya Repin and historic genre paintings by Vasily Surikov.The Russian Museum owns an excellent collection of Russian art of the late 19th – early 20th century that culminated in Russian avant-garde, seminal for the development of western arts in 20th century. All major trends and major names are represented in the Russian Museum(over twenty works by Kandinsky, over a hundred of paintings and works in other mediums by Malevich, nearly two hundred paintings by Filonov, works by K. Petrov-Vodkin, A. Lentulov, M. Larionov, N, Goncharova, V. Tatlin, L. Popova, A. Rodchenko, etc.
Week 4 - Saturday or Sunday
Russian Museum, visit III: Russian folk art. We will survey the 15th – 20th century examples of major types of folk art in the excellent collection of the Russian Museum. Topics to be covered include the woodcarving and wood-painting, metal forging and enamel production, ceramics, lace and embroidery, carved walrus tusk and lacquer boxes. Discussed will be the regional techniques and styles, the artifacts’ function in people’s lives as well as the decorative motifs – their origin and symbolism. During the tutorial at the Russian Museum of Ethnography we will review traditional realities of everyday life.
Week 5 - Tuesday
Visit to the Porcelain Museum and the Imperial porcelain factory.
Week 5 - Thursday
Visit either a contemporary artist's studio or the Hermitage storage in New Village (district of St. Petersburg), where the Hermitage has a new facility with climate control to view storage of painting, sculpture, tapestries and furniture.
Week 5 - weekend
Optional trip to Moscow.
Note that scheduling could change due to factors ranging from weather to special exhibits.
|
