Neoclassical architecture in Russia
Neoclassical architecture in Russia developed in the second half of the 18th century, especially after
Origin of the style
Background
As part of the European cosmopolitan class of the 18th century, Catherine set the tone of Russian social and intellectual life during her long reign.
Augustus said that he found Rome built of brick and would leave it built of marble; I say that I found Petersburg virtually wooden and will leave its buildings dressed in marble.[3]
Scholars recognize that, regardless of the motivation, Catherine found in architecture an embodiment for her aspirations, particularly the so-called
The beginnings
In 1762, the Empress had ordered the construction of the palace of
From 1764, the Academy was directed by the philanthropist and councilor for education of Catherine
The 1770s: new impulses
In 1773, the Empress wrote a letter to the Academy of France, announcing a contest which asked the architects to design a house in which they were present, at the same time, forms of both Greek and Roman antiquities.[7] Two French academics, Charles de Wailly and Charles-Louis Clérisseau, sent their drawings, but these were not welcomed positively. Hence, in 1778, Catherine said she wanted to hire two Italian architects, since "the Frenchmen we have here know too much and build dreadful houses – because they know too much."[8] In 1779, she commissioned her ministers, Baron Friedrich Melchior and Johann Friedrich Reiffenstein, who at that time were representatives of the Russian Academy of Arts of St. Petersburg in Rome, to find the two architects. The same year, two Italians architects, Giacomo Trombara and Giacomo Quarenghi, arrived at the court of Catherine.[9] Within a few years, neoclassicism in Russia, which in its first phase had drawn ideas from the French architecture of the mid-eighteenth century, turned its attention to the interpretive experiences of the Palladian architecture, especially of England and Italy.[10]
The 1780s: Giacomo Quarenghi
At the invitation of Catherine's agents in 1779, Giacomo Quarenghi arrived in St. Petersburg along with the Scottish architect Charles Cameron.[11] He was a renowned neoclassical architect, having studied in Rome with Anton Raphael Mengs, among other artists and architects who helped shape his interest and expertise in Palladian architecture.[12] Together with Cameron, he first worked on the Catherine Palace located in the Tsarskoye Selo. Specifically, this entailed the construction of a two-story gallery (Cameron's Gallery). Between 1781 and 1796, it was the turn of the palace of Paul I in Pavlovsk which, in its original version, became one of the first examples of Palladian villa built in Russia.[13]
But if Cameron had been successful for the display of his fanciful polychrome, the heirs of Catherine Paul and Maria Feodorovna forced him to absolute sobriety, so at Pavlovsk became prominent the use of white and gold. However, Cameron could not comply to the impositions of the new taste. Between 1786 and 1789 Cameron's duties in Pavlovsk passed to the Italian Vincenzo Brenna, hired by Paul in 1782.[14] In the meantime Quarenghi became the official architect of Catherine II, and between the 1780 and 1785 transformed St. Petersburg into a classical city.[15]
As first assignment, in 1779 Catherine commissioned the architect of Bergamo the task of introducing the neoclassical style in the Peterhof Palace. The intervention was performed in the southwest of the Top Park , where he was made the English Park and in its interior the English Palace,[16] which became the model to which inspire in Russia up to the beginning of 19th century for the villas in the countryside. Between 1782 and 1785 he built the Hermitage Theatre whose interior is inspired by the Teatro Olimpico of Vicenza and for the decorations and the capitals by the ruins of the Theatre of Pompey. Later, between 1787 and 1792, in the Winter Palace Quarenghi had designed and built a place that was the exact replica of the Raphael's Loggia located in the Apostolic Palace in Vatican City,[17] here were then inserted the copies of the drawings of the ceilings. Copies of which were commissioned in 1778 by the Empress to von Grimm who, through Reiffenstein, did reproduce in Rome copies of life-sized vault; the encaustic paintings were made by Christoforo Unterperger.
In 1783, Quarenghi designed the Palace of the State Bank on the Griboyedov Canal, given the importance of the building, the author gives the monument a majestic appearance. Different was the architect's attitude in the most sober Academy of Sciences (1783–1789) where the outside, unadorned, is marked by a heavy porch in Ionic order and in the inside the elegant proportions and the solemnity of the spaces remind the taste of ancient Rome.[18] In those years Quarenghi was also busy, after the interventions of the Russian architect Karl Blank and Francesco Camporesi, to complete the Catherine Palace in Moscow (1790–1797). Quarenghi had built numerous palaces and brought into vogue an original monumental style, of Palladian inspiration, which was a reference for many architects who worked in Russia, among them Ivan Starov that, for the Prince Potemkin, created the Tauride Palace. The building, consisting of a main building and two adjoining wings complemented by side pavilions, in perfect adherence to the Palladian villa type, served as a model for innumerable manors scattered across the Russian Empire. Nikolay Lvov's architecture represented the second, "strict" generation of neoclassicism stylistically close to Giacomo Quarenghi.[19] The polymath architect, among other things, had translated into Russian the treatise I quattro libri dell'architettura by Palladio.
The period of Paul I (1796–1801)
Catherine the Great died in 1796, and her son Paul became Emperor; but he had shown signs of mental instability, and it did not last long. His reforms had limited the rights of the
Redevelopment post the Moscow Fire of 1812
Much of central Moscow was destroyed by fire during the French invasion of 1812.[22] In subsequent decades much of the city was rebuilt in the neoclassical style, under the supervision of Italian-Russian architects such as Joseph Bové, and Alberto Cavos, under military governors Alexander Tormasov (1814–1819) and Dmitry Golitsyn (1820–ca 1840).[23][24][25]
Bibliography
- Dmitry Shvidkovsky, Russian Architecture and the West, New Haven (Connecticut), Yale University Press, 2007
- ISBN 88-17-10058-7
- Lionel Kochan, The Making of Modern Russia, London, 1962
- ISBN 978-0-300-12508-5
- ISBN 9780674182288
Footnotes
- ^ Lionel Kochan, The Making of Modern Russia, London, 1962, p.145
- ^ L. Kochan, p. 147
- ISBN 9780838641460.
- ISBN 9781681771144.
- ISBN 0415092221.
- ^ Emil Kaufmann, Architecture in the Age of Reason – Baroque and Postbaroque in England, Italy, and France, 1955, Harvard University Press, p. 142
- ^ Dmitry Shvidkovsky, Russian Architecture and the West, New Haven (Connecticut), Yale University Press, 2007, p. 254
- ^ D. Shvidkovsky, cit., p.254
- ISBN 88-87624-22-4
- ^ D. Shvidkovsky, p. 289.
- ^ Howard Colvin, A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects, 1600–1840, IV edition, Yale University Press, 2008, p.212
- ISBN 9780810861954.
- ^ D. Shvidkovsky, p. 260.
- ^ D. Shvidkovsky, p. 284
- ^ Mario Praz, Gusto neoclassico, Rizzoli, Milano, 1974, p. 208.
- ^ The palace was blown up by the Germans during the World War II and afterwards destroyed by the Soviet government
- ^ Antonio Paolucci, Raffaello Sanzio a San Pietroburgo per ordine della zarina, L'Osservatore Romano, 18 maggio 2009
- ^ D. Shvidkovsky, p. 262
- ISBN 978-5-9524-3777-7, p. 128
- ^ L. Kochan, p. 151-152
- ^ M. Praz, p. 228
- ^ Egorov, Boris (August 2, 2022). "Who burned down Moscow in 1812?". Russia Beyond. Retrieved January 26, 2024.
- ^ Luhn 2012.
- ISSN 1997-0935.
- ISSN 2367-5659.