| The 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg began with a pompous exhibition in Moscow An exhibition with the enchantingly original title “I love Petersburg...” (Russian Museum in Moscow) opened at the State Museum of Fine Arts on Volkhonka. Thus began the season of high diplomacy. From now on, the ancient capital will be different, with high-calm quotes pulled out of nowhere (in this case, the name is borrowed from Peter Vyazemsky) and will routinely confess their eternal love for the northern capital. Or cultural (as you like). To be honest, the prospect of holding such “days of St. Petersburg in Moscow” is not inspiring. Anniversary declarations of love are rarely sincere.
Nevertheless, the exhibition is large. The event is significant. There is an informational reason. The worthy reception of the exhibits of the Russian Museum at the Pushkin Museum was ensured with the financial support of the reputable Vnesheconombank, LUKOIL, Alfa Bank, and British American Tobacco. In principle, one can judge this exhibition by the rules that gave rise to its birth - the rules of museum diplomacy. Arriving paintings were received in the halls of the museum, the most “European” of all Moscow; museum, where paintings by Rembrandt, Botticelli, Poussin, Watteau, Monet, Picasso are stored. And the subtlety of high diplomacy is that this aristocratic community was visited by the highest status museum in Russia, established by the Emperor first among others, but a museum of Russian art. Russian Museum. This is what a “united Europe” looks like.
Placed in the halls where exhibitions from the Hermitage and the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Uffizi usually take place, paintings by Russian artists, willy-nilly, acted as “actors.” And suddenly unexpected accents arose. The White Hall, where the December evenings are held, is dedicated to the section of painting of the 18th - early 19th centuries. Levitsky, Borovikovsky, Vishnyakov, Bryullov... I really want to say that they are “acting.” recently decorated these walls at various exhibitions of paintings by Watteau, Boucher, Tiepolo, Canaletto, Guardi, Rigo, David... I would like to, but I can’t. Still, the most honest company for the imported canvases is not the masterpieces of the French and Italian schools, but the works of good Scandinavian artists of the 18th century, who, by the way, along with the same Borovikovsky and Levitsky, happily worked on portraits of Russian nobles and Empress Catherine (the most famous among them are Vigilius Eriksen and Alexander Roslin; Rokotov and Levitsky can definitely replace them, especially since the circle of those portrayed coincided).
The middle - second half of the 19th century in Russia is adequate, perhaps, to the French academic school, a conservative opponent of impressionism, which powerfully declared itself since 1863 (the year of the opening of the "Salon of the Rejected" with the main hit - "Luncheon on the Grass" by Edouard Manet). And even the trump card of the Moscow exhibition, the gigantic canvas “The Copper Serpent” (1841) by academician Fyodor Bruni, with its quotation and pretentiousness, anticipates the academic style of French art of the Second Empire, the paintings of Jerome, Couture, Cabanel.
However, perfectly exhibited in a separate cozy and bright hall, Russian symbolism from Vrubel, Serov, Borisov-Musatov, Sudeikin and the early Petrov-Vodkin is perceived as even more “metropolitan” than the slightly anemic French art nouveau of the Moscow collection. And of course, we find ourselves ahead of the rest in the era of the avant-garde. For every Picasso we have our own Malevich. And Kandinsky is common. Sergei KHACHATUROV |
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