The New Hermitage is the first building in the Russian Empire specially built (1842-1851) for a public art museum. Part of the museum complex of the State Hermitage in St. Petersburg. Known for its portico with ten giant statues of Atlanteans.
Since the beginning of the 18th century, collecting works of
outstanding masters of art has become of national importance for
European courts. Catherine the Second took an active part in this
enterprise and spared no expense to replenish her collection. It started
with paintings by Dutch and Flemish masters purchased in Paris and
various cities in Holland.
Already in 1764, Catherine initiated
the construction of the Small Hermitage for her collection. But even
before the completion of the construction of the Hermitage galleries
(1775), it became clear to her that this building would be too small for
her ever-increasing collection. Therefore, in 1771 it was decided to
start building the Great Hermitage. Including the famous Loggias of
Raphael, this building was erected over many decades and was completed
only under Alexander the First.
In 1835, Charlemagne inspected
the building and came to the conclusion that what had been done was not
subject to sanitation. It was only in 1836 that the conviction was
formed that it was necessary to start the construction of a completely
new building. In 1837, a fire caused enormous damage to the nearby
Winter Palace, and the need to start work in the entire palace complex
became obvious to everyone.
In 1837, when visiting Munich, Emperor Nicholas I came up with the
idea to involve the already well-known German architect and builder of
the "Bavarian Athens" Leo von Klenze to lead the upcoming work. Klenze
was an outstanding connoisseur of antiquity and the main creator of the
style of Munich Hellenism, which in Russia was called the neo-Greek
style. A similar style was formed in Berlin by K. F. Schinkel. Emperor
Nicholas was especially impressed by the building of the Pinakothek,
erected by Klenze in 1826-1836. This determined the choice of the
architect.
However, Klenze, who got acquainted with the huge
city, whose Nevsky Prospekt was five times longer than the Munich
Ludwigstrasse, decided to create something majestic. During the four
months of his stay, he made sketches of a fundamentally new type of
building intended for exhibiting works of art, called the New Hermitage.
He designed a two-story building, which had the shape of a quadrangle in
plan, with two courtyards and four front facades that did not repeat in
design. The northern façade overlooking the Neva was supposed to have
two entrances decorated with porticoes supported by caryatids.
The eastern facade overlooking the Winter Canal, according to Klenze's
idea, was to be glazed and repeat the structure of Raphael's stanzas.
The western façade was to have a ground floor reminiscent of the
Glyptothek, while the top floor was to be the Pinakothek in Munich.
In general, the building had to repeat in detail the unrealized
projects of the architect. They were the building of the Pantechnion -
the Museum building for Athens (1834) and the building of the royal
residence. Both of these projects reflected the intention of the
architect, who visited Athens, to create a new type of architecture,
contrary, as he noted, "dry and, academic, like a machine, the
monotonous structure of building groups." The combination of groups of
architectural details, creating picturesque groups, he considered "as
the most important of the tasks that an architect could set for
himself."
Although Nicholas I forbade the destruction of the
Felten Old Hermitage (this is how the building of the Great Hermitage
was now called), construction began in 1842, three years after Klenze's
departure, under the supervision of V. P. Stasov and N. E. Efimov, who
led the work after his death Stasov in 1848. The architects were faced
with the difficult task of creating working drawings of the building
from Klenze's sketches. However, the work was completed by 1851. The
grand opening of the museum took place on February 5, 1852. The project
included statues of prominent ancient artists in six niches of the
southern façade: Marcantonio Raimondi, Onat, Smilides, Winckelmann,
Daedalus and Raphael Morgen. In this strange list, which combined the
names of the masters of antiquity, the Italian Renaissance and German
neoclassicism (Winckelmann, the “father of art history” was among the
artists), the German understanding of the ideology of neoclassicism
affected. In the niches of the western facade and corner pavilions there
are statues of ancient artists, as well as Michelangelo, Raphael,
Leonardo da Vinci, Benvenuto Cellini, Titian, Caravaggio, Rubens,
Rembrandt, A. Dürer. Elements of ornamental decoration (acroteries,
palmettes, herms) and bas-reliefs in a crushed and hard, typically
German manner, are made of terracotta. Reduced models of statues under
the supervision of Klenze were made by many German sculptors. In
1843-1844, models in boxes were delivered by sea to St. Petersburg.
Particular attention is drawn to the portico with atlantes
supporting the canopy over the main entrance to the museum (behind it
opens the main staircase). Ten five-meter figures of mighty Atlanteans,
dating back to similar figures of the ancient Greek temple of Olympian
Zeus in Akraganta (now Agrigento on the island of Sicily; about 480 BC)
in 1846 were carved from gray Serdobol granite by the Russian sculptor
A. I. Terebenev and 150 stonemasons modeled by the Munich sculptor
Johann von Halbig. The composition is so convincing that not everyone
notices a curiosity: huge granite figures with incredible tension
support a light balcony. Contrary to popular belief, Klenze planned to
use the motif of Sicilian telamones not for the portico of the facade,
but in the interiors of the Hall of Cameos and the Second Hall of Medals
(sculptor I. Herman). They can still be seen there today. In these
halls, the outline of the figures, in contrast to the outdoor statues,
almost exactly repeats the antique model. However, it was the Atlantes
of the outer portico that became more famous.
All interiors,
designed by Leo von Klenze, reproduce different “Pompeian styles”, but
are distinguished by technical modernization in the spirit of Munich
Hellenism. For example, the plafond of the Twenty-Column Hall with an
exposition of ancient Greek painted vases is covered with tin and
painted with oil paints based on antique vase painting. On the first
floor of the building there are two halls of the latest sculpture. The
spacious rectangular hall with pale green walls with stucco medallions
with profiles of Canova, Michelangelo, Thorvaldsen, Rauch and Martos was
intended for the works of Western European masters. The smaller hall,
with the medallions of Klodt, Vitali, Pimenov, Kozlovsky,
Demut-Malinovsky and Orlovsky, was intended for Russian sculpture,
which, however, was not placed here - it was exhibited in the hall
intended for one of the libraries. The selection of statues and groups
was made personally by Emperor Nicholas I. In 1857, the works of Western
European and Russian sculptors were combined in one room, and then
transferred to other places: to the platform of the second floor of the
Main Staircase, to the Gallery of the History of Ancient Painting and to
the Winter Palace. The famous Raphael Stanzas, repeated by G. Quarenghi
according to Raffenstein's measurements in Rome in 1778-1787, were
preserved and located on the second floor of the eastern gallery, which
runs along the Winter Canal.
Most of the interiors, despite the
stylistic nature of the architecture of the 19th century and the
excesses of the colorful “historical decor”, have overhead lighting and
are well suited for museum exposition. The original furniture for all
halls of the museum, cabinets and showcases were made by Russian
craftsmen according to Klenze's drawings, also in the "Pompeian style".