Monument to Peter I - a bronze equestrian monument to Peter the Great, installed in front of the Mikhailovsky Castle in St. Petersburg. The first equestrian monument in the history of Russian art, created by the Italian sculptor in the Russian service, Bartolomeo Carlo Rastrelli.
Bartolomeo Carlo Rastrelli - a native of Florence, from an
impoverished noble family, knew architecture, sculpture, bronze casting
and jewelry. In 1698-1699 he worked in Rome, but did not find worthy
orders, and in 1699 he left for Paris, to the court of the "Sun King"
Louis XIV. In France, he achieved the title of count, but the
magnificent Italian baroque turned out to be alien to France, in Paris
and Versailles the more classical style of Louis XIV dominated. In 1715,
the French king died and many court painters were left without
commissions at all. Rastrelli took the opportunity to work in Russia and
signed a contract with Tsar Peter's agents. Together with his son, the
future famous architect, he left Paris in November 1715 and arrived in
St. Petersburg the following year, pledging to "work in all arts and
crafts."
At the court of Anna Ioannovna (1730-1740), he intended
to work as an architect, but was forced to study sculpture. Rastrelli
made a portrait of A. D. Menshikov (1716), a bust of Peter I (1723), a
sculptural group “Anna Ioannovna with a black girl” (1741) from bronze.
He created plaster lifetime (1717) and posthumous (1725, later cast in
bronze) masks of Tsar Peter following the example of the French sculptor
Antoine Benois' creation of the "wax person" of King Louis XIV. In
November 1721, based on the mask removed during his lifetime, Rastrelli
created a plaster head of the king, and on its basis - the famous "wax
person" (1725). Since 1992, it has been on display at the Winter Palace
of Peter the Great (Hermitage).
Peter the Great, as for many of his contemporaries, was the idol of
the sculptor Rastrelli the Elder. He dreamed of creating a monument
worthy of the personality of the tsar-reformer. The idea of a lifetime
equestrian statue of the tsar was born as early as 1716 and is recorded
in the drawings made by Rastrelli in 1716-1717, stored in the Russian
State Archive of Ancient Acts (RGADA) in Moscow. In the drawings we see
the king in antique attire, like a Roman emperor. The soaring figure of
Glory crowns him with a victorious laurel wreath. At the corners of the
pedestal there are shackled figures of captives, reclining on war
trophies. The plinth is decorated with a bas-relief depicting the Battle
of Poltava[3]. In the future, Rastrelli greatly simplified the
composition, but the ancient prototype remained recognizable in it: the
equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius on the Campidolio (Capitol Square)
in Rome. Another prototype is the famous Renaissance equestrian statue
of the condottiere (mercenary warrior) Gattamelata by the outstanding
Florentine sculptor Donatello (1445-1453).
The compositions of
equestrian monuments have a long history, which begins in antiquity,
continues in the Renaissance and is intensively developed in the era of
baroque and classicism. This tradition includes the famous works of
Leonardo da Vinci (unrealized project of the monument to F. Sforza),
Andrea Verrocchio (monument to the condottiere Colleoni in Venice;
1479-1488), the equestrian statue of King Louis XIV by Francois Girardon
(1692), installed in the Place Louis the Great (later : Place Vendôme)
in Paris (the statue was destroyed during the French Revolution in 1789;
replica: Louvre, Paris). The work of Girardon was repeatedly reproduced
in engravings and became a classic model for many other similar
monuments, including the equestrian monument to the “Great Elector” in
Berlin by A. Schlüter, now transferred to Charlottenburg (1696, cast in
1700), the monument to the Elector of Saxony B. Permoser in Dresden.
A workshop with a small foundry furnace was provided to work on the
equestrian statue and other works by Rastrelli. In the autumn of 1717,
the model of the statue was cast in lead, and two years later it was
approved by the tsar and, by his order, sent to Paris, to the Royal
Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Literature to compile a Latin text,
which was supposed to be placed on a pedestal. Work on the monument was
delayed. The sculptor sculpted individual parts of the horse and figure
in full size. Casting the entire monument at that time was not possible.
In 1720, Rastrelli drew up a new project with other allegorical figures.
In 1725, Peter I died, and his immediate successors did not seek to
perpetuate his memory and the work of the sculptor was treated with
disdain.
Only Empress Elizaveta Petrovna became interested in the
monument and the sculptor began to prepare. According to his
instructions, a large "foundry barn" was built. Rastrelli prepared a wax
model for casting, but on November 18, 1744, he died suddenly. After the
death of his father, his son took charge of the foundry work, and in
November 1747 the casting of the statue with the help of the Italian
caster Alessandro Martelli was successfully completed. Further, the
chasing of the casting and the manufacture of the pedestal were
required, but Rastrelli the Younger was diverted to other work, and in
1761, Peter's daughter, Empress Elizaveta Petrovna, died and the
monument was forgotten for a long time.
Later it was planned to
erect a monument on Vasilievsky Island, opposite Peter's brainchild: the
building of the Twelve Collegia, on the square planned as the city
center. This is how the monument is depicted on the master plan of St.
Petersburg in 1753. But this plan was not carried out either. In
1754-1762, the architect Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli the Younger,
rebuilding the large Winter Palace, planned to create a large square in
front of the palace and "decorate it with a free-standing round
colonnade with an equestrian monument of Peter I in the center." This
project was also not destined to materialize. Catherine II, who ascended
the throne in 1762, rejected Rastrelli's work - aesthetic criteria and
tastes had changed significantly by that time - and decided to erect her
own monument to Peter the Great. In 1782, after the opening of another
monument, known as the Bronze Horseman, the Empress presented
Rastrelli's sculpture to Prince G. A. Potemkin, but he did not transfer
the gift to his Tauride Palace, but left it under a wooden canopy near
the Trinity Bridge, where he stayed for another eighteen years.
In August 1798, the new Emperor Paul I handed over the statue to the
Admiralty with the order to place it in Kronstadt at the entrance to the
Kronstadt Canal. The decree was approved on March 2, 1799, but the next
day the emperor changed his mind and ordered: the architect V. Brenna
erect a monument on the “Constable Square” in front of the facade of the
Mikhailovsky Castle. This act was of great political importance. On the
pedestal, Emperor Paul, previously removed from the throne by his
mother, ordered to make an inscription: “Great-grandfather’s
great-grandson” to show the continuity of his power from Peter the Great
himself, bypassing the mention of the hated mother Catherine, and also
as revenge for the murdered father of Peter III. But the story didn't
end there either. The rushing Pavel again canceled his decision and
ordered to erect a monument to A. V. Suvorov in front of the castle,
created by the sculptor M. I. Kozlovsky (1799-1801). However, Suvorov
fell into disfavor in March 1800. Then the emperor returned to the
previous decision to erect a monument to Peter the Great.
For the monument, at the direction of the emperor, a new pedestal was
created in the style of Russian classicism, which has nothing to do with
Rastrelli's project. Projects of the new pedestal were presented by
architects A. N. Voronikhin, V. Brenna, F. I. Volkov, as well as
sculptors F. G. Gordeev, M. I. Kozlovsky, I. P. Martos. The emperor
rejected Voronikhin's project and approved the sketch of the monument
with the inscription "Great-grandfather's great-grandson." The name of
the author is not mentioned in the minutes of the meeting of the Council
of the Academy of Arts. Usually the architect F. I. Volkov is called the
author, but historians assume the active participation of V. Brenna and
M. I. Kozlovsky.
The four-sided pedestal is lined with Olonets
marble, slabs of pink, green and white tones. On it, well observed from
all points of view, rises the “Petersburg condottiere” (definition by D.
E. Arkin). Peter I is depicted as a "Roman Caesar", a victorious
commander, domineering and formidable. He is crowned with a laurel
wreath - a symbol of glory. In the right hand is the commander's baton.
The ermine mantle, falling in heavy folds from the shoulders, reveals
the battle breastplate; the sword at the left hip with a massive handle
and the image of a lion emphasizes the strength and power of its owner.
An expensive cover trimmed with massive tassels serves as a saddle. The
horse appears majestically and solemnly. The rider sits calmly and
imperturbably on it. Open Roman sandals complete the rider's attire.
The creation of Rastrelli is often compared with another monument:
the monument to Peter I by E. M. Falcone - "The Bronze Horseman". It was
the latter that became one of the symbols of St. Petersburg. Of course,
Falcone's "The Bronze Horseman" is unusually expressive, but its
expressiveness is picturesque, "drawn" and not as sculptural as in the
monument by Rastrelli. It is no coincidence that the "Bronze Horseman"
is impressive only from one or two fixed points of view and "does not
withstand" the all-round view due to unsuccessful angles. In terms of
monumentality and visual integrity, Rastrelli's work is much more
perfect. The main feature of the monument is its symbolic
generalization. The ideological expressiveness of the statue is achieved
not by pompous allegories in the taste of the Baroque, but by the
generalized integrity of the volume, deployed in space with great skill.
From any point of view, even from behind, a strictly completed and
expressive silhouette opens up.
The pedestal is decorated with
bronze bas-reliefs depicting the decisive episodes of the Northern War.
They are slightly stylized under the Petrine baroque, the time when the
sculptor Rastrelli worked, in particular, under the style of the
bas-relief "Foundation of St. Petersburg" (1923) and others created for
the "Triumphal Pillar" (St. Petersburg, Hermitage). On the eastern side
of the pedestal - "Poltava battle", on the western - "Battle of Gangut".
The bas-reliefs were made under the direction of M. I. Kozlovsky by
sculptors I. I. Terebenev, V. I. Demut-Malinovsky, I. E. Moiseev. The
casting of the bas-reliefs was carried out by master V.P. Ekimov. War
trophies are depicted on the end (northern) facade of the pedestal, on
the southern - the inscription: "great-grandfather's great-grandson
1800".
During the siege of Leningrad, due to artillery shelling,
the statue was removed from its pedestal and covered in the ground. In
1945 it was returned to its place.
In fiction, the history of the creation of the monument sometimes received the most fantastic assumptions. Thus, the Polish writer Kazimir Valiszewski claimed that Rastrelli's sculpture remained unfinished, and the caster Martelli presented his own project of a "hero dressed in a Greek toga", which Catherine II did not like. However, Valishevsky did not support his statement with any authoritative sources, and there is no information about the Martelli project in the works of domestic specialists. In addition, this description is consistent with the "Bronze Horseman" by Falcone, in the discussion of the project of which the empress really took part (hence, if Martelli's plan existed, he could well have been approved).