Building of New Nermitage

Либо сначала идем в Лоджии, потом в зал, либо сначала в зал, потом в Лоджии (и свернуть к Микеланджело).

New Hermitage was designed by Leo fon Klentse (строил Пинакотеку) – he was an architect of museum-buildings. Also Stasov and Efimov. 1841-1852 (first imperial museum). First floor – for the collection of sculpture, antique and European. The second floor – for a picture gallery. There are three large halls with glace roofs, were meant for large paintings. In the New-H they decorated only the ceilings and upper parts of the walls, so that attention would be concentrated on the paintings, not the décor. The furniture was made especially for this building by Saint-Petersburg masters (malachite, lapaz). The first visitors of the museum needed the invitation cards (as it was the part of royal residence). Later some of restrictions were lifted.

Три Просвета – Малый Итальянский (16-17 века), Большой Итальянский (17-18), Испанский.

Raphael’s hall. Object d’arts – late 15-early 16^th century. “Procession with elephants” – Juliano Romano. Bog cartoon – full-size drowning, that is used as a modal for tapestry, fresco or mosaic, this is one of the 22 cartoons, devoted to ancient military leader Scipio Africanus, only two survived, another if in Louver. Scipio was the commander of the roman army in Spain. He defeated Carthaginians both in Spain and in Africa (Second Punic war).

The H possesses a rear collection of the 16^th century Italian majolica. Schools in Italy – Faentsa, Siena, Castel-Durante, Deruta etc. Displays cases – banqueting sets: basins for cooling vine, plays with portraits of brides and grooms – were presented as a wedding-present, some pieces are decorated with pictures by famous painters, including Raphael (one plate – “Abduction of Helene”; “Neither hope, no fear” – the slogan of rich family De’Esta).

Raphael 1483-1520. He is from Ambria (the pupil of Perudjino). Two painting – one of early period, one of Florentine period. We haven’t got paintings from his roman period – we can only show Loggias. He summarized all the achievements of Italian artists of his time, he created an image of an ideal beauty. The artists took subjects from the Bible.

Madonna Conistabile (около 1502). Early period, native province – painted a landscape of it, the frame was also designed by the artist. This painting was brought from count Conistabile (1870), Alex II presented it to his wife Maria, she donated it to the museum. It was painted on the wooden board, but when it came to S-P, the art-historians discovered a lot of cracks on the surface – they decided to transfer it from the wooden board into canvas. Layer by layer of wood was taken off – and when only the layer of paint remained, it was implied to the canvas.

Джорджони “Judas”, “Holy family (см ниже)” were also implied from the wood to the canvas – complicated technique.

Second painting – “Madonna and child with beardless Joseph”. 1504 Raphael moved to Florence, were he spent 4 years. After that he moved to Rome. A very balanced composition – full of harmony, but the representation of St Joseph is not traditional at all. As a rule, he is depicted with long bear, but at that time in Florence bears came out of fashion. Was bought in 1772, were implied to the canvas in 30^th of 19^th century.

“To paint a beautiful woman I would have a lot of beautiful women, but as there are few beautiful women and few true judges – and I take as my guide a certain idea” – he created his own idealized image of woman.

Later К moved to Rome, and there he wasn’t only an artist, but also acted as a designer and decorator. He painted his famous frescos in Vatican palace. We have only copies of his loggias, that we’ll see later.

Lorentso Lorentseto “Dead boy on the dolphin”. This sculpture was created after a drowning by Raphael. The subject was borrowed from a classical legend – they were friends and often played at the sea together. Once the boy was wounded and the wound proved fatal, and the dolphin broad a boy on the shore and died together with the friend.

It is unusual, that the dolphin have scales.