Historical museums help us to touch the past time. They silently keep secrets and destinies of different generations in their bowels. One of the treasures of beauty of historical art is the city museum of urban sculpture, located in St. Petersburg. This city has become a participant in various events affecting the development of the Russian state and its multinational culture.
The amazing museum, created in July 1932, has become one of the main institutions involved in the protection, study and restoration of monumental art.
Petersburg Museum of Urban Sculpture
In its arsenal, it contains over 200 monuments and up to 1,500 plaques.
Museum exhibits include Alexander Columns, Narva and Moscow Triumphal Gates, equestrian groups of Anichkov Bridge, monuments of the Field of Mars, sphinxes at the Academy of Arts, Rostral columns, as well as monuments to Tsar Peter 1, Catherine the Great, the martyr Nikolai 1, poet A. S. Pushkin , the scientist M. V. Lomonosov, the genius commander A. V. Suvorov, etc. All these monuments became symbols of the Northern capital and the great country.
Valuable Relics
The main exposition of the city museum of urban sculpture was the tomb of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.
The oldest temple in the city is the Annunciation Church, which is the tomb of A.V. Suvorov. It was built from 1717 to 1724. outstanding masters T. Schwertfeger and D. Trezzini in the style of Peter the Great Baroque and is an outstanding monument of architecture.
Here you can also see the most valuable and most unique in historical and artistic terms gravestones of the 18th-19th centuries.
This exhibition includes the works of I.P. Martos, an outstanding sculptor of Russian classicism. These are the tombstones of E.S. Kurakina (the favorites of Peter 3 and the daughter of Field Marshal S. Apraksin), Princess Gagarina (wife of the head of Russian foreign policy N.I. Panin under Catherine the Great) and various prominent personalities and statesmen of that time.
The tomb is a whole Russian Pantheon, where the members of the royal family rest.
Lazarevskoe cemetery
At one of the first St. Petersburg cemeteries - Lazarevsky - the necropolis of the 18th century, a whole open-air museum was formed in 1923, in which about 1000 gravestones of the 18th-19th centuries have been preserved. Among them are contemporaries of Peter I and representatives of well-known surnames that went down in the history of Russia: D. I. Fonvizin, M. V. Lomonosov, B. P. Sheremetyev, V. Ya. Chichagov, P. I. Shuvalov, I. A. Hannibal (Pushkin’s grandfather), poet’s widow N. N. Lanskaya, St. Petersburg architects I. E. Starov, A. D. Zakharov, A. N. Voronikhin, D. Quarenghi, J. Tom de Tomon, A. Bentakur, K. I. Rossi, etc.
Tikhvin cemetery
At the former Tikhvin cemetery - the current necropolis of the Masters of the Arts - more than 200 gravestones of artists, musicians, writers, artists, theater workers and actors of the 18th-19th centuries are collected. Among them are the tombstones of P.I. Tchaikovsky, M.P. Mussorgsky, M.I. Glinka, N.M. Karamzin, F.M. Dostoevsky, I.A. Krylov, A.A. Ivanov, I.I. Shishkin , P.A. Fedotova, A.I. Kuindzhi, V.F. Komissarzhevsky, B. M. Kustodiev, Yu. M. Yuryev, G. A. Tovstonogov.
All tombstones are magnificent artworks of the domestic monumental art of such famous masters as I.P. Martos, M. I Kozlovsky, A.N. Benois, V.A. Beklemishev, A.V. Schusev, F.G. Gordeev, M.K. Anikushin.
Art development
Thanks to such necropolises, one can trace how memorial sculpture developed as an art.
The Volkovskoye Cemetery with its Literary Bridges is also part of the complex of the City Museum of Urban Sculpture, on which the great geniuses of Leningrad culture and science A. N. Radishchev, I. S. Turgenev, N. S. Leskov, V. G. Belinsky, D.I. Mendeleev, I.P. Pavlov.
For many years, the St. Petersburg Museum has kept magnificent masterpieces of graphic art and sculpture in its funds. He often organizes exhibitions that attract a wide audience of fans of this art.
In 2002, an exhibition area opened in Chernoretsky Lane, which immediately became famous among fans of exhibition projects. In the same halls, personal exhibitions of sculptors and artists, and various thematic expositions of the museum fund are constantly held.
The branch of the museum of urban sculpture in St. Petersburg is occupied by the workshop of the sculptor M.K. Anikushin. There is also a huge cultural center, not only representing a memorial exhibition, but also the modern exhibition activities of art.
Conclusion
As usual, the museum exhibit “Narva Triumphal Gate” hosts exhibitions telling about the military history of Russia.
The City Museum of Urban Sculpture has become one of the main and important institutions of the city, which is engaged in research and restoration activities.
In the 70s of the XX century, a stone restoration workshop was created in the museum. All restoration work on gypsum, graphics and metal is performed by highly qualified specialists. It is they who, in crumbs, restore everything that testifies to bygone times.
Visiting the State Museum of Urban Sculpture of St. Petersburg, you involuntarily plunge into the history and culture of that time and seemingly absentee at certain events that still excite the minds of modern curious and all-knowing intellectuals and masters who, like no one else, understand monumental art.