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Russian Soldiers Plaque
at Red Square |
Art is everywhere in Moscow, from the churches
to the squares to museums to the subways. And examples of foreign and domestic
dance, paintings, sculptures, mosaics, stained glass, architecture, and you
name it are easily accessed. Before I actually went to Moscow I thought that
there would be very little in the way of modern art available in museums
because for many years art had to be ‘State approved’. I also thought that the
only music and dance would be traditional varieties, including the Bolshoi
Ballet. Both of these misconceptions were quickly dispelled once the
Near-Normal Travelers started wandering about. Our only real disappointment was
that none of us got to go to
the ballet; the ticket prices were a bit more than
we could afford. The Imperial Bolshoi
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| Bolshoi Theater |
Theatre of Moscow (a.k.a. Bolshoi
Theater) is a pretty neoclassical building and its image is used on the
100-Rubal banknote. We found it greatly entertaining that the Russian word
‘bolshoi’ means ‘large’ or ‘grand’; we delighted in saying that we saw the
building that housed the ‘large ballet’.
Architecture is artistic in Moscow. The castles
built for the Tsars and Tsarinas are splendid, even the ones that were never
used. The beautiful wooden palace, Kolomenskoye,
has been referred to as 'an Eighth Wonder of the World', although it’s really
only a lowly summer palace. Built in the late 17th Century, it was
the favored residence of
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| Kolomenskoye Palace |
Tsar Alexis I. Unfortunately, Catherine the Great found
it unacceptable and would not use it as her Moscow residence, so it was destroyed.
However, detailed plans survived and a full-scale replica was completed in
2010. The grounds around the palace have become a park with other old wooden
buildings and various artifacts from different parts of Russia preserved here,
providing an interesting group of architecture and objects.
Petrovsky
Palace, dating from the 18th Century, was to be the last
overnight station of royal journeys from Saint Petersburg to Moscow. This
Baroque castle, built for Catherine the Great, originally had two
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| Petrovsky Palace |
royal
apartments on the first floor. It was only visited once by Catherine; as with
Kolomenskoye, she didn’t like it or the smaller facility built some miles away to
rest horses. Eventually Petrovsky became a royal hotel, then a museum area.
There is now talk of transforming the actual palace into a luxury hotel or another
of the President’s lodges.
Probably the two most famous art museums within
Moscow are the Pushkin State
Museum of Fine Art and the State Treyakov Gallery. We
visited both. The Pushkin,
located across from Cathedral of Christ the Savior, has the largest collection
of European art in Moscow. The museum's name is rather misleading, because
there is no direct association with Russian poet, Alexander Pushkin. The museum
was founded by Professor Ivan Tsvetaev who persuaded a famous philanthropist and
a famous
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| Pushkin Museum frieze and small sculptures |
architect to give Moscow money for a fine arts museum. With every political
upheaval, the museum had a new name; however, in 1937 it was renamed one final
(maybe) time to honor the memory of Pushkin on the 100th anniversary of his
death. The art within the museum is the result of transfer thousands of works
from the Hermitage Museum, from the Museum Roumjantsev and from the State Museum
of New Western Art. Religious art is a large part of the holdings with
paintings by Botticelli, Bordone, and Cranach the Elder. The collection also includes
Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artwork (in a separate building across a
side street) by Rembrandt, Degas, Van Gogh (‘La Vigne Rouge’, perhaps the only
painting sold during the artist's lifetime), Cezanne, Gauguin, Picasso,
Dufrénoy, Toulouse-Lautrec, Derain, Renoir, and Matisse. There is also an Archaeological
Collection with papyri, Fayum mummy portraits, sculptures, and so forth and a Numismatic
Collection including Kushano-Sasanian coins.
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| Treyakov Gallery |
The most impressive part of the Treyakov
was the number, size and beauty of 12th Century through 16th
Century Russian icons. This gallery is the foremost depository of Russian fine
art in the world and it is impressive both outside and in. The façade was
designed by Viktor Vasnetsov in a Russian fairy-tale style but the building was
then expanded into several other buildings, including the church of St.
Nicholas in Tolmachi. In the 1850s Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov began his
collection by buying works by contemporary Russian artists with the idea of
creating a museum of national art. By the 1890s, Tretyakov donated his
collection of approximately 1,300 paintings, 500 drawings, and 9 sculptures to
the Russian people. One of the more surprising parts of this
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| Icons and Dancing Ladies |
museum is the
gallery of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works by Russian painters; these
rival more well-known Western artists in beauty, execution and quantity. I am
particularly enamored of Mikhail Vrubel’s Demon
Seated in a Garden (1890).
In Moscow my all-time favorite place to view art
is, of course, in the subways! To get to this art you have to purchase a ticket
on the Metro and ride an escalator down to the trains. The longest Metro
escalator takes you 243 feet (74 meters) underground to the Park Pobedy station
of the Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya Line; it only takes about three minutes, but it
seems substantially longer. One of the oddities of this and other descents is
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| Metro Station |
the number of people, particularly women in high-heeled shoes, running down the
escalators to catch the next train. Metro trains arrive about every two to
three minutes at the outside no matter what time of day, so why the big rush? During
the week, between 5:30AM and 1:00AM, the Moscow Metro transports about seven
million people and most of them at rush hour; on weekends that number rises to
nine million. Needless to say, you won’t see much art during rush hours or
after about noon on the weekends. Currently there are 11 lines running into the
city, with one circle line; however, in 2018 a second
ring line will be opened to more efficiently connect the suburbs. The idea
for the Moscow Metro actually started prior to World War I but the first plans
weren’t in place until 1933. Soviet workers actually built the tunnels and did
the art work, but all of the technical plans were completed by London
Underground engineers. Once these specialists were finished, Stalin had them
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| Sparrow Hills Metro Station |
deported for espionage. Stalin’s vision
of the Metro was to glorify Russia, the military, the worker, and Russian
activities; thus he ordered the artists and architects to design the structures
to show ‘radiance or brilliance’ and ‘a radiant future’. The artists and
architects excelled in production of these ideas, providing riders with
exceptional art at almost every station. In general the platforms have most of
the art work, while the transfer corridors hold huge sculptures or friezes that
lionize the workers, military, or historical figures. There are five lines with
artwork: Zamoskvoretskaya, Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya, Sokolnicheskaya, Filyovskaya,
and Koltsevaya.
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L to R: Military Group, Ploshchad Revolyutsii;
Partisan, Partizanskaya; Military Group,
Partizanskaya; Flyer, Partizanskaya;
Cynthia with border guard, Ploshchad Revolyutsii |
Statues in the Metro are at least life sized; most
of them are much larger. Ploshchad Revolyutsii (Revolution Square) opened in
1938. It was to house a cinema and open out to the Bolshoi Theater, Red Square
and the GUM. Within this station are 80 bronze sculptures. One of the statues at
Ploshchad Revolyutsii is of a Russian border guard with his Doberman Pincher
that is particularly popular. Its nose is bright gold because many folks walk
by and give it a rub for good luck. Other statues pictured are from
Partizanskaya. Partizanskaya opened in 1944 and was to be part of a gigantic
stadium; however, with the advent of the World War II these plans were
abandoned and a simpler design was adopted.
Large murals adorn the walls and ceilings of
many of the stations. The ones pictured are from Novoslobodskaya, Belorusskaya,
and Borovitskaya. Opening in 1952 and restored in
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L to R: Peace in the Whole World, Novoslobodskaya;
Belorusskaya ceiling tile; Tree mural in Borovitskaya |
2003, Novoslobodskaya was the
last station designed by Alexander Dushkin, one of the Metro’s most amazing
architects. The mosaic panel, Peace in the Whole World, was designed by Pavel
Korin. Inspired by art in Ancient Rome,
Belorusskaya is one of the few stations with an ornate floor. The tiles are
laid in the pattern of national Belorussian ornament; the original ceramic
tiles were replaced with granite in 1994. The ceiling murals illustrate the
culture and economy of Soviet Belorussia. Borovitskaya opened in 1986 and is
adorned by a mural of what appears to be a tree with saints for branches. The
tree stretches over a set of buildings that may or may not be churches. I’m
still looking for information about this mural!
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Top to Bottom: Belorusskaya ceiling tile; Prospekt Mira
column decoration; Semyonovskaya silver bas relief;
Komsomsolskaya Soviet column decoration;
Komsomsolskaya gold medallion; Kievskaya panel |
Along with the walls and ceilings, the pillars
and linings of the tunnels are also decorated. The silver bas relief shield on
green granite is on the wall behind trains arriving in Semyonovskaya;
decorations in the octagons are in the ceiling of Belorusskaya; oversized
mosaics grace the walls of Kievskaya; column decorations are in Komsomsolskaya
and Prospekt Mira. Semyonovskaya (called Stalinskaya until 1961) actually
opened in association with Partizanskaya and is also militaristic; it exits to
one of my favorite places, Izmailovsky Market. Kievskaya was opened in 1954,
completing the Ring Line. The 18 mosaic panels show life in Ukraine; there is
also a statement under Linen’s portrait in which he states, ‘The indestructible
friendship of the Ukrainian and Russian peoples…is a guarantee of national
independence and freedom…’; rather ironic in the current political situation. Opened
in 1935 on the Sokolnicheskaya Line and in 1952 on the Koltsevaya (Ring) Line, Komsomsolskaya
was named for the Komsomsol workers who built it. The art is dedicated to
workers in science and the arts on the Sokolnicheskaya Line and to Russian
military leaders on the Ring Line. Opened in 1952 and called Botanical Garden
until 1966, Prospekt Mira decorations reflect the gardens that once surrounded
this station.
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T to B: Parachutist, Mayakovskaya;
Flame light, Ploshchad Revolyutsii;
Chandelier, Smolenskaya |
Stalin wanted the Metro stations to appear sunlit,
so many have ornate chandeliers, wall sconces, and side lighting. Those shown
are from the Smolanskaya, Ploshchad Revolyutsii, and Mayakovskaya. Located near
the Garden Ring and opened in 1935, Smolenskaya was actually used from 1953 –
1958 as an exhibition hall because service was discontinued in this area. Mayakovskaya
has been called the most beautiful of all of the stations. It was opened in
1938 with murals showing 24 hours in the Land of the Soviets. The art deco mosaics show
planes, signalmen, a parachutist, grain harvest, high jumper, and peaches among
other things.
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Stained Glass Windows,
Novoslobodskaya |
I think that the most unusual of the Metro
stations is Novoslobodskaya. Stained glass windows are not a tradition in
Russia, thus these 32 were made by Latvian artists using glass that was stored
in the Riga Cathedral and meant to decorate other churches. The medallions in the upper section of some windows show
‘intellectual professionals’ such as artists, engineers, and artists, while
others have geometric designs.
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| Stained Glass Windows, Novoslobodskaya |
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| Stained Glass Windows, Novoslobodskaya |
Unfortunately, the newer stations (opened well after
Stalin) have none of the art nor brilliance of these earlier works. The best
one can say is that they look rather like an industrial space ship. If you’re looking for a good book about the art
in the Moscow Metro, check out Moscow
Metro Travel Guide (ISBN 9785984010030).
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| Metro station at the Mall |
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