To touch the past time we are helped by historical museums, which silently keep secrets and destinies of different generations in their bowels. One of these treasures of the beauty of historical art is the City Museum of Urban Sculpture, located in St. Petersburg. This city has become a participant in various events that affect the development of the Russian state and its multinational culture.
The amazing museum, founded in July 1932, has become one of the main institutions involved in the protection, study and restoration of monumental art.
Petersburg. City Sculpture Museum
It contains over 200 monuments and up to 1500 plaques in its arsenal.
Museum exhibits include the Alexander Columns, the Narva and Moscow triumphal gates, the equestrian groups of the Anichkov Bridge, the monuments of the Field of Mars, the sphinxes at the Academy of Arts,Rostral columns, as well as monuments to Tsar Peter 1, Catherine the Great, passion-bearer Nicholas 1, poet A. S. Pushkin, scientist M. V. Lomonosov, brilliant commander A. V. Suvorov, etc. All these monuments have become symbols of the Northern capital and a great country.
Valuable relics
The tombs of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra became the main exposition of the city museum of urban sculpture.
The oldest church in the city is the Church of the Annunciation, which is the tomb of A. V. Suvorov. It was built between 1717 and 1724. outstanding masters T. Schwertfeger and D. Trezzini in the style of Peter the Great Baroque and is an outstanding architectural monument.
Here you can also see the most valuable and historically and artistically unique tombstones of the 18th-19th centuries.
This exhibition includes works by IP Martos, an outstanding sculptor of Russian classicism. These are the tombstones of E. S. Kurakina (favorite of Peter the Great and 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 members of the royal family are buried.
Lazarevsky cemetery
In one of the first St. Petersburg cemeteries - Lazarevskoye, a necropolis of the 18th century, since 1923 a whole open-air museum has been formed, in which about 1000 tombstones of the 18th-19th century have been preservedcentury. Among them are contemporaries of Peter I and representatives of famous families that entered the history of Russia: D. I. Fonvizin, M. V. Lomonosov, B. P. Sheremetiev, V. Ya. Chichagov, P. I. Shuvalov, I. A. Hannibal (Pushkin's grandfather), Pushkin's widow N. N. Lanskaya, St. Petersburg architects I. E. Starov, A. D. Zakharov, A. N. Voronikhin, D. Quarenghi, J. Thomas de Thomon, A. Bentacour, K I. Rossi etc.
Tikhvin cemetery
In the former Tikhvin cemetery - the current necropolis of the Masters of Arts - more than 200 tombstones of artists, musicians, writers, artists, theater workers and actors of the 18th-19th centuries have been 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. Yuriev, G. A. Tovstonogov.
All tombstones are magnificent artworks of national monumental art by such famous masters as I. P. Martos, M. I. Kozlovsky, A. N. Benois, V. A. Beklemishev, A. V. Shchusev, F G. Gordeev, M. K. Anikushin.
Art Development
Thanks to such necropolises, one can trace the development of memorial sculpture as an art.
The complex of the City Museum of Urban Sculpture also includes the Volkovskoye Cemetery with its Literary Bridges, where 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 graphics and sculpture in its funds. He often organizes exhibitions that attract a wide audience of lovers of this art.
In 2002, an exhibition site was opened in Chernoretsky Lane, which immediately became famous among fans of exposition 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 sculptor M. K. Anikushin. There is also a huge cultural center, which not only presents a memorial exposition, but also a modern art exhibition activity.
Conclusion
In the museum exposition "Narva Triumphal Gates", as usual, there are 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 plaster, graphics and metal is carried out by highly qualified specialists. It is they who, bit by bit, restore everything that testifies to bygone times.
When visiting the State Museum of Urban Sculpture of St. Petersburg, you involuntarily plunge into the history and culture of that time and, as it were, in absentia, you are present at certain events that still excite the minds of modern curious andomniscient intellectuals and craftsmen who understand like no one else in monumental art.
