Sculpture and Painting

St Isaac’s Cathedral

St Isaac’s cathedral is one of the last monuments of Russian classicism. The characteristic features of classicism include numerous columns in the building, strict outlines of the building, spherical form of the dome, distribution of sculpture in harmony with architecture. However, St Isaac’s also has some features of eclecticism, which became the main trend in the 19^th century architecture: abundance of sculpture at the windows and on the pediments are clearly among those.

More than 400 sculptures and bas-reliefs by the best master (Pimenov, Klodt, Vitali and others) decorate the cathedral on the outside and inside. Each of the four bronze haut-reliefs on the pediments of the porticos weighs up to 600 tons. The southern and northern pediments show the scenes from Christ’s life:

Southern pediment – “Adoration of Magi” (sculptor Vitali)

Northern pediment – “Resurrection” (sculptor Lemer)

The western and eastern pediments illustrate the legent of St Isaac. According to the legend, the Byzantine monk Isaac predicted death to the Roman emperor Valents unless Valents stopped persecuting Christians. Valents threw Isaac into a dungeon. Emperor Theodosius freed Isaac and Isaac blessed him to reigh:

Eastern pediment – “St Isaac meeting Emperor Valents” (sculptor Lemer)

Western pediment – “St Isaac blessing Theodosius to reign” (sculptor Vitali)

There are three big doors in the cathedral. They were made to the design of the doors of the Baptisteria in Florence. The doors are made of oak-wood panels and faced with bronze bas-reliefs executed by the Russian sculptor Vitali. Subjects of the bas-reliefs are three periods in the history of Christianity:

Western door – early (apostolic) period of Christianity;

Northern door – St Isaac; St Nicolas the Wonder-worker (one of the most popular saints in Russia);

Southern door – history of Russian Christianlty (left – the story of St Vladimir, right – the legend of Alexander Nevsky)

Inside, the cathedral is faced with marble. The bust of August Montferrand (sculptor Foletti) exhibited in the cathedral is made of the different kinds of marble which were used to decorate the cathedral. The white, green and yellow marble comes from Italy, the red marble is French, the pink, grey and black are the local kinds.

The bust of the architect had been completed by his birthday. It was Montferrand’s wish to be buried in the cathedral, but he was refused by the Synod and the tsar as he was Roman catholic, and this was against the rules of the Russian orthodox church. Montferrand came to Russia at 30, and died at the age of 70, 28 days after the consecration of the cathedral. The cathedral became his life-work.

Another interesting exhibit is the wooden model of the cathedral made by engineer Salin, who was the superintendant of the construction works. He worked at the model for 11 years. The model is made of linden wood without nails and glue, only with wooden pins.

The best Russian artists, members of the Russian Academy of Fine arts, participated in the interior decoration of the cathedral – Brulov, Bruni, Basin and others, 23 altoghether. About 150 wall paintings decorate the walls, vaults and columns. The painting of the vaults depict Old and New Testament legends. Most of them were painted by Bruni, an outstanding 19^th century artist. These include “The Creation of the Universe”, “ The Creation of the First Animals and Human Beings”, “Noah’s Ark”, “The vision of Prophet Ezekiel”, “The Last Judgment”. All these pictures were painted on dry plaster with oil paints. In the niches on the pillars there are oil paintings on canvas – science from Christ’s life.

The conditions in the cathedral were unfavorable for murals and canvases. Low temperature, humidity, dampness spoiled many paintings (the construction works still had not been finished). So it was decided to replace the paintings with their mosaic copies. The work was started in 1853. Two generation of Russian mosaic masters were working at the mosaic icons, and the iconostasis was being changed from 1853 till 1880. The job was extremely time consuming as mosaic masters were making exact copies of the paintings and so had to use 12 000 different shades of colour in their mosaics. It took about a year to make one square metre (11 sq. feet) of such mosaic.

Eventually the cathedral got proper heating and ventilation system, so it was not necessary any more to replace the paintings with mosaics. All the damaged paintings have been restored. But the mosaic copies are still kept in the cathedral as they are real works of art.

Mosaic art was well-known in ancient Russia but was lost in the years of Tartar-Mongol yoke. In the early 18^th century it was revived by the great Russian scientist and scholar Mikhal Lomonosov. There are 62 mosaics in the cathedral made of smalt (combination of glass and different metals). To make a mosaic, a wooden box was filled with plaster, on wich the artist made an outline of a future mosaic. Yhen small pieces of plaster were taken out and pieces of smalt put instead. The weight of each mosaic is about 6 tons.

The iconostasis. There used to be three altars in the cathedral, hence three iconostases. Each iconostasis is dedicated to a certain saint.

The main iconostasis is dedicated to St Isaac. There are three tiers of icons. The first tier includes icons of the name saints of the Russian tsars of the Romanov dynasty during whose reign the four churches of St Isaac were built in St Petersburg (left to right: St Paul, St Catherine, St Alexander, St Nicolas, St Peter). The two central icons on both sides of the Holy Door represent Virgin Mary and Christ; next to Christ is the icon of St Isaac himself with the design of the cathedral in his hand. The icons of the second tier represent the name saints of members of the royal family (not crowned). All icons of the first and second tiers are mosaic. The icon of St Nicolas won the Grand Prix at the World Fairs in London in 1862. The icons of the third tier (paintings on canvas) represent biblical prophets.

Above the Holy Door there is the sculptural group “Christ in Glory” by Klodt, and one of the best mosaics of the cathedral, “Secret Vesper” by Zhivago.

The stained glass “Resurrection” (28 sq.metres) behind the Holy Door was made in Munich. During WWII part of it (8 sq.m) was destroyed by fragments of bombs and shells, but everything has been restored since that time.

Blue and green columns decorate the iconostasis. The columns are made of cast-ironand faced with pieces of semi-precious stones arranged according to a special pattern. The green stone is malachite (16 tons) and the blue stone is lapis lazuly (500 kilos).

The altar to the right is the oldest part of the cathedral, as this was the main altar of the previous church included by Montferrand in his design. The iconostasis is dedicated to St Catherine. Her mosaic is on top to the right.

The second minor iconostasis is dedicated to St Alexander Nevsky. He was the Prince of Novgorod, a Russian military hero and a brilliant politician. He won the decisive battle on the Neva against the Sweeds and was nicknamed Alexander Nevsky, or “Alexander of the Neva”. His mosaic is on top to the right.

The cathedral which used to be the main Russian Orthodox cathedral of Russia, was closed after the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 and turned into museum. During WWII the museum was not working and the building was used to store the treasures from the summer palaces in the environs of the city. The windows were bricked up and the gilded dome was painted grey. Still the cathedral suffered a great deal: the columns were damaged as well as marble plates and sculpture; there were holes in the roof. Restoration was started in 1945 and completed in 1963. The grey paint was washed off the dome; the electricity and heating system were modernized, 200 paintings restored, 1 200 new marble plates inserted.

Nowadays, the cathedral is mainly used as a museum, but sometimes, on major religious holidays, services are conducted here.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-29