Location : ACADEMY OF ARTS
Saint Petersburg.
The Academy of Arts, or the “Academy of the Three Noble Arts” (that is, painting, sculpture and architecture), as it was originally called, was established by decree of Elizabeth Petrovna in 1757. In 1764, already under Catherine II, the Academy was given the status of Imperial. Until that time, the Academy was located in the house of I. I. Shuvalov on Sadovaya Street, but Catherine II considered that the Academy needed a new building more suitable for her needs, for which a site was allocated on the embankment of the Neva River on Vasilievsky Island. The Academy project was developed by architects A.F. Kokorinov and J.-B. Wallen Delamot. The building of the Academy of Arts was one of the first buildings in the city in the style of early classicism.
Architecturally, the building is a rectangle with a large courtyard in the center and four small courtyards in the corners. The main facade of the building faces the Neva. It is decorated with a risalit and a portico of Tuscan columns bearing a triangular pediment. The interior is no less magnificent and elegant than the facades of the building. Numerous halls are diverse in size and design, but they are all part of a single composition. The decoration of the lobby of the lower floor, the main staircase, the Raphael and Titian halls is especially luxurious.
The building of the Academy of Arts, which is one of the most outstanding monuments of early Petersburg classicism of the 18th century, was included in the list of federal architectural monuments. A magnificent view of the building opens from the opposite bank of the Neva – from the Promenade des Anglais.
Among the distinguished graduates of the Academy are artists (O. A. Kiprensky, K. P. Bryullov, A. A. Ivanov, P. A. Fedotov, I. N. Kramskoy, V. I. Surikov, V. A. Serov, I E. Repin, I. I. Brodsky, I. E. Grabar, M. B. Grekov), architects (V. I. Bazhenov, I. E. Starov, A. N. Voronikhin, A. D. Zakharov, V.P. Stasov), poet and artist T.G. Shevchenko.
Not many people know that a museum was founded almost simultaneously with the Academy of Arts, which today is one of the oldest art museums in Russia. Initially, the museum performed educational functions – it contained the work of the best students of the Academy, as well as samples of high art that could and should be studied and copied. Very soon, the museum’s collection turned into one of the best art collections in the country.
At present, the exposition of the research museum of the Russian Academy of Arts is located in the halls on three floors of the so-called “compass” – a central round courtyard. On the ground floor there is a department of casts, on the second floor there is a collection of paintings from a Russian academic school. The architecture department, which presents unique design models of the 18-19th centuries, is located on the third floor of the “compass”. Among the exhibits are models of buildings of the Smolny Monastery, the Academy of Arts, the Stock Exchange, St. Isaac’s Cathedral and many other monuments of the Northern capital.