Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Room 26: Nicholas Ghe
Ghe's masterpiece,
Peter I Interrogating Tsarevich Alexey in Peterhof,
is here. Ghe's
other work, such as
Christ and his Disciples Come into the Garden of Gethsemane
and
The Last Supper,
are equally dark.
Rooms 27-32: Landscapes
Contemporaries of the Wanderers, landscape artists such as Ivan Shishkin (Room 27)
were still popular. These rooms also document the rise of populist art, which had a
strong social conscience and sought to educate the public. The best examples of this
are Vladimir Makovsky's
The Condemned
and Konstantin Savitsky's
To War
(Room
31).
Rooms 33-34: Ilya Repin
This room contains several masterpieces by Ilya Repin (1844-1930), one of Russia's
most famous painters. The iconic
Barge Haulers on the Volga
is sadly often on loan
abroad, but even if this incredible picture isn't here, look for
Cossacks Writing a Let-
ter to the Turkish Sultan
and his marvellous portrait of a barefoot Leo Tolstoy.
Rooms 35-47: Late-19th-Century Russian Art
These rooms display the large number of contradictory styles that were fashionable in
St Petersburg before the explosion of the avant-garde. These include Vasily Surikov, a
master of the historical painting that was in vogue in the late 19th century. His por-
trayals of
Yermak's Conquest of Siberia
and
Suvorov Crossing the Alps
(Room 36)
are particularly romantic, but the lifelike rendition of Cossack rebel
Stepan Razin
(Room 37) is undoubtedly his most evocative.
Rooms 48-49: Antokolsky's Historical Paintings
Mark Antokolsky's
Ivan the Terrible
and
Death of Socrates
are on display either side
of a souvenir stand. From here you enter the Benois Wing to your right or continue
straight ahead for the comprehensive account of Russian folk art, featuring everything
from kitchen equipment to window frames. The long corridor in Room 49 showcases
posters from past exhibits at the Russian Museum.
