Russian style in art at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries

On December 6, the exhibition “Russian style in art at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries” will open at the Palace of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. The project was prepared by the Kolomenskoye Museum-Reserve together with the All-Russian Museum of Decorative Arts, with the participation of the State Memorial Historical, Artistic and Natural Museum-Reserve of V. D. Polenov and the State Museum of Oriental Art.

Visitors to the Palace of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich will have a unique opportunity to compare works of the late Middle Ages with the works of outstanding artists who worked at the turn of the 19th – 20th centuries. The nine sections of the exhibition overlap with each other, but are subject to a clear chronology, thanks to which one can trace the natural development of Russian style over several decades, the mutual influence of authors and artistic circles. Labeling for monuments of the past and items in the Russian style will differ in color.

The exhibition will feature drawings and furniture by Elena Polenova, a painting by Viktor Vasnetsov “Three Heroes” (the same one that became the forerunner of the monumental canvas), a painting by Nicholas Roerich dedicated to the church architecture of Rostov the Great, ceramics by Mikhail Vrubel and other objects.

“Throughout 2023, the Kolomenskoye Museum-Reserve celebrates its centenary of its founding. This project will be a bright finale to the anniversary year. The Palace of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich was chosen as the venue for the exhibition not by chance. On the one hand, he himself was recreated in the neo-Russian style. On the other hand, visitors will be able to see with their own eyes a monument that Viktor Vasnetsov and his contemporaries could only imagine,” said Marina Lyulchuk, director of the Kolomenskoye Museum-Reserve.

The last major display of objects in the national style was the International Exhibition of Decorative and Industrial Arts, which took place in Paris in 1925.

The exhibition at the Palace of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich covers all directions and stages of the development of the Russian style in decorative art and presents the main art centers that worked in this vein. The narrative begins with works made on a Russian theme in the third quarter of the 19th century - porcelain and bronze sculptures representing Russian types in national clothes and with attributes of peasant life, as well as products decorated with decor borrowed from the facades of village huts. The activities of the Abramtsevo art center are represented by textbook works based on the designs of Elena Polenova (mainly pieces of furniture), Mikhail Vrubel, as well as other masters and cover the entire period of the workshop’s activity from the 1880s to the end of the 1910s. The decoration of the exhibition is the excellent works based on the designs of Alexei Zinoviev and Sergei Malyutin, executed in the workshops of Princess Maria Tenisheva in Talashkino, which worked in the first half of the 1900s.

The exhibition will also feature a collection of objects from the collection of the All-Russian Museum of Decorative Arts, made according to designs and in the workshops of the famous Handicraft Museum of the Moscow Provincial Zemstvo.

The handicraft museum became a trendsetter for Russian style: it not only united the Abramtsevo and Talashkino traditions, but also promoted both its products and the work of the “ward” handicraft workshops on the domestic and world art markets. At the exhibition in the Palace of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, a showcase with an artistic composition of carved products from the Handicraft Museum, captured in a photograph from the early 1920s, will be reconstructed. The reconstruction of this installation will not only decorate the exhibition hall, but also an important museum event, since it will allow visitors to see the thematic block exactly in the form in which the authors of the works showed it more than a century ago. Especially for the children’s audience, a traditional craft and designer toy will be presented, which will see the light for the first time since its first exhibition a hundred years ago - bright and original works, including works by the wonderful artist Alexander Durnovo.

Tue-Sun: 10:00–18:00, Monday - closed
Palace of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, Great Exhibition Hall, entrance 3,
Andropov Avenue, 39, building 69