The State Russian Museum / St Michael’s Castle I Am Dostoevsky. To the 200th Anniversary of the Writer’s Birth
The F.M.Dostoevsky Literary-Memorial Museum presents an exhibition to the 200th anniversary of the writer.
Fyodor Dostoevsky spent five years (from 1838 to 1843) within the walls of the Mikhailovsky Castle as a student of the Engineering School, and then served for almost a year in the drawing team. This place, memorable for the biography of the writer, is one of the best in St. Petersburg for showing an exhibition dedicated to his 200th anniversary. The jubilee exhibition project will present Dostoevsky and his work in conjunction with Russian and European culture.
The exhibition is based on paintings from the imaginary "ideal museum of the writer", which were especially significant for Dostoevsky throughout his life. He did not miss a single exhibition in St. Petersburg, in Europe he got acquainted with the main museums and galleries, he knew the Dresden Gallery, the Pitti Palace, the Uffizi almost by heart. He considered Raphael's Sistine Madonna one of the greatest masterpieces, admired the landscapes of Claude Lorrain, the gates of the Florentine Baptistery, Saint Agatha by Sebastiano del Piombo, Penitent Magdalene by Batoni, this list is pretty extensive.
It is impossible to imagine the “Dostoevsky's choice” in full: most of his favorite works are in European museums. At the exhibition, some of them are presented in copies made by outstanding master copyists of the 19th century. Visitors will get acquainted not only with those works that Dostoevsky saw and knew well, but also with paintings consonant with his artistic world or the world of his heroes.
Dostoevsky’s attitude towards art, his art criticism articles about painting, as well as his reflections on how an artist should convey feelings from what he saw, help to understand the creative laboratory of the writer himself. The purpose of the exhibition is to give a visual, meaningful idea of the creative and spiritual life of the writer through his perception of fine arts.
At the exhibition you can see items that belonged to Dostoevsky, rare exhibits will be presented by the Literary Museum of the Pushkin House and the St. Petersburg Literary-Memorial Museum of Dostoevsky.
In addition, for the first time in St. Petersburg, it will be possible to see Dostoevsky's main book - the Gospel, which was presented to the writer in Siberia. He carefully kept this book during all his life, and eventually this very Gospel became the last book in his hands before his death.
The exhibition will be accompanied by an audio performance played on behalf of Dostoevsky, where he comments on the images presented. Actors: Alexander Kudrenko, Ilya Del.
Project participants:
Literary-Memorial Museum of F.M. Dostoevsky
State Russian Museum
The National Library of Russia
State Tretyakov Gallery
State Hermitage Museum
Literary Museum (Pushkin House) of IRLI RAS
Scientific-research Museum of the Russian Academy of Arts
State Museum of the History of St. Petersburg
Vladimir Dahl Russian State Literary Museum
Moscow Museum of Modern Art
Exhibition curator - Vera Biron
Exhibition designer - Yuri Suchkov
From Peter the Great to Elizabeth Petrovna
1 June—23 September 2024
This exhibition, unique in its scale, covers the period from the death of Peter the Great to the accession to the throne of his daughter Elizabeth Petrovna (1725–1742). The main events of the internal Russian life in the time of struggle for Peter the Great’s legacy shown on the material from the collections of 21 museums, including State Hermitage Museum, the State Historical Museum, the Moscow Kremlin Museums, the Tretyakov Gallery, the Museum of the History of St Petersburg, the Peterhof State Museum and Reserve, the Pavlovsk State Museum, the Arkhangelskoye State Museum and Reserve and others.
Master of Painting. 325th Anniversary of Ivan Vishnyakov’s Birth
26 April—1 July 2024
Ivan Vishnyakov is one of the leading artist of the 18th century, portraitist, mural painter, restorer and teacher. However, not much of the artist’s vast legacy, the result of thirty years of untiring creative activity, has survived to the present day. All the more valuable are the eleven surviving portraits in the collections of the Russian Museum, the Tretyakov Gallery, the Museum of Vasily Tropinin and Moscow Artists of His Time, art museums in Tver and Rybinsk, and the National Art Museum of the Republic of Belarus.
- 15 March—13 May 2024 > Mikhailovsky Palace Mstislav Farmakovsky. 150th Anniversary of the Artist’s Birth
- 21 February—13 May 2024 > Benois Wing Anna Golubkina (1864–1927). 160th Anniversary of the Artist's Birth
The collection of masterpieces, chosen by the Russian Museum will allow you to make a first impression of the collection of the Russian Museum.
Russian Museum - one of the world's largest museums and is perhaps the only country where such a full treasure of national culture are presented.
Virtual tour of the museum complex. 2009 (Rus., Eng., Ger., Fin.)
In the online shop of the Russian Museum presented a huge range of souvenirs, illustrated editions and multimedia disks.
