Art Nouveau in Russian art. Art Nouveau style in architecture National originality of Russian Art Nouveau

Soviet modernism arose in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. and presented connoisseurs of such architecture with an incredible number of genuine masterpieces. The epicenter of the emerging architectural direction was the capital of the USSR. Our review is dedicated to 9 incredible works of Art Nouveau architecture in Moscow, which are part of the cultural fund of the Russian capital.

Profitable house Pertsova Z.A. was erected on Prechistinskaya embankment in 1905-1907 according to the project of architects N.K. Zhukov and B.N. Schnaubert. Also, a tangible contribution to the unusual image of the building was made by the famous artist, the author of the Russian nesting dolls, S. V. Malyutin. Like most buildings in the Art Nouveau style, this building is characterized by plastic unity and a stunning combination of architecture and forms of fine and applied art. The authors of the project introduced a picturesque asymmetry in the arrangement of windows, balconies and tower-like elevations of the roof into a fairly strict composition of the facades, which brings variety to the monotonous and repetitive divisions of an apartment building. In conclusion, it should be noted that until the mid-1970s. Pertsova's house remained residential, and then passed into the possession of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Profitable house N.G. Tarkhova on Podsosensky Lane was built in 1904. Particular attention in this object is attracted by the textured facade with a variety of decorative details - bay windows, attics, balconies and windows with figured frames. The walls of the house are decorated with sculptural images of whimsical flower stems. Today this house is residential. Its façade has been repaired many times, simplifying and reducing decor to a minimum.

The first building of the Yaroslavl railway station was built on Komsomolskaya Square in 1862. However, the most spectacular building of the railway complex was built according to the project of the outstanding Soviet Art Nouveau master Fyodor Shekhtel. The Yaroslavsky railway station went through two major reconstructions during the Soviet era in 1946–1947. and in the early 60s. Today, the Yaroslavsky railway station, along with the nearby Kazansky railway station, is considered the most popular in the country.

4. Mansion of S. P. Ryabushinsky on Malaya Nikitskaya Street

Another outstanding and, perhaps, the most famous work of Shekhtel, an early modern residential building, was built on Malaya Nikitskaya Street in 1903. The extremely famous philanthropist and banker Stepan Ryabushinsky was the customer for this house. Today, within the walls of this amazing house is the house-museum of the famous Russian writer Maxim Gorky.

5. Mansion of Zinaida Morozova on Spiridonovka

The luxurious mansion of the wife of the richest industrialist and philanthropist Savva Morozov was built according to the project of the same Fyodor Shekhtel on Spiridonovka, 17 in 1893. In this project, the architect managed to easily play with elements of medieval architecture such as buttresses, battlements, columns and towers and decorate the facades with various chimeras and stone masks to create an elegant image of a Gothic castle.

The 5-star Metropol Hotel was built on Teatralny Proyezd (building 2) in 1905. The initiator of the construction was Savva Mamontov. "Metropol" is rightfully considered one of the most striking historical and architectural monuments of modernity in Moscow. The architectural appearance of the hotel is distinguished primarily by the severity of the lines. Pseudo-Gothic elements (small turrets and pinnacles) peep through the techniques characteristic of Art Nouveau. The basement, lined with red granite and designed in the form of an arcade, contrasts with the plastered and smooth upper floors, giving the massive structure an airy effect. The hotel includes expensive rooms with stunning views of the city, numerous restaurants, cafes, shops, as well as two large conference halls.

An extremely unusual mansion was built in the city center by architect Viktor Mazyrin by order of millionaire Arseny Morozov in 1899. The building, combining various elements of Art Nouveau and eclecticism, is a unique example for Moscow of bright and exotic stylization in the neo-Mauritanian spirit.

A small mansion, lined with yellowish Tarusa marble and tiles, with an original corner loggia, stands out for its mosaic decor - a panel above the main entrance, depicting the underwater kingdom, and a flower frieze. O. A. List's own house in Glazovsky Lane was built according to the project of the famous architect L.N. Kekushev in 1899 and is considered the first architectural work in the USSR, made in the Art Nouveau style.

9. Moscow Art Theater. A.P. Chekhov in Kamergersky Lane

The legendary Moscow Art Theater began to work in the building in Kamergersky Lane in the autumn of 1902. The theater of the homeowner Lianozov was rebuilt at the expense of patron Savva Morozov by architect Fyodor Shekhtel in three months. Interior design, lighting, ornaments and even a sketch of a curtain with the famous emblem of the Art Theater - a seagull flying over the waves, also belongs to the authorship of this architect. Interestingly, Shekhtel completed the reconstruction project free of charge, refusing to discuss the issue of payment at the negotiation stage.

More than a hundred years have passed since the birth of the modernism style, however, even today, connoisseurs of this trend do not forget about it and try to adapt it to modern realities. This is exactly what we are talking about in our material. And about who exactly is considered one of the founders of modernist architecture can be found in our article.

The heyday of the Art Nouveau architectural style in Europe and America falls on the years 1890-1914, the First World War prevented further. The new direction has radically changed the idea of ​​beauty in graphics, design, sculpture, music, ballet.

Inventive architects created not only expressive structures with an unusual external and internal appearance, but also mastered new materials - concrete, steel, glass.

Modern house designs in Art Nouveau technique use historical elements selectively, abandoning lush decor and excessive asymmetry in favor of more rational solutions.

Instead of eclecticism

The direction was formed in opposition to eclecticism, which mixed details from different styles, often not too skillfully. During a period of rapid urban growth and industrialization, Art Nouveau building heralded a return to the practicality of Medieval and Renaissance buildings.

Architects met the increased need for buildings for stock exchanges, banks, railway stations, industrial enterprises and tenement houses. The innovation of that time - reinforced concrete structures, curved steel profiles - made it possible to create complex curvilinear facades.

The impetus for development was the decorative arts. The German decorator Herman Obrist in 1895 created the canvas "Blow of the Scourge" (in another translation, "Blow of the Whip"). Silk embroidery on a woolen panel depicted the stem, leaves and flower of cyclamen in a bizarre form, reminiscent of the stroke of a beating whip.

Nature has become a source of inspiration for architects working in the classical modern style.

Natural silhouettes of plants (lilies, orchids, irises, palm leaves, algae), sea waves are used everywhere: in painting, large-scale mosaic panels, stucco friezes, in the design of facades, balcony grilles, door handles. Fancy stained glass windows, made in the Art Nouveau style, depict peacock tails, beautiful swan necks, and female curls.

Features of Art Nouveau in architecture

Design principle	In the 18th and 19th centuries, a movement from the external appearance of the house to the internal organization was assumed. The new approach proclaimed the primary layout of the premises, which in turn influenced the external forms. Buildings receive asymmetrical volumes, Art Nouveau facades are full of bay windows, towers, balconies and loggias.
Freedom of creativity	Deliberately fantasy design of external and internal decoration is becoming one of the most popular architectural solutions. A striking example is Casa Batlo by the Spanish master Gaudi, where the idea of ​​defeating the dragon is embodied.
Silhouettes	The rejection of straight and angular lines in favor of more natural ones leads to fluid silhouettes and emphasized decorativeness. Thanks to the creative use of steel, glass and reinforced concrete in the design of modern houses, a fusion of natural and man-made forms is clearly felt.
Color spectrum	Pastel, without obvious contrasts, dominated by olive, gray, dusty lilac, tobacco shades. The exterior and interior of buildings exist in close relationship; curved stairs, railings and supports follow the ornamental lines.
Characteristic elements of modernity	Lushly decorated columns (straight, angled or curved), window and door openings in the form of arches, complex glazing. Masters combine the traditions of European, Oriental and African architecture, but do not blindly copy them, but freely interpret them.

Art Nouveau direction in the architecture of different countries

The fashion trend has received several names - it was designated as "art nouveau" in France and Belgium, "art nouveau" in Germany and Sweden, "modern" in the Russian Empire, "secession" in Austria, "tiffany" in the USA.

Belgium

Victor Horta was the first to apply the "blow of the whip" in the design of the facades during the construction and used the supporting structures of an asymmetric shape. The architect turned to the techniques of large glazing combined with a large amount of metal.

His Art Nouveau buildings - the famous mansions of Tassel, Solvay, Eitveld, the house-workshop (Horta Museum) - are included in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

France

Hector Guimard, a leading architect of the period, embodied Art Nouveau designs in the design of urban mansions, but he is best remembered for the design of the pavilions of the Paris Metro.

The objects he created freely combine metal frames with glass elements, glazed ceramic tiles, bricks and sandstone.

Austria

The Vienna Secession is characterized by more modest decor and simple, regular geometric shapes. In this direction, the apartment building Majolica House and the post office building in Vienna (designed by Otto Wagner) were made. In the style of geometric modernity, J. Hoffmann worked, using right angles and the technique of a checkerboard instead of smooth outlines.

A striking example of Austrian architecture is the mansion of the banker Stoclet, built in Brussels.

Spain

The Catalan architect Antonio Gaudi created the famous picturesque, but no less constructive buildings: Batlo House, Mila House, Park Güell. Its beautiful Art Nouveau houses - with undulating façades, dragon-scale ceramic tiles - attract tourists from all over the world, as does the unfinished project of the Sagrada Familia.

USA

American Art Nouveau design is associated with the name of Louis Tiffany. He invented the technique of joining pieces of glass using copper foil. Stained glass windows, created using this technology, decorate buildings throughout the country. Stained glass windows are one of the main elements of modern modernity.

Russian Art Nouveau architecture

The new trend in architecture embraced not only the European part of the Russian Empire, but also the cities of the Urals and Siberia. Regional differences were manifested in the number of storeys and the choice of materials: in the capital, multi-storey buildings were built of stone, in other places - mansions with two or three floors of wood and a stone plinth.

The Art Nouveau style in the architecture of Russia had an original character and manifested itself in two main directions: Petersburg and Moscow.

Northern modern (Petersburg)

Developed under the influence of the works of the Scandinavian masters F. Lindval, A. Shulman, E. Saarinen. The cottage of the Grand Duke B.V., made in the Art Nouveau style. Romanov near Tsarskoye Selo became one of the first buildings.

Examples of the new architectural trend include the Eliseev brothers' shop, the house of F.G. Bazhanov, hotel "Astoria", tenement houses in Gatchina, Vyborg, Sortval. Of the Russian architects, N. Vasiliev, G. Baranovsky, P. Aleshin worked in this style.

The main characteristics of the northern modern:

• Facade decoration with natural and artificial materials.
• Facing with granite blocks (unhewn or with a smooth texture).
• Refusal of small ornament in favor of simple stucco elements.
• Preservation of symmetry, use of rectangular towers.
• The color scheme of the facades is associated with impregnable northern cliffs and medieval castles.

A characteristic example of the modernist architecture of St. Petersburg is the project of P. Syuzor on Nevsky Prospekt: ​​the house of the Singer company (today the House of the Book is located here).

For the first time, a metal frame was used in the work, which reduced the load on the walls and made it possible to mount display windows.

The roof with glazing over the inner courtyards has also become a new technique, the ventilation system has been technically more competently equipped. The main facade is crowned with a transparent dome with the figure of an eagle - one of the most recognizable symbols of the city.

Moscow modern

Mostly private buildings were noted here (this is the difference with the St. Petersburg direction). The ideology was substantiated and developed in the Abramtsevo circle - an association of artists and decorators, headed by patron Savva Mamontov.

Art Nouveau buildings erected in Moscow have characteristic features:

• Asymmetric layouts and facade compositions.
• Miscellaneous facing materials.
• Bay windows as dominant architectural accents.
• A combination of floral and geometric decors in the interior and exterior.

A classic example of a house in the Moscow Art Nouveau style is the mansion of the collector S.P. Ryabushinsky designed by Fyodor Shekhtel.

Facades of light yellow color are decorated with lilac mosaic with irises. Window openings are made different in shape, they are complemented by steel bars with floral ornaments. Shekhtel also designed the interior decoration of the house.

The idea of ​​a sea wave is read in the outlines of stairs, ceiling moldings, and floor mosaics.

Modern houses in Art Nouveau style

The majestic and graceful Moscow and St. Petersburg mansions of the late 19th and early 20th centuries serve as a prototype for modern private houses today.

The architectural direction is universal: it is suitable for residences and small-sized country cottages in Moscow and the Moscow region. Buildings are erected from brick, stone, concrete, wood, a popular solution is frame steel and glass structures.

Signs of Art Nouveau as a modern style:

• Asymmetry of compositional-volumetric solutions.
• Decoration of the facade with railings, cornices, platbands of bizarre shapes.
• Window openings of non-standard configuration: oval, round, trapezoidal, narrow (loopholes), showcases with stained-glass windows.
• Turrets, spiers and weather vanes on the roof.
• Natural colors: lavender, terracotta, beige shades.

Home space is organized rationally. Often, cottage projects in the modern concept combine a residential part, a garage, and outbuildings. The same exterior finish performs a binding function.

Bay windows, many balconies, glazed terraces, attic spaces are appropriate. The exterior is characterized by openwork metal details: railings, window bars. Wild stone, its imitation or facing brick is well suited for finishing the basement.

Projects of modern houses in the Art Nouveau style are very democratic in terms of materials. Metal, glass, brick, ceramics, reinforced concrete are used. Polyurethane is used to make original facade decor, including copies of the design of famous historical objects.

Video of a modern house in Art Nouveau style from TopDom architects

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Russia, like most countries, was distinguished by stylistic diversity. From a wide range of its sources, in addition to national ones, one should single out the architecture of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Finland.

The Russian version of the Art Nouveau style, which became a kind of prologue to the "new architecture", took shape at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. Throughout 1898-1917. Russian modern, rapidly changing, goes through three stages in its development, and at all stages two currents coexist within it - a retrospective-romantic one and a current that completely excludes the imitation of historical styles. As we approach 1917, these currents become polarized.

The first goes as far as directly recreating the styles of the past; the second successively, stage by stage, approaches rationalism. They are connected to each other by a very developed scale of transitions. But the difference between them lies not in the use or absence of forms of the past, but in the nature of the composition, emanating in one case from the constructive-spatial structure of the building, in the other - from the decorative system of one of the styles of past eras.

Art Nouveau not only revives the stylistic unity of the external appearance and interior decoration of buildings. The importance of "internal architecture" is increasing sharply. It is expressed in the desire to design structures as if from the inside, in special attention to interior problems. The rooms become more spacious, their compositions lose their isolation, they seem to flow one into another. In the mansions, the free plan is being developed. Thanks to the use of frame structures, the interiors of office and commercial buildings are freed from the main walls, the floors of many of them merge into a colossal hall. Enlarged windows connect the interior space with the surroundings.

“Cozy” rooms are being replaced by “comfortable” ones. The concept of "comfort" includes not only convenience, but also advantages born from the use of the latest technical achievements and data from hygienic science. For all the emotionality of modern interiors, they reveal a rationalistic underlying basis.

The problem of synthesis of plastic arts becomes urgent. The vestibules of tenement houses, hotels, mansions are decorated with stained-glass windows, the interiors are picturesque, and the facades are decorated with majolica or mosaic panels. Thus, in the architectural work of early modernity, the rationality of the initial principle is combined with the formally aesthetic nature of its interpretation.

Russia went to the new architecture in its own way. The search for domestic modernity is wide and varied. They are related to all four roads of European search.

The first direction of Art Nouveau in Russia, associated with the name of Shekhtel and others and their "Gothic" buildings of the 1890s, remained a local phenomenon. It produced several masterpieces, including Z. G. Morozova's mansion on Spiridonovka in Moscow (1893), which gained European fame. However, devoid of national soil, the “abstract” romanticism of these structures was, obviously, the reason that Shekhtel himself, having mastered the new principles of transforming the useful into the beautiful, building volume “from the inside out”, building a dynamic picture composition designed for multiple points of view and duration perception in time, departed in the late 1890s. from "English Gothic" and never returned to it.

The second, national-romantic direction of modernity, which originated in the Mamontov circle, had a wide continuation, resulting in the so-called neo-Russian style. Its viability was favored by the enduring urgency of the national problem: the problem of "choosing a path."

Scattered manifestations of the neo-Russian style in the late 1890s. merge into a broad artistic movement, united by the search for a monumental national style under the leadership and under the clear hegemony of architecture.

Notable milestones along this path were the pavilion of Russian applied art at the World Exhibition in Paris (1900, artist K. A. Korovin and architect I. E. Bondarenko), the pavilions of the Russian department at the International Exhibition in Glasgow (1901) and the Yaroslavsky railway station in Moscow ( architect F. O. Shekhtel, 1904), Pertsov's profitable house in Soymonovsky Lane in Moscow (1907) and buildings in Talashkino ("Teremok", theater, own house, 1902, architect S. V. Malyutin), a house for widows and orphans of artists in Lavrushinsky lane (architect N. S. Kurdyukov) and Old Believer churches in Moscow (second half of the 1900-1910s, architect I. E. Bondarenko).

With the entry of “modernity” into its second stage (“graphic modernity”, between 1905 and 1910), the features of rationality and austerity intensify in its architecture, and new criteria of beauty begin to form. The innovation of the second stage is most obvious in the architecture of banking, office and commercial buildings, where the shaping role of frame metal and reinforced concrete structures is especially noticeable (the building of the Azov-Don Bank in St. Petersburg, architect F. I. Lidval). To emphasize the lightness of the frame structure, decorative forms of classicism and other styles are used, to reveal contrasts between large glazed planes and stone processed in different ways (rustic, smoothly processed masonry) - details of the Italian Renaissance.

At the third stage of the development of modernity (between 1910 and 1917), the tendencies of modernity itself and retrospective romance reach the limit of contrast. In a number of buildings, the principle of rationalistic composition wins, almost or completely devoid of historical reminiscences. A distinctive feature of these structures is their almost constructivist simplification, the emphasized geometrism of volumes. Fragility disappears, the facades seem to be compacted and weighted. Functional details, acquiring a simple, geometrically correct form, turn into compositional means of paramount importance. The volumes of buildings, reduced to elementary geometric shapes, their sharp shifts vertically and horizontally, a clear pattern of the frame grid, huge window openings fill the architectural image with previously unknown expressiveness.

Late Art Nouveau is represented mainly by the works of the Moscow school. His ancestor, architect,

House of S. P. Ryabushinsky in Moscow.

1900-1903 Architect F. O. Shekhtel

F. O. Shekhtel should rightfully be considered to have determined its originality (Fig. 34.1). Directly or indirectly, all representatives of late modernism are indebted to him, either trained in his workshop or absorbed the lessons of his work. These are mainly the architects of the generation following Shekhtel - I. S. Kuznetsov, A. U. Zelenko, G. I. Kondratenko, V. K. Oltarzhevsky, A. A. Ostrogradsky, V. V. Shervud, the Vesnin brothers, A. V. Kuznetsov and others.

The figurative characteristics of structures in late modernism also change. Despite the clearly palpable taste of admiration and some deliberate cult of the rational, a measure of laconism and beauty was found in late modern buildings, corresponding to the practical lifestyle of those years.

The fragility, elegance, graphic lines, and flatness of facades characteristic of late modern tenement houses and mansions are the result of an artistic understanding of frame structures - the antipode of a massive wall structure (ceasing to be an ideal type of structure, it ceased to be the personification of qualities that were previously considered the standard of beauty). Now the beautiful is identified with other properties - lightness, transparency, spaciousness. But these qualities are combined with a new understanding of plasticity as a form that contains space within itself, “alive” and animated by the forces acting inside it, which is in active interaction, even confrontation with external and internal space. The artistic experience of space, typical of early modernity, not as a void, but as an antibody, anti-form, invading, flowing in, pushing out a form that has a real mass, is preserved, although in some cases not in such an overtly dramatic interpretation, in the buildings of the second half of the 1900s - early 1910s I would like to define the plasticity of early modernity as the plasticity of volume and mass (mass of the wall). For late Art Nouveau (although very conditionally, overlaps are not uncommon), another characteristic is more suitable: the plasticity of the wall surface.

In late modernity, the importance of the texture and color of materials as a means of artistic expression increases. The most popular at this time are high-strength concrete plaster, facing matte and glazed bricks. Due to the coating of the outer surface with high-strength paints - glazes and enamels - glazed brick combines immunity to the whims of the weather with the beauty and sonority of color and expressiveness of texture. The texture of the glazed brick was also in many respects in tune with the new aesthetic ideals. Its cold, shiny surface, as if excluding the possibility of the existence of a massive stone wall behind it, creating an exquisite contrast with the same cold, fragile and shiny glass surface, gives the impression of weightlessness, immateriality, which distinguishes late modern residential and public buildings.

Facing brick is used not just as a utilitarian tool - at the same time it is also a means of decorating it. The absence of a special decor system and the reduction in the number of decorative details proper in modernity (“new-style buildings have a significant advantage because there are few decorations”) turn not only purely functional elements, such as cladding, but even the level of finishing work into a carrier of aesthetic qualities. The advantages of the masonry itself, the pattern of the seams, the thoroughness of grouting the mortar, the contrast of the texture of the mortar and the brick, and most importantly, the expressiveness of the wall lined with this brick acquire paramount importance in the general system of artistic techniques. A new understanding of beauty is born - the beauty of rigor, expediency, which marks the slow process of liberation from the idea of ​​beauty as something external to an object or building, attached to it in the form of decor, or rather, in the form of a certain system of decor.

The age-old artistic antagonism between the two capitals - Moscow and St. Petersburg - reached its apogee in the mid-1900s. It was at this time, when Moscow became the center of the development of expedient modernity, that a sharp turn towards retrospectivism began in St. Petersburg.

In Russia, the search for new ways in art was concentrated in St. Petersburg and Moscow, the two main centers of new architecture. The buildings of St. Petersburg and Moscow are peculiar and far from identical. Long-standing differences in the architecture of these cities were transferred to the new style.

The principle of regularity and classical rigor, laid down in the ensembles of St. Petersburg, turned out to be a more authoritarian beginning than the innovation of modernity itself. Therefore, in the architecture of St. Petersburg Art Nouveau, the restraining influence of the classical tradition had a greater effect. A galaxy of large skilled craftsmen worked here, linking their creativity with the new style. Among them are F. I. Lidval, N. N. Vasiliev, A. I. Gauguin, A. Ol, I. Fomin, M. Lyalevich, M. Peretyatkovich, A. Belogrud, P. Yu. Syuzor.

St. Petersburg modern is more strict, constructive and rationalistic than Moscow.

In the architecture of St. Petersburg, Art Nouveau was most clearly expressed in the construction of private mansions, commercial buildings and tenement houses. Picturesque plastic solutions are characteristic of early buildings in the Art Nouveau style.

Mertens Trading House on Nevsky Prospekt, St. Petersburg

facades, unusual outlines of openings (in the form of ellipses, horseshoes, polygons, etc.), whimsically refined ornamental motifs (Kshesinskaya's mansion).

From the middle of 1900, Art Nouveau enters a late phase, which is characterized by more rigorous compositional solutions, the use of elements of order architecture. For example, the Azov-Don Commercial Bank and the Mertens Trading House (Fig. 34.2). In 1910, Art Nouveau was gradually forced out of the architecture of St. Petersburg by various retrospective trends, and mainly by neoclassicism.

Northern Art Nouveau became a specific variant of the style in St. Petersburg.

northern modern- this is a trend in modernist architecture of the late XIX - early XX century. in the Scandinavian countries and St. Petersburg. Sometimes it is defined as national romanticism. It is characterized by buildings of a strict, severe style with elements of the classical order system and national Finnish decoration motifs close to the medieval architecture of the Norman style, an expressive silhouette and the use of the texture of materials common in the north - large frames of unhewn granite, wood, constituting a harmonious unity with nature.

The development of the northern modern style in St. Petersburg was influenced by Swedish and Finnish neo-romantic architecture. Fedor (Friedrich) Lidval, a representative of the Swedish diaspora in St. Petersburg, became the conductor of ideas from the first source. The buildings built according to his designs in the period from 1901 to 1907, and especially the residential complex on Kamennoostrovsky Prospekt that belonged to the Lidval family, became a qualitative alternative to the spread of German and Austrian versions of Art Nouveau in St. Petersburg. The influence of such prominent representatives of neo-romanticism in Sweden as F. Boberg and G. Klasson on the formation of Lidval's creative manner is noted. Another important contribution to the formation of the style at an early stage was the construction of mansions on Kamenny Island according to the designs of Robert Meltzer. A little later, the influence of the more outrageous Finnish architecture became the main one. In such iconic buildings as Putilova's house on Bolshoy Prospekt of the Petrograd side (architect I. Pretro) and the building of the Rossiya Insurance Company on Bolshaya Morskaya Street (architect G. Gimpel) (both built in 1907), the architects resorted to direct quotation from works of their Finnish colleagues, which, however, does not underestimate the high artistic qualities of these works. In the second half of the decade, Northern Art Nouveau became the main trend in the architecture of St. Petersburg, attracting the forces of young architects. It was with this time that the main achievements of Nikolai Vasiliev, a consistent adherent of the romantic theme with an individual vision of style, are connected. These are the facade of A. Bubyr's house on Stremyannaya Street and the final project of the Cathedral Mosque, in the severe appearance of which the "northern" theme prevails over oriental motifs.

Moscow modern most consistently revealed the features of the new style. But the St. Petersburg version was also very interesting. He possessed special qualities associated with the fact that St. Petersburg had the established face of a classicist city. If in the Moscow branch of modernity the new style attached to itself the forms of the neo-Russian style, then in St. Petersburg modernity did the same in relation to classicism. In most cases, the classic elements acted in a subordinate capacity.

If in Moscow the main role belonged to Shekhtel, then in St. Petersburg - Lidval, who approved the original St. Petersburg version of "modern classicism".

In the mass consciousness there is a firm idea that the real twentieth century in Russian culture begins in the 1910s. From the avant-garde, which brings Russian art to the European world, and this avant-garde is our contribution, our brand and, in general, our everything. And very rarely they remember those who prepared this triumphant exit to the international expanses. Well, except for Dyagi Lev and his Russian seasons, which since 1907 have been held in the West with triumph. But the aesthetics that Europeans admired in Diaghilev's touring ballets was formed by a circle of artists who were part of the World of Art association. They were able to reconfigure the optics of perception of art, to make a quiet but significant revolution in it. And it was a trampoline for those who came later and, of course, treated their predecessors with disdain.

Boris Kustodiev. Group portrait of the artists of the society "World of Art". 1916-1920 State Russian Museum

The circle was very narrow. Only a few people formed the core of the World of Art association, which in 1898 began to publish a magazine of the same name. These were the artists Alexander Benois, Konstantin Somov, Lev Bakst, Evgeny Lansere, Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, Anna Ostroumova-Lebedeva. And, of course, Sergei Diaghilev, entrepreneur, impresario, motor and spring of all World of Art initiatives. In addition, there were writers - the department of criticism, which was headed by Dmitry Filosofov. Merezhkovsky, Gippius, Rozanov, Sologub, Bryusov, Balmont, Bely were published there - but then the writers quarreled with the artists and left for the New Way magazine. In this narrow circle, the majority is still connected by either kinship or gymnasium friendship. And in fact, the "World of Art" was born from a completely chamber circle, named after Dickens' novel "The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club" - "Neva Pickwickians". In this circle, friends lectured each other on the history of art. Mr. Pickwick there was probably Alexandre Benois, who was very suitable for this role even outwardly: round, well-built.

Photo portrait in the group of artists "World of Art". 1914 On the photo above, numbers are written in ink - from 1 to 18, on the back there is an explanation: “Annual meeting of the island of artists“ World of Art ”. Present: 1. M. V. Dobuzhinsky. 2. A. F. Gaush. 3. O. E. Braz. 4. N. K. Roerich. 5. I. Ya. Biblibin. 6. B. M. Kustodiev. 7. V. V. Kuznetsov. 8. P. V. Kuznetsov. 9. E. E. Lansere. 10. N. E. Lansere. 12. N. D. Milioti. 13. A. P. Ostroumova-Lebedeva. 14. K. S. Petrov-Vodkin. 15. A. I. Tamanov. 16. Book. A. K. Shervashidze. 17. S. P. Yaremich. 18. M. I. Rabinovich. Russian State Library

In his declining years, Benois, who had already emigrated to France, wrote two volumes of memoirs. He recalled childhood and childhood hobbies: collections of toys, cardboard models of cities, love for optical toys like a magic lantern. And he said that it was all this that determined his attitude to art as to magic: art should not be like life. Because life does not please, it is monotonous, it is unpleasant to the eye.

And the people of the World of Art, on the one hand, want to get away from life into some abstract worlds. Where are these worlds? In past. How do we know about the past? We see it in the images of art, and they inspire us. Miriskusniks were much more interested in art than in life. The art of the past, which is capable of generating another art, new. They were not interested in history as it is, but in its images - composed, volatile, random. "Retrospective dreams", "gallant festivities", "royal hunts" - no big ideas, but simply a keen experience of the atmosphere of a bygone time. Escape from reality, a kind of escapism.

But, on the other hand, this unattractive, routine modern world can, after all, be altered, reformatted, made different for the eye, for visual perception. To save with beauty: that is, to change interiors, books, buildings, clothes. So that not only art, but also everyday life becomes different. This is a paradoxical combination of escapism with reformation and design. And it must be said that this daunting task - nothing less than to change the taste of an entire era - these few people succeeded in many ways. Literally 10 years later, the Russian public, previously educated in narrative paintings with a clear plot - itinerant or academic - was ready to accept the Russian avant-garde.

Now let's talk about the areas in which the World of Arts have been particularly successful. They, for example, completely changed the face of the theater, especially the musical one. Before them, the artist in the Russian theater had simply nothing to do: all the scenery was taken, as they say, “from the selection”, that is, from among pre-prepared standard scenery: this is for any performance from medieval life, and this is for any of the Egyptian . The World of Arts worked with each performance individually, with restoration precision. Thanks to them, the artist in the theater became a figure equal to the director - Benois even wrote the libretto himself.

Costumes and scenery by Leon Bakst for the ballet "Scheherazade". 1910 Library of Congress

Scenery and costumes for the ballet "Petrushka". Early 20th century Library of Congress

Costumes for "Polovtsian Dances" from the opera "Prince Igor". 1900s Library of Congress

And they completely changed the look of the illustrated book. Previously, in such books, illustrations were ordered from different artists and stylistically argued with each other inside the book block. Miriskusniki put forward and implemented the idea of ​​a book as a whole: the image should be linked with the text, all vignettes and screensavers should work for a common style, the artist acts as a director and decorator of a holistic spectacle. For the first time, this idea of ​​synthesis was implemented in the magazine "World of Art" published by them, which will be discussed below.

Cover of "ABC in Pictures" by Alexandre Benois. 1904 benua-memory.ru

Ivan Bilibin. Cover of the program for the opera "Boris Godunov". 1908 Library of Congress

Cover of "The ABC of the World of Art" by Mstislav Dobuzhinsky. 1911 moscowbooks.ru

It is impossible to enumerate everything done by the World of Arts: there were many “micro-revolutions” there. But it is interesting to recall one more thing: after all, it was they who determined our current perception of St. Petersburg; in 1903, its bicentenary was celebrated, and the style of the holiday was largely prepared by world art efforts to change the image of the capital. Before them, Petersburg was not considered a beautiful city at all. He had two public images - one more unpleasant than the other. On the one hand, it was an image of a state-owned, bureaucratic city - as opposed to a lively, opposing, more diverse and free Moscow. On the other hand, it was the city of Dostoevsky: the city of well-yards and eternal twilight. All this has changed due to the efforts of the World of Arts — partly by Mstislav Dobuzhinsky and mainly by Anna Ostroumova-Lebedeva. There is such a common phrase that Savrasov, and then Levitan, invented Russian nature: before them, it did not exist as an object for vision. So, we can say that Petersburg was invented by Ostroumov-Lebedev.

Anna Ostroumova-Lebedeva. View of the Neva through the columns of the Stock Exchange. 1907Photo by RIA Novosti

Mstislav Dobuzhinsky. Grimaces of the city. 1908Photo by Mikhail Filimonov / RIA Novosti

Anna Ostroumova-Lebedeva. Peterhof. Fountain "Samson". 1922Photo by Alexey Bushkin / RIA Novosti

And it is characteristic that she did it in engravings. Miriskusniki also revived graphics as an independent art. In Russia, graphics were auxiliary: they were reduced to sketches and sketches for paintings, and almost did not claim to be independent in exhibitions. And the graphics printed in magazines were often not made on purpose, but were reduced to reproductions of picturesque paintings. And the World of Art revived not only unique graphics, the author's drawing, but also circulation graphics, in particular, Ostroumova-Lebedeva was engaged in color woodcuts and was based on Japanese prints, which few people knew in Russia.

The core of the "World of Art" was, of course, different artists. But there was nonetheless some common poetics that united them. The quintessence of this poetry is in the work of Alexander Benois and Konstantin Somov.

Benoit's favorite eras are mainly France of the 17th century, the reign of Louis XIV and Russia of the Catherine and Paul times. The Versailles series and Benoit's cycle The Last Walks of Louis XIV are a fictitious, fragile puppet world. It is important that this is not an oil painting, but gouache on paper: there is no pictorial density, unquestioning, natural obligation. These are not historical pictures, but historical pictures. What is a historical picture, for example, in the spirit of Surikov? This is some idea about the meaning of history, compressed into a particular event. And if the artist of the "World of Art" wrote "Morning of the Streltsy Execution", he, quite possibly, would not be looking at the archers or at Peter, but at the magpie flying by. Historical genres in Benois are always a random snatched fragment in which there is no main event, but instead only the air of history. The same sharpness and randomness of angles can be found in Valentin Serov's "Royal Hunts" and in his "Peter I" gouache. Here, the grotesque figures of the huge Peter and the crouching courtiers against the background of conventional "desert waves" combine irony with a sense of historical scale. It was no coincidence that Serov was on the board of the World of Art - the only Muscovite: they understood each other well.

Alexander Benois. Walk of the King. 1906

Valentin Serov. Departure of Catherine II for falconry. 1902

Valentin Serov. Peter I. 1907

Unlike Benois, who was inspired by a specific story, Somov reproduced in his stylizations a certain conditional gallant century - the 17th or 18th, it doesn’t matter. Marquises with cavaliers, harlequins and other heroes of the Italian commedia dell'arte, masquerades, sleeping or dreaming "ladies of the past." There is more ridicule here than emotion or sadness for what has been lost. But there is also sadness - only this sadness is not for the lost, but for the unattainable: for what belongs not to life, but to art. And its constant theme is the theme of what will flare up and immediately disappear: a rainbow, fireworks, a bonfire. The end of a holiday, always brief as a flash.

Konstantin Somov. Harlequin and Death. 1907 State Tretyakov Gallery

Contemporaries considered Somov's main painting "Lady in Blue" - a portrait of the artist Elizaveta Martynova, painted shortly before her death from consumption. A sad girl in a moire dress in the fashion of the forties of the 19th century stands with a book, behind her at a great distance is a book vision: a gentleman and a lady are flirting on a bench, and a flaneur with a cane passes by, similar to the artist himself. A picture about the futility of romantic impulses in the prosaic world: this is how the first viewers perceived it.

Konstantin Somov. Lady in blue. Portrait of Elizabeth Martynova. 1897-1900 years Wikimedia Commons / State Tretyakov Gallery

Among the World of Art there were completely alien nostalgias. For example, Leon Bakst - he mainly realized himself as an artist of Diaghilev's Russian Seasons. From his costumes for ballet performances, then, the couturiers of all the fashion houses in Paris - Paquin, Poiret, Worth, and then everywhere repelled. Or Dobuzhinsky - he, unlike his comrades, will work not in the musical, but in the drama theater, in the Moscow Art Theater with Stanislavsky. And he will make several performances there, two of which are especially remarkable. One, “A Month in the Country” according to Turgenev, is a performance of the World of Art, antiquarian. The other, Nikolai Stavrogin after Dostoevsky, is a gloomy and completely symbolist performance. In general, Dobuzhinsky is not alien to the symbolist taste, and among his later works there are even abstractions.

Leon Bakst. Salome. 1908 Wikimedia Commons

Leon Bakst. Firebird. 1910s Wikimedia Commons

Leon Bakst. Aladdin. 1919 Wikimedia Commons

Leon Bakst. Butterfly. 1913 Wikimedia Commons

Dobuzhinsky's gouaches and Ostroumova's woodcuts with views of St. Petersburg were distributed in postcards issued by the Community of St. Eugenia. The issue of postcards is another important part of the World Art program. Postcards are mass, large-circulation, souvenir art. And the world of art did not fundamentally establish a distance between mass art and high art.

In general, a completely new type of artists for Russia was realized in the World of Art. First, they are dilettantes. Someone did not finish their studies at the Academy of Arts, someone was a little like a volunteer in Parisian private studios. But almost everyone ran away from everywhere, because they were bored with normative drawing and normative education.

Secondly, they are all intellectuals - which was also completely uncharacteristic of Russian artists in the mass at that time. They are people who read, they know languages, they are cosmopolitan in their aspirations, they are music lovers and arrange modern music evenings at the World of Art magazine.

Thirdly, they are all bourgeois. In general, traditionally the bourgeois way of life was opposed to the image of the artist - the romantic image - and the world-artists insist on it. Despite the fact that they are all of different origins: Benois is from a noble family with French roots, Somov is the son of the chief curator of the Hermitage, that is, from an intelligent professorial family. And, let's say, Bakst is a Jew from Grodno, and this does not bother anyone at all: they all speak the same language, and they have a common demeanor.

And in this manner of behavior there is one very important shade. The entire second half of the 19th century in Russian art, the conventionally itinerant half, is based on the pathos of duty. The artist always turns out to be obliged: to the people, society, culture - to anyone and anything. Miriskusniks are the first people in Russian art who claim that the artist owes nothing to anyone. The leitmotif of their life, their work is an ode to caprice and whim, to a free artistic gesture. It is not far from here to a free gesture in the avant-garde, but the beginning is here.

Cover of one of the issues of the World of Art. 1904 Wikimedia Commons

Page of one of the issues of the magazine "World of Art". 1903 Wikimedia Commons

Page of one of the issues of the magazine "World of Art". 1900 Wikimedia Commons

Page of one of the issues of the magazine "World of Art". 1902 Wikimedia Commons

The favorite word of the World of Arts is “smokyness”. They love everything smoky in art and collect smoky things. What it is? These are things that do not have the quality of significance, fundamentality. This is something funny, lonely, vulnerable, it could be a toy, it could be some kind of petty-bourgeois rug. This cult of optionality is also an important shade in their collective program.

The artist Igor Grabar wrote to Alexander Benois: “You are too in love with the past to appreciate anything modern” - and this is absolutely fair. The past that they are in love with is a fictional past, it is a dream, it is a certain image of beauty that we can look at, like from an auditorium through an inverted binoculars. And in this there is admiration, and irony, and bitterness, and pity.

And these people - with this system of values, people of a completely chamber warehouse - want to redirect Russian culture towards the West and change established public tastes. To do this, they publish a magazine, which is modeled after European magazines that promote the Art Nouveau style. Because the aesthetics of the "World of Art" is precisely a variant of modernity.

In each of the countries this style was called in its own way: Art Nouveau, Secession, Liberty, Art Nouveau, Jugendstil. In other words, "new style". The word "style" is important in itself - it means a preoccupation with form. In each country, modernity exists in its own forms, but there is something in common: the forms are taken from the entire cultural stock of mankind, from the common memory. This general serves as a support for the individual, the past gives rise to the present. In Russian art, and not only in Russian, before the World of Art there was no concern with form, only with content, and there was no style.

Modern is an invented style, it does not grow by itself. To put it bluntly, it is generated by the industrial revolution. Machine production of the same things and the same lifestyles causes psychological and aesthetic rejection. And the first idea of ​​modernity is the idea of ​​manual labor. First, the so-called Arts and Crafts Movement arose in England under the leadership of the writer, publisher and artist William Morris. And then its branches appeared in different countries. They had a double idea. First, to make things beautiful, individual things, not assembly lines. And secondly, to unite artisans in the production of these things. Early modern in general is very connected with socialist ideas.

Thus, early European modernity was bidirectional. On the one hand, there is an archaic, restoration vector: giant factories are being built around, and we will go back to crafts, to medieval workshops. And at the same time, it is also a futuristic vector, because all this is being done in the name of a utopian future. In the future, the whole world should be saved by beauty and turn into a solid city-sun.

But back to the World of Art. Sponsors are needed to publish a magazine. Who gives them money? An unexpected detail: Nicholas II gave a significant amount - because he was asked by Valentin Serov, who painted a portrait of the emperor. But there were also two permanent sponsors. The first is the entrepreneur and philanthropist Savva Mamontov, who, however, went bankrupt by 1899. The second is Princess Maria Tenisheva, she will subsidize the publication until the final. Both Mamontov and Tenisheva were the initiators of a Russian program similar to the Arts and Crafts Movement. In their estates - one in Abramtsevo, the second in Talash-kino - they created art workshops. It is known that Vrubel painted balalaikas and fireplaces at Mamontov's, but this was no disrespect for the artist, exactly the opposite. And it is not surprising that these two people support Benois and Diaghilev.

Mikhail Vrubel. Portrait of Savva Mamontov. 1897Wikimedia Commons / State Tretyakov Gallery

Mikhail Vrubel. Valkyrie (Portrait of Princess Maria Tenisheva). 1899Wikimedia Commons / Odessa Art Museum

The magazine was published for six years, from 1898 to 1904. Among his subsidiaries were the Contemporary Art salon, where they sold furniture, porcelain, and so on, and the Evenings of Contemporary Music circle, and another magazine, Artistic Treasures of Russia, with the same Benois as editor. Torah. Exhibitions of Russian and foreign art were organized - there were five of them, and Diaghilev arranged three more before the publication of the magazine. In general, Diaghilev was the driving force behind all initiatives - a man of irrepressible energy and outstanding organizational talents. Among his most high-profile projects is a historical exhibition of Russian portraits, where he practically reveals to the public Russian art of the 18th - first half of the 19th century. Diaghilev himself collected works for this exhibition, going around the estates and literally seducing the owners. In 1907, he held a series of concerts of Russian music at the Paris Grand Opera, and from here begins the history of the subsequent more than twenty years of entreprise - the famous Russian Seasons.

Leon Bakst. Portrait of Sergei Diaghilev with his nanny. 1906 Wikimedia Commons / State Russian Museum

Diaghilev goes abroad, and the practical activities of the association remain with Alexandre Benois, and he is an ideologist, but not an organizer. And in the "World of Art" hard times are coming. But paradoxically, the likelihood of a quick decline was built into the community program itself. Because these people, who valued friendship in their own narrow circle, professed the utmost breadth and tolerance in their artistic policy. They were ready to cooperate with everyone and involve everyone in their projects. Everyone in whom at least something alive is visible - even if this living thing is barely visible and is alien to the World of Art itself. In the first issue of the magazine there were many reproductions of Vasnetsov's paintings, although there were no his fans among the publishers and in general the World of Art opposed the movement. They were sure that Repin was outdated, but published reproductions of his paintings, recognizing their importance. But the era of manifest wars is already beginning, when it is customary to disengage, to fight for your view of the world and creative originality. Under these conditions, the idea of ​​general unification in the name of aesthetic utopia becomes very vulnerable.

After the performance of the ballet "Petrushka" at the Paris Opera. 1920s From left to right: Nikolai Kremnev, Alexander Benois, Boris Grigoriev, Tamara Karsavina, Sergei Diaghilev, Vatslav Nijinsky and Serge Lifar. ullstein bild / Getty Images

But in 1904, in the name of this idea of ​​unification, the World of Art made a strong gesture - they abandoned their own brand and joined the Moscow Union of Russian Artists. Landscape painters of the Savrasov-Levitan line are the soloists there, impressionism is in vogue there, which is alien to St. Petersburg artists - and, of course, no unification is possible. In 1910, the "World of Art" restores its own name. But the World of Art does not give up the idea of ​​the widest cooperation, and now at their exhibitions one can meet both the symbolists from the Blue Rose, and the Frondeurs from the Jack of Diamonds, and in general anyone - up to Malevich.

Benois avoids power, so in 1910 Nicholas Roerich became the head of the World of Art, a man and artist of a completely different, almost hostile warehouse to the true World of Art. And in 1921, the association will be completely headed by Ilya Mashkov, the most shameless of the "Jacks of Diamonds" - he simply usurps the brand. But this will be a posthumous existence, although formally the "World of Art" will be dissolved only in 1924. By that time, none of its founders would be left in Russia, except for Benoit (he will also soon emigrate), Lansere and Ostroumova-Lebedeva.

Nicholas Roerich in Tibetan costume. 1920s The Library of Congress

I must say that the ideologists and creators of the World of Art were partly aware of the ephemeral nature of their undertaking. They felt the onset of another life and the appearance of other people who would push them out of the cultural field. This feeling was clearly articulated in Diaghilev's speech delivered as early as 1905. And this quite prophetic speech is worth quoting:

“Don’t you feel that the long gallery of portraits of great and small people, with which I tried to populate the magnificent halls of the Tauride Palace, is only a grandiose and convincing result, summed up by a brilliant, but, alas, and dead period of our history?<…>I have earned the right to say this loudly and definitely, since with the last breath of the summer wind I ended my long detours along and across the vast Russia. And it was after these greedy wanderings that I became especially convinced that the time had come for the results. I observed this not only in the brilliant images of ancestors, so obviously distant from us, but mainly in the descendants living out their lives. The end of life is here. Deaf boarded-up majorats, terrible with their dead splendor palaces, strangely inhabited by today's lovely, average people who cannot bear the burden of former parades. It is not people who survive here, but life survives. And that's when I was completely convinced that we live in a terrible time of change; we are condemned to die in order to give rise to a new culture that will take from us what is left of our weary wisdom. History says this, aesthetics confirms the same. And now, having plunged into the depths of the history of artistic images and thus becoming invulnerable to reproaches of extreme artistic radicalism, I can boldly and confidently say that he is not mistaken who is sure that we are witnesses of the greatest historical moment of the results and ends in the name of a new unknown culture that arises by us, but also sweeps us away. And therefore, without fear and disbelief, I raise a glass to the ruined walls of beautiful palaces, as well as to the new testaments of a new aesthetics.

RUSSIAN MODERN (see Art Nouveau, "modern style") - a conditional term that reflects the development of art in Russia at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. The term "modern" is difficult to designate a certain style, since in the period 1880-1910s. various artistic movements and schools developed intensively. In general, the art of this period is characterized by anti-eclectic aspirations and the search for a "grand style" that unites different types of art. In Russia, we should add to this the tradition of objectivity, the materiality of artistic forms. These forms did not become ephemeral, destructive and atectonical, as happened in the art of the French Art Nouveau or the German Art Nouveau (cf. "Viennese workshops").

Moscow architectural modern. Stylizations on the Gothic theme and neo-Russian stylizations in Shekhtel's work have a common feature - the grotesque, based on a combination of exaggerated rendering of historical details and a plastic solution to the interior space. In the neo-Russian style, he completed the projects of the pavilion of the Russian Department of the International Exhibition in Glasgow in 1901 and the Yaroslavsky railway station in Moscow in 1902, and V.M. Vasnetsov. The architectural image of these buildings reproduced the epic spirit of antiquity with the help of a synthesis of traditional and innovative compositional techniques and means. Among Shekhtel's buildings of the internationally decorative branch of Russian Art Nouveau, which had Franco-Belgian and Viennese roots, the most fundamental and milestone in terms of its development is the building of the Ryabushinsky mansion in Moscow. The theme of the wave, plastic lines and forms runs through various elements of decoration and equipment of the interiors of the mansion, designed by the architect himself.

St. Petersburg Art Nouveau is often seen as a variant of the Northern Art Nouveau of Finland and Latvia. Its feature is a combination of classical rigor and rationalistic clarity of facades and interiors. (Lidval, Meltzer, A.I. Gauguin, N.V. Vasiliev, Baranovsky, Brzhozovsky)

In St. Petersburg, at the Meltzer factory, light, comfortable furniture was made from light woods, including inserts of colored glass that were fashionable for that time. Among Meltzer's interiors, one can note the Great Gothic Study of Nicholas II in the Winter Palace, the interiors of a cottage in Peterhof, the interiors of the Ryabushinsky mansion in Moscow.

At the beginning of the 20th century Two exhibitions were held, the task of which was to show the wide audience the possibilities of a new style in creating an interior. The first - "Architecture and art crafts of a new style" - in Moscow in December 1902. The second is "Modern Art" in January 1903 in St. Petersburg.

The spread of the new movement in art was facilitated by the St. Petersburg magazines "World of Art" and "Art and Artistic Industry". The first issue of The World of Art was published in November 1898, which subsequently took a leading place among the literary and artistic publications in Russia of that time. The heart of the magazine was Sergei Diaghilev. With its appearance, the magazine contrasted sharply with the periodicals of that time. The artistic orientation of the "World of Art" was associated with Art Nouveau and Symbolism. In contrast to the ideas of the Wanderers, the artists of the World of Art proclaimed the priority of the aesthetic principle in art. With the creation of the World of Art, Lev Bakst became an active participant in it. There are almost no floral ornaments on the covers and vignettes made by Bakst for the magazine. Bakst also successfully worked in the portrait genre.

A striking example of Russian Art Nouveau is the work of the outstanding artist Mikhail Alexandrovich Vrubel (1856-1910). The cult of fragile beauty, mystery and painful tenderness, which characterizes the aesthetic ideal of the Modern period, was not alien to Vrubel either. However, even in the most fantastic plots inherent in the Western European tradition, for example, in a series of sketches for the Faust panel, the artistic-figurative structure and even the conventional Vrubel style are much deeper and more traditional than those of the European Symbolists. As an artist of the Art Nouveau period, Vrubel is more erudite and broader, his talent goes beyond the boundaries of a certain era, method and style. In the painting "Seated Demon" (1890), surrounded by fantastic "stone flowers", Vrubel portrayed a dull, naturalistically painted figure, similar to an academic model, designed to personify a demon - "the spirit of denial, the spirit of doubt." In Russian Art Nouveau, decorative stylization tendencies close to Franco-Belgian Art Nouveau (Fig. 309) coexisted with oriental aspirations (see Russian ballet seasons in Paris). Similar trends are characteristic of the architecture of this time. An outstanding artist, architect Fyodor Osipovich Shekhtel (1859-1926) fluctuated between the style of Viennese Art Nouveau, French Art Nouveau, Neo-Gothic and Neoclassicism. A characteristic monument of the St. Petersburg Modern is the building of the Vitebsk railway station (designed by S. A. Brzhozovsky and S. I. Minash, 1902-1904). Its main façade is asymmetrical, which is typical of Art Nouveau architecture, the interiors are dominated by Art Nouveau floral motifs, and the northeast, spectacularly rounded corner of the building is decorated with a Doric colonnade in an unusual combination with "modern" ornamentation. Similar allusions, the combination of classics with new elements are also characteristic of other stylistic trends in the architecture of the St. Petersburg Modern.