International conference “Italianità as a Cultural Construct: The Russian Perspective”

 
10.03.2014
 
School of Arts and Cultural Heritage

The Consul General of Italy in St. Petersburg Luigi Estero began the first session with the remark that this conference could be considered one of the last and most carefully prepared events of the year of Italy in Russia. In the course of two days, conference participants examined various aspects of Russian-Italian cultural ties involving the visual arts, architecture, literature, and library science.

Julia Arutiunyan (St. Petersburg State Academy of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture) presented first with a report titled “Russian Interpretation of the “Romanesque” and Italian Sculpture of the 11th-13th centuries.” She began with the first mention of the term “Romanesque” (in her view, dating to 1818). Then she traced the evolution of terminology for works of 11th-13th centuries art and the correlation of the chronological framing of the Romanesque with changes in the interpretation of this phenomenon in Western European and Russian historiography.

In the next report, titled “Russian Polyphemus: Historical and Cultural Heritage in Francesco Colonna’s Novel ‘The Strife of Love in a Dream’ (Venice, 1499) and a Draft of its Russian Edition” Boris Sokolov (Russian State Univeristy for the Humanities, Moscow) presented the history of study, commentary, and translation into Russian of Colonna’s complete works. Producing the Russian text required not only a complete translation (Boris Sokolov), but preserving the features of the original as well: the format of the page, font, initial letters and woodcut illustrations by unknown Italian master in the 15th century (Sergei Egorov).

Julia Ratomskaya (Russian State Univeristy for the Humanities / Museum of Architecture, Moscow) spoke on “St. George’s Church in Kolomenskoye: The Problem of “Russian” and “Italian” Correlation.” Having summarized previous research traditions, Prof. Ratomskaya tried to refine the prototypical group of Italian architectural monuments that are reflected in the formal resolution of St. George’s Church.

The next report, by Luydmila Limanskaya (Russian State Univeristy for the Humanities, Moscow), was devoted to the history of Raphael’s graphic reconstructions of Ancient Roman monuments that involved numismatic, philological and archaeological materials. These reconstructions, preserved only in writings, had a great influence on forming the research methods of art historian Johann Winckelmann.

The Roman theme was also addressed in Irina Khmelevskikh’s (Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences, SPB) report “Old and New Rome in Peter I’s Library. The Production of Prints by Giovanni Giacomo de Rossi.” Focusing on the reconstruction of what was destroyed in the Peter I Library, Prof. Khmelevskikh managed to isolate a group of Italian architectural treatises and albums by various authors on “contemporary” Roman monuments. In Russia a large number of these books were mistakenly attributed to the famous Italian architecture theorist Vincenzo Scamozzi, whose ideas were close to the Russian Tsar.

Continuing the theme of Italian influence on Russian architecture, Anna Korndorf (State Institute for Art Studies, Moscow) gave a report titled “Mythology of the ‘Italian House’ in Russian Architecture of the 18th century.” She examined the phenomenon of the “Italian House” in Petersburg and Moscow architecture in connection with the functional and symbolic loads deposited into these buildings by customers.

The next report by V.M. Uspenkij (State Hermitage) on “Italian taste” in Russian architecture of the second half of the 18th century developed the theme of “imaginary Italy” at the Russian court. The author analyzed the motives, aspirations, and ideas that guided the Russian Empress Catherine II (who had never been to Italy) in choosing court architects and the “ideal architectural model” that was sure to become a model of authentically Russian architecture.

The second day of the conference began with a report by Krasmira Lukicheva (Russian State Univeristy for the Humanities, Moscow) titled “The Reception of Italian Art in the West and in Russia and the Identity Problem of National Cultures.” Prof. Lukicheva examined the Italian art’s loss of status as a model for national artistic schools in the 19th century. 

Ilya Pechenkin (Russian State Univeristy for the Humanities, Moscow) delivered a report titled “In Italy even the Architecture has Poetry: The Role of the Italian Experience in the Life and Work of Russian Architects in the Time of Eclecticism.” He demonstrated how Russian eclectic architects’ refusal of the dominance of Italian models, combined in their practice with academic thought, formed Italian pensionerism.

A.Yu. Takhtaeva (EUSP) devoted her report titled “‘Fight,’ ‘Duel,’ ‘Arrest’: Repin in Italy” to the question of transforming the image of Italy in the minds of Russian artists in the second half of the 19th century. Having analyzed the history of individual works by Ilya Repin, the author demonstrated the direct influence of the Venetian art exhibition of 1887 on changing the Russian painter’s attitude toward contemporary Italian art.

In her report titled “Cultural Reception and the Search for Identity: Russia and Italy in the Context of European Modernism,” E.V. Okhotnikova (Moscow City Pedagogical University / Higher School of Economics, Moscow) considered the regional specificity of the Liberty Style (an Italian version of Art Nouveau), which in Italy has become nearly synonymous with nostalgia for the beautiful past.

In a report titled “On the History of the Concept of ‘Humanism’ in Russian Modernism” I.Yu. Svetlikova (EUSP) considered Petr Florensky’s ‘reverse perspective’ and the basic notions embedded in the term “humanism” in the early 20th century (the anti-Christian movement, formed under the strong influence of Kabbalah, was endowed with a whole complex of anti-Semitic clichés.)

Ilia Doronchenikov (EUSP / St. Petersburg State Academy of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture) began the last session with a report titled “Text in Place of Picture. Italian Futurism in Russia: Particularities of Perception.” He analyzed the penetration of futurist ideas into Russia and the specifics of their development in the works of Russian artists, critics, and political culture activists.

Nadia Podzemskaya (CNRS France) titled her report “Faces of Italy or Images of Creativity? Mantegna and Tintoretto in the Early Works of Alexander Gabrichevskij”. She elaborated on the origins of the theory of perception and typology of artistic creativity in Gabrichevskij based on a contrast of pictorial images and the mobility of Tintoretto and static nature of Mantegna.

The topic of “the Italian” in the 20th century was continued in a report by E.V. Tarakanova (State Hermitage, SPB) titled “‘Italianità in the Context of Art of the Totalitarian Era: Fascist Italy and Soviet Russia.” Prof. Tarakanova revealed the specifics of cultural references to “awesome power,” “discipline,” and “physical force” in Ancient Rome and in Italian radical fascist criticism.

The conference was concluded with Natalia Mazur’s (EUSP / Moscow State University) report titled “Moses, Michelangelo, Mussolini and Mandelstam.” Mazur presented a detailed literary commentary on Osip Mandelstam’s poem “Rome” (1937), previously considered full of inaccuracies and factual errors.

Marina Schultz