The State Russian Museum exhibits ~ The Power of Water

Wednesday, 13 August 2008 23:54

St. Petersburg, Russia - On August 14, the State Russian Museum opened “The Power of Water” exhibition in the Benois Wing of the Mikhailovsky Palace. The exposition comprises more than 150 exhibits from the collection of the State Russian Museum alongside circa 100 exhibits from private collections. Human’s life from one’s birth and to decease is connected with water. Water is not a source of life: water is life. The human himself can well be called aqua sapiens, as more than two thirds of the organism consist of water.

It seems that this deep physiological connection of aqua sapiens with water turned this element that has not been cognized completely in one of the greatest subjects. Poets, writers, composers and artists of different countries and nations have been referred to the motif from time immemorial. Russia and Russian fine art are not exceptions. It appears that icon-painters, painters and sculptors of the 18^th-21^st centuries, animators, photographers and video art masters did not turn to the theme of water for no special reason. Quite often they embodied the same motifs in different epochs, independently of one another!

The exhibition does not pretend to cover the topic in full. It leaves beyond the scope many works from the permanent exposition of the Russian Museum that are well known to public (Vasily Surikov’s Stepan Razin or Hovhannes Aivazovsky’s The Ninth Wave).  It also does not include works that were recently shown at monographic or subject exhibitions (Arkhip Kuindzhi, Ivan Shishkin and St Petersburg. A Portrait of the City and its Citizens).

We emphasized the archetype motifs that were used by the artists of various epochs and stylistic tendencies. The main subject modules uniting the works by artists and sculptors represent biblical, mythological and historical interpretation of the subject. They demonstrate the uncontrollable power of the water element, metaphorical perception of water as the symbol of life in its quick current and solemn serenity, ablution in numerous scenes of bathing, reflection of the world in the water glassy surface, existence by the water in all its varieties.

Referring to water, famous masters and artists that are less known today, represented in the halls of classical and modern art, embody genetic memory of this one of the four greatest elements (water, fire, air, earth) that draws a human with its closeness and mystery.

The organizers of the exhibition are especially grateful to private collectors and galleries that lent their works in addition to the pieces from the Russian Museum collection. The Russian Museum collection contains circa 400.000 exhibits. The main complex of museum buildings - the Mikhailovsky Palace and Benois Wing - houses the permanent exhibition of the Russian Museum, tracing the entire history of Russian art from the tenth to the twentieth centuries. The museum collection embraces all forms, genres, schools and movements of art. Visit The State Russian Museum at : http://www.rusmuseum.ru/eng/museum/

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