St. Petersburg, Russia - “Neoclassicism in Russia” is the first monographic exhibition in the country, chronologically limited to the years 1900-1932. It has a composite character to reflect synthetic nature of neoclassical quest that has penetrated all spheres of national culture at that time. This quest was especially notable in architecture, painting, decorative and applied arts and influenced literature, theatre, music, fashion and lifestyle of Russian people. The exhibition will be on display till January 12, 2009 at the State Russian Museum.

Neoclassicism was a retrospective movement in the culture of Europe and the USA at the beginning of 20^th century. Striving to create “Le Grand Manière” the representatives of this movement resorted to lofty ideals of antiquity, the Renaissance and Classicism.

Neoclassicism has given the world the architecture, decorative and visual arts of everlasting value and introduced the names of Auguste Perret, Peter Behrens, Adolf Loos, Pierre Puvis De Chavannes, Maurice Denis, Franz von Stuck, Ferdinand Hodler, Aristide Maillol, Emile-Antoine Bourdelle, Gustav Vigeland, Ivan Meštrovic and others. During the years of rapid evolution of avant-garde art neoclassicists saw their mission in preserving the traditions of classical art, threatened by ‘none-objectivity’ leading (as it seemed in the 1910s) to arts extermination. At different times neoclassical ideas nourished such artists as Andre Derain, Pablo Picasso, Gino Severini, Giorgio de Chirico, Salvador Dali, Kazimir Malevich and others.

The exhibition features paintings, graphics and sculptures from the Russian Museum collection – works in different genres by Valentin Serov, Léon Bakst, Konstantin Somov, Boris Kustodiev, Zinaida Serebryakova, Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, Georgy Narbut, Sergei Chekhonin, Alexander Yakovlev, Vasily Shukhayev, Sergei Konenkov, Alexander Matveyev, Ivan Fomin, Alexander Samokhvalov, Kazimir Malevich and others.

Those who want to see grandiose allegories or pompous, “normative” art at the exposition will be disappointed. Such art could not originate in Russia early in the 20^th century, when the ruling ideas in the country were the cult of individualism, weariness from ideological “fetters” of the narodnik movement (populism), skepsis about “authorities” and all kinds of didactics, theatre-centrism and the ideas of dramatization of life.

The art of neoclassicism calls up to spiritual heights, nevertheless remaining adequate to human. Full of humanistic ideas, neoclassicism is a warm, delicate and intellectual art, sometimes intimate and exquisite, but always filled with classical symbolism. Those symbols were easily “read” by educated people of that time, but were later forgotten, while many achievements of neoclassicism assimilated into some other movements (mainly social realism).

The Russian Museum collection contains over 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/