Inter'er v Rossii Traditsii, Moda, Stil

by Julia Demindenko

St. Petersburg: Aurora, 2000

256 pages, with 443 illustrations, 300 in color.

a review by Greg King

This oversized and weighty book is a gold-mine of contemporary and rare photographs, sketches, and paintings which amply demonstrate the wealth of Russian interior design from the 15th Century to 1910. Six extensive chapters focus on the different epochs in Russian interior design: the 15th-17th centuries; Baroque and Rococo; Classicism; Biedermeier and Romanticism; Eclecticism; and Art Nouveau. The text is authoritative, annotated, and linked to the illustrations selected.

One welcome addition to this book is its focus on the last two distinct decorative styles before the Revolution, Eclecticism and Art Nouveau, both of which have been given little space in other works. Usually, discussions of Gothic Revival, for example, are dismissed with contempt; here, Demindenko leads her readers carefully through the evolution of the style and associated tastes, not only with a text filled with new information but through photographs and illustrations which help convey the rich sense of which she has written. She draws the architecture and design out through lengthy discussions of the work of the famous and not so well known decorators, craftsmen, and others involved in the movement, with large expanses of the text devoted to men like Ippolit Monighetti, who played such an important role in Imperial and aristocratic design in the reign of Alexander II.

I admit I was ecstatic to see more than sixty pages of text on Russian Art Nouveau, or Style Moderne as it was called within the Empire. Architects and designs previously consigned to a few sentences are here dealt with at great length. Especially interesting is Demidenko's account of the work of Roman and Feodor Meltzer, focusing almost exclusively on their commissions for Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra. This is the first book I have encountered which discusses the renovations made by Empress Alexandra to the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoye Selo and the Lower Palace at Alexandria, Peterhof; most surprising is the comprehensive treatment of other buildings about which little is none, including the Polish hunting lodges and Krasnov's White Palace at Livadia.

Demindenko's six chapters provide the best single comprehensive over-view of Russian interior design that I've personally read. The first section, on Pre-Petrine and Petrine architecture and design, deals extensively with the Kremlin and Terem Palace, rarely seen rooms at Kolomenskoye, Muscovite boyar styles, and the influence of the Byzantine Empire. After briefly discussing Peter the Great and some of his more notable buildings like the Summer Palace and Mon Plaisir, the book moves into the world of Elizabeth and Catherine with a discussion of the Baroque and Rococo, focusing on the influence of Rastrelli. The Catherine Palace, Oranienbaum, Peterhof, and the Winter Palace are all evoked in the text and illustrations, along with the houses of the Sheremetievs, Shouvalovs, Galitzines, and Yusupovs, amongst others. Demindenko admirably condenses the work of Charles Cameron for Catherine the Great as an introduction to Neo-Classical architecture. Along with Pavlovsk, Tsarskoye Selo, Peterhof, and the Winter Palace, she writes of and illustrates other examples, including Ostankino, Kuskovo, Arkhangelskoye, and the Anichkov Palace. The fourth section of the book discusses the reign of Nicholas I by focusing on the Gothic Cottage at Alexandria, Peterhof, the work of German architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Russian aristocratic country estates, and the reconstruction of the Winter Palace and the Grand Kremlin Palace.

Much of this is familiar territory to students of Russian architecture and design, though the text and photographs reveal new detail and insight. Where the book substantially differs from previous works is with the beginning of Chapter Five, a broad discussion of Russian eclecticism, focusing on the last three Romanov sovereigns at the Winter Palace, the Anichkov Palace, and Livadia, as well as much new material on the Imperial yachts and hunting lodges. The second half of the chapter focuses on the aristocracy, with much on the Yusupovs, Faberge's decorative arts, the influence of Victor Vasnetsov, and the wealthy Moscow merchants, as well as an educated discussion on society and taste, concentrated on fashion which, though it may be out of place in a book on interior design, is connected by Demindenko's text to the eclectic influences of aristocratic and Imperial houses.

For me, the best chapter of the book is the last, on Art Nouveau, simply because it presents a wealth of previously unknown information and unique photographs. Demindenko focuses on the tastes of Empress Alexandra as a trend-setter in interior fashion, a view which few of her contemporary critics would have supported, but which here is amply demonstrated through examples and accounts. Although Art Nouveau was perhaps an inevitable trend in Russia as it swept across Europe and the world, Alexandra did much to promote the movement, and her example was followed by both the Imperial Family (there are particularly good sections on the Dowager Empress and some of the Romanov Crimean estates) and the aristocracy (who would have thought that Prince Felix Yusupov and his mother Zenaide, both vehement critics of the Empress and her "lack" of style, were so influenced by her in these years that entire suites of rooms in their St. Petersburg, Tsarskoye Selo, and Crimean houses were decorated in the fashionable Style Moderne?). The discussion of the Alexander Palace forms much of the chapter, supplemented with a wealth of photographs which are new to me, but Demindenko also looks at the Lower Palace at Alexandria, Peterhof, the White Palace at Livadia, and even, somewhat surprisingly, the interiors at Ilinskoye, the country estate of Grand Duke Serge Alexandrovich and his wife Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, near Moscow. Demindenko has also traced much of the original furniture and decorative items from the Alexander Palace, and presents contemporary black and white photographs showing them as they were, alongside present-day pictures, many taken on the upper floor of Pavlovsk Palace, where, in the last year, fragments of these Tsarskoye Selo interiors have been carefully re-created.

This is not a book that pretends to be a comprehensive analysis of Russian interior design and style. There are here no simple cottages, no little dachas, or apartments of the demi-monde, which have often filled the pages of other works on the subject. Demindenko's scope is grand: she is concerned only with Imperial and aristocratic examples, and has done a wonderful job of evoking each of these distinct epochs through her informative yet approachable text and beautiful photographs. The book admirably succeeds in capturing the essence of Imperial Russia and a way of life long since vanished.