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Room of Archaic Art. Opening of a new permanent
exhibition Ever since 1997, the State Hermitage has been carrying out a programme of reconstructing a permanent exhibition that is to meet world standards of the today's museum while preserving the unique artistic and historical features of the museum complex created in the mid-19th century in the New Hermitage building. In May 2005, there was the opening of a new permanent exhibition in the Room of Archaic Art which showed that the method of stylization, i.e. the creation of modern exhibitions using the stylistic conventions of a 19th-century museum, is the only possible solution if we are speaking about reconstructing rooms in the New Hermitage. According to Leo von Klenze's design, this room was intended to house a library. Beginning in the 1860s, due to the purchase of the collections of the Marquis Kashtan, the Demidovs and Laval, the ground floor of the building was turned over to exhibitions of ancient art. The Room of Archaic Art was used to accommodate "the most ancient things" selected in accordance with the scientific views that prevailed in the second half of the 19th century. During the 1930s, the exhibition was rebuilt by Oscar Valdgauer, who designed it along artistic and historical principle that counterbalanced the decorative principle existing in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries. This is the way that the exhibition looked for more than 70 years, except for minor additions. Reconstruction of the Room of Archaic Art began with restoration work. In the process of restoring the room, all the elements of interior decoration were brought up to date and restored. A new lighting system was introduced, just as in all the rooms of the ground floor of the New Hermitage, using light to emphasize the architectural composition of the room. It was decided to use "historical" display cases which were once intended by Klenze for the New Hermitage. A set of 16 old display cases was restored and partly recreated according to examples from the mid-19th - early 20th centuries. Display cases are decorated with figures of griffins and gilded tops made from valuable sorts of wood (Karelian birch, amaranth) with the use of marquetry and intarsia techniques. The display cases are equipped with light-emitting diode equipment, shatterproof glass and alarm systems. The lighting design of the display cases lends contemporary aesthetics to the exhibition. The construction of the exhibition corresponds to the main trends adopted by the world's leading museums - spectacularism, simplicity and clarity. In a step-by-step manner, the exhibition presents works of the artistic centres of Archaic Greece and Ancient Cyprus. The exhibits are grouped according to themes that are important to the comprehension of early Greek culture: religion, mythology, epos, arms, military valour and female beauty. The exhibition provides an idea of the main stages in the development of art from the Mycenaean age to the turn of the Classical age (27th-5th centuries B.C.). In the Room of Archaic Art there is plenty of mass-scale artwork, which makes it possible to recreate the peculiarities of the style in "repeatable" forms. Masterpieces of the collection are especially highlighted: in the centre of the room there are the celebrated works of Athenian vase-painters: signed vases by Euphronius, Charinos, Epictetus, the Vase with a Swallow and an amphora by the master Duris. The exhibition has a multimedia information centre which helps visitors get a fuller understanding of the culture of Archaic Greece and Ancient Cyprus, as well as appreciate correctly the significance of the exhibits shown in the room. The updating of the display cases in the section on "The Art of Ancient Cyprus" and the creation of the multimedia centre were made possible by support from the Costakis and Leto Severis Foundation (Republic of Cyprus). |
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Copyright © 2006 State
Hermitage Museum |
