Beyond the End of the Driveway: 25 June 2008: Hermitage

[Disclaimer: I’m actually in France now, so this blog is behind by two months and then some. Sorry. When I was frantically packing at the last minute for being in France for the year (I still don’t know why I can’t plan a bit more in advance for this sort of thing) I neglected to pack my journals. Thus, I have only my pictures to guide me and the narratives will become shorter for the moment. I plan to come back and flesh this out after I’ve returned home. So, things may look a little different in a year, though I doubt anyone will come back to notice.]

With our student IDs, we had the opportunity to go to the State Hermitage Museum (a.k.a. the Winter Palace plus adjacent buildings) for free. Ranking art museums can go two ways: physical space occupied by the museum in terms of square footage, or the number of works contained in the museum. By one of these counts, the Hermitage is the second largest art museum in the world, after the Louvre in Paris. By the other count, it surpasses the Louvre. I’m not sure which is which, but there you go.

Daniel and I planned to swing by after classes today, and we were joined by another student from Brown, Nat. We were unpleasantly surprised to found a considerably long line, but I assume that had something to do with the weather. Considering that it was bitterly cold, even by my standards, and windy enough to cause a spectacle of popping umbrellas (it was raining, too), I guess most tourists decided to go inside.

We tried to keep up a cheery mood, but later turned our thoughts to conserving energy. We had the chance to chat with a pleasant woman from Exeter, England, in front of us. She was a bit put out by the weather, but we assured her that it could change on a dime so she shouldn’t worry. She told us that she was in Russia for her husband’s wedding to a Russian woman. I didn’t want to probe, but she seemed a bit less than thrilled at this news.

Once we finally got into the building, our wait wasn’t over. In good Russian fashion, there were four cash registers, but only two with people in them. Once we reached the window, we proudly flashed our student IDs and were on our merry way. Yes, although having student IDs will get you in free, you still have to wait. Lucky for me, no one checked my bag as I brought it through security, so this became the only one of three visits to the Hermitage when I was able to take pictures with reckless abandon.

This is the inner courtyard of the Hermitage. Feeling chilly?

This is a relatively small room by Hermitage standards. It is the Peter the Great memorial chamber. If I remember correctly, this particular room was designed by the same individual who dreamt up St. Isaac’s Cathedral.

If the bountiful artistic masterpieces on the walls and the gilding on the ceilings aren’t enough for you, look down. The parquet floors are stunning.

The Armory Hall, I believe. Very nice.

The imperial throne, last occupied by Nicholas II.

I was so proud of myself at this point. This is a statue of Cupid and Psyche done by Antonio Canova. I thought this piece looked kind of familiar. A quick bit of research reveals that this is the second time Canova sculpted this piece. The first version is housed in the Louvre, where I had a chance to go five years ago.

The Hermitage is so named because Catherine the Great liked to hole herself up in her palace, and built an extra wing so she could secret herself away further. Various tsars and tsarinas after followed her example, adding more wings to the original palace. Nicholas I was the first to convert the Hermitage into a public art museum. The trick was that he was still living in part of the palace, so things were arranged so the palace and the museum were separate. This is a picture of the interior of what used to be the main entrance to the museum.

This is an exact replica of a corridor in the Vatican. It’s nice, but I still think I’d like to go to Rome someday.

Madonna Litta, by Leonardo da Vinci.