Trezzini monument on the university street. The Trezzini monument is already on the University embankment

Monument to Domenico Trezzini - a monument in St. Petersburg to the outstanding Italian architect, the first architect of the city on the Neva, Domenico Andrea Trezzini.

D. A. Trezzini (1670 - 1734) was one of the first foreign architects in Russia. Founder of the European school in Russian architecture. He built many magnificent buildings in St. Petersburg and Kronstadt. The most famous works: the Peter and Paul Cathedral on Hare Island, the complex of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, the layout of Kronstadt and Fort Kronshlot near the island of Kotlin, the reconstruction in stone of the Peter and Paul Fortress, the Anichkov Bridge across the Fontanka, the expansion of the Winter Palace of Peter I under Catherine I, etc. The architect was buried in the cemetery of Sampsonievsky Cathedral, but his grave has not survived to this day.

In 1995, an unnamed square in front of the Trezzini House (designed by Trezzini himself between 1721 and 1723) was named after the architect. His monument was erected here in 2014. Authors of the project: sculptor P. Ignatiev, architect P. Bogryantsev.

A monument to Domenico Trezzini was erected today near the house at 21 Universitetskaya embankment. “Karpovka” asked experts and ordinary citizens their opinion about the new sculpture.

Today, on Trezzini Square in front of the architect’s house at 21 Universitetskaya embankment, the technical installation of the monument to Domenico Trezzini by sculptor Pavel Ignatiev and architect Pavel Bogryantsev took place. The initiator of the installation of the monument was the Zhorno Charitable Foundation. The grand opening of the monument is scheduled for early next year.

A Karpovka photojournalist captured the process of installing the monument, and the editorial staff asked experts and concerned citizens if they liked the bronze Trezzini.

Sculptor Jan Neumann likes the monument erected today. Karpovka’s interlocutor said that he had always been a supporter of this project, even though the city council had a number of complaints about it. In general, Mr. Neumann admits that the author of the monument is a talented sculptor. “This is an event for the city,” and also a good example of what kind of project a sponsor chooses to implement, the sculptor is sure.

Local historian Alexander Epishov did not like the monument as much as Jan Neumann - he was embarrassed by the “disproportionate” fur coat of the bronze architect, but still he admitted that the sculpture turned out “very nice.”

Architect and former chief artist of St. Petersburg Ivan Uralov also spoke about the monument with a kind smile. In his opinion, the monument is interesting “a little bit” as a joke, because it depicts how an Italian, who came to build St. Petersburg in the 18th century, stands in a fur coat on the banks of the Neva and looks in surprise at the emptiness that surrounds him. Now this place has long been surrounded by historical buildings, and the architect cannot yet say how the “surprised” Trezzini will take root on the embankment.

St. Petersburg singer Alena Crivilla is certainly glad that after so many years a monument to Domenico Trezzini appeared in the city, but the statue itself seems unsuccessful to Karpovka’s interlocutor; the main element of the monument, in her opinion, is not the great architect, but his fur coat. Ms. Crivilla called the monument a "three-meter-tall collapse of scattered curves."

Perhaps a similar opinion is held at the Trezzini Palace Hotel, located at building 21. When the new sculpture was mentioned, they hung up and no longer answered calls.

The head of the department of memorial sculpture of the Museum of Urban Sculpture, Yuri Piryutko, is not yet familiar with the new monument, but he said that in 2003 the museum was presented with a sculptural composition by the Swiss architect Arnoldi “The Hand of Trezzini”, which was supposed to be installed in the same place, near the house 21 on University embankment. However, this idea did not come true; the hand is still kept in the museum’s collections.

13/02/2014

The monument to Domenico Trezzini on the University Embankment has already been installed, but has not yet been opened - they are planning to officially open it only on February 19. I have long wanted to talk to Trezzini’s author, 40-year-old sculptor Pavel Ignatiev, but I couldn’t find a good reason (he is constantly engaged in restoration work, for example, he recently participated in the restoration of sculptural equipment of the Admiralty - he restored four-meter figures of four warriors on the pediments).

AND Finally, the Trezzini monument, on which Ignatiev had been working since 1995, was installed. This is an event in the sculptural life of St. Petersburg. Few lived to see such a result.

Statues don't walk down the street

- Where was the Trezzini monument cast?
- In Moscow.

- Why?
- The Zhorno Foundation took a long time to choose. It worked out well both in terms of cost and quality. The company is called "LitArt". I like it. There is a huge enterprise there, where everything happens quickly before your eyes. There are living rooms for sculptors. I went there and lived there for a week. I worked the wax* from top to bottom in natural size. I got up at 9 in the morning, there is a huge workshop there, I work with them while they have a working day, and from six to two in the morning, when the workshop is empty and no one is making noise, I calmly move on. Some, of course, looked at me like I was crazy... But if they give me the opportunity to calmly finish it, don’t force me to put it in the oven, put it at a convenient height, ask what tools are needed, maybe you, Pavel, should pour this piece... How not to use it ? I worked through the wax. And I worked on the bronze itself.

- Was Trezzini brought disassembled to St. Petersburg?
- No, they collected it there. I specifically went to check how it was being assembled and displayed... Then they brought it in a truck.

- Did they hang something on the pedestal?
- In the back there is a relief of Trezzini leaving his homeland. This is his village, he is riding a donkey... I read in books on optics that residents of the plains and mountains determine distances differently. Since he was from a mountainous area, then this is probably where the sense of space, the urban sense of space from Kronstadt to Shlisselburg came from. There was not a single city then that was built on such a scale. There was Palmanova, an ideal city, but it was 700 by 700 meters. Trezzini had the feeling of a man who grew up in mountain landscapes, and he retained this. Farsightedness that entered through professionalism.

- It’s really strange: a man came from some village and created the concept of the city of St. Peter.
- He was also in good health, because Schlüter and Leblon died quickly, Leblon three years after his arrival, Schlüter a year later. Working with Peter, I think, is such a nightmare. And Trezzini worked here for 31 years! He had five children. His last document is about the construction of two toilets at the Academy of Sciences. This is his last construction project.

- Let's talk about the artistic originality of the Trezzini monument. Why is he like this?
- When I sculpted, I did not intend to make an imitation of Baroque sculpture. To be Rastrelli. One of the cornerstone principles of Baroque music ensembles is that they do not play in wigs. And I also intended not to make a baroque sculpture, but to make a sculpture about the baroque. In general, I think that sculpture should be about sculpture. She has to tell it herself, and the meaning comes out of it. She is the text herself. Plastic. Trezzini is a story about the Baroque. There were several moments that inspired me. At the very beginning, I was struck by Tynianov’s story “The Wax Person.” The way the “Petrine language” is made, a mixture of Russian and foreign. It was a push. Then Greenaway's films. Then Deleuze’s book “The Fold. Leibniz and the Baroque". The state that arises at the moment of reading is important. In some way this book had an effect on me. Then the influence of the Summer Garden. I worked there for five years. And in the Trezzini monument, I didn’t want to imitate a living person, but to make a statue.

- I perceive this as a manifestation of your line of moving away from moulage-like figures, which were customary to pose during the period of socialism, which used the tradition of the 19th century. More precisely, the very, very traditionalism. Rimsky-Korsakov, Dobrolyubov, Popov, Kapodistria, Brusilov, Sobchak... This is not art, but dummies. With primitive semantics of pose and gesture. Brusilov by Jan Neumann, let's say, this is generally naturalism with a map on which the arrow of the Brusilov breakthrough is visible. They didn’t sculpt like that even in Stalin’s time.
- Baroque gives a reason to leave.

- And you don’t need a reason. You already had a memorial plaque to Schwartz, “Unicorn” (in the second courtyard of the Faculty of Philology of St. Petersburg State University), “Monument to the Manager”...
- All these works are done together with Denis Prasolov.

- It seems to me that based on the assimilation of Matveev’s ideas**, within the framework of figurative art, you are moving towards greater convention, partly towards decorativism...
- Matveev had this principle, he said that statues don’t walk down the street.

- You are moving away from the traditional monuments with which the city is filled. In a certain sense, the Trezzini monument is a kind of light caricature, a parody of the monument that could have been if it had been made by Charkin, Gorevoy, Neumann...
- I tried to make one like this (shows).

- But even here there is already this thrown back head of the actor who plays Trezzini. And feigns pride. In the final version, he portrays this pride by laughing, and he also winks at us: he says, I understand what I left for you guys.
- Of course, Trezzini was not like the one on the monument.

- And no one needs him the way he was. Trezzini left two absolute brands of St. Petersburg. The bell tower of the Peter and Paul Cathedral and the building of the Twelve Colleges. And the pose with the head thrown back says: here you go! wow it worked! Compared to the first sketch, the irony was clearly intensified.
- When the first sketch was made, I thought about erecting a monument on Trinity Field. And why is his head thrown back: he stands and looks at the top of the bell tower of the Peter and Paul Cathedral. Looks at these 122 meters.

- Yeah!
- In Baroque times, the most important thing is the ritual, the pose.

- And your pose is cleverly found. This is the whole beauty of Trezzini - the departure from traditionalism, which is done simply with hands, without imagination, without a head, without artistic expressiveness. Did they pinch you at the City Council?
- What is written everywhere about the City Council is absolutely the opposite of what actually happened. Colleagues came here, everyone treated the project well, besides, everyone had known him for a long, long time, and all the comments were to the point.

- They did not stimulate the movement towards naturalism?
- No, on the contrary. There is a concept: the statue must stand. And a simple question: where is the statue’s navel? I had a fur coat, but no body inside. Either you play with this and make a fur coat hanging in space, without a body, or you still make a body under the fur coat. Or, in connection with the fur coat, there was talk about a cut-off surface. Whether she is shaggy or not is not the point. If the shadows are very deep and there are a lot of them, they stop working. Or if it is not rhythmically laid out. Then it’s a black-and-white mess, it no longer works and destroys the volume. We were talking about such purely professional things. The most difficult thing in sculpture is to transfer it from small to large without losing the freshness of the idea. In a large size, often all the corners are stretched, everything becomes calmer...

Trezzini turned out to be conventional with a reasonable amount of pathos. For example, these conditional thin legs. There is something in him from Hoffmann's character.
- And I know the story of how Matveev kept asking Anikushin to lower this hand of Pushkin. On which everything rests.

- This hand reflects the pathos of the eight-column portico of the main facade of the Russian Museum. This is not Pushkin - a real person, this is Pushkin - an element of the classical portico of Russia. In addition, this is Pushkin from Repin’s painting “Pushkin at the Lyceum Act” (1911).
- But this gesture is wonderful.

- Wonderful.
- Matveev also loved Pushkin, but it would have been impossible for him to raise the figure’s hand.

- I have always looked at you as a person who, within the framework of figurative art, is trying to move away from traditionalism and move to search for the resources of convention. What is considered wrong.
- I like marginal opportunities. My Trezzini is not a character from the pedestal of the monument to Catherine II Mikeshina.

Sculptural pedigree

- Did you inherit this workshop in the House of Artists on Pesochnaya Embankment?
- Yes, grandfather’s workshop, and before that Anikushin’s workshop. Here, in addition to mine, works from two sculpture workshops - both my grandmother's and my grandfather's - are brought together.

- Your sculptural pedigree is clear: both grandfather Alexander Mikhailovich Ignatiev and grandmother Lyubov Mikhailovna Kholina are sculptors, students of Alexander Terentyevich Matveev.
- Matveev’s portrait hung in the red corner in every room.

- Dad Peter Alexandrovich...
- Painter.

- Mother…
- Mom is an applied worker. Fabric and tapestry artist. And my second grandfather, my mother’s father Patvakan Petrosovich Grigoryants, was a graphic artist. He studied with Pavel Shillingovsky in the 1920s, a completely different generation. He played the flute on the railway platform for Nicholas II when he was traveling to the Caucasian Front.

- And you studied at the Secondary Art School?
- Yes, with Viktor Ivanovich Bazhinov. And then at the academy.

- Who did you study with at the academy?
- First at Gorevoy’s, then at Anikushin’s workshop (3rd-6th courses).

- What year did you enter?
- In 1991. When it was clear that no one needed the sculpture at all. Here is the turntable, it was in every workshop here. This is a bearing circle from a tank turret. As far as I know, I talked to my colleagues, and I think I’m the only one who still has this circle. The others threw him out. Because in the nineties they thought: who needs all this?

- What is your diploma work?
- Trezzini was. Not this one, but a little different. My very first Trezzini appeared back in 1993.

- A plaque for Evgeny Schwartz on a house on Malaya Posadskaya - is this your first work in an urban environment?
- Yes, I was in my fifth year then, 1996. Before that, I just helped my grandfather, Filonov’s board, I cast it, refined it... Then I stuck around at the foundry for quite a long time. Then I entered graduate school at LISI - GASU. There, Goryunov, who wrote the book “Architecture of the Modern Era”***, opened a department for the reconstruction of architectural heritage. And since architecture has always been interesting to me... And after my diploma, I was tired of sculpture itself, I thought it would be interesting to do this. And in addition to this, I worked in the Summer Garden as a restorer. A year before my diploma, I got a job there. I also got there thanks to Trezzini. During my pre-graduation internship, I went to the Summer Garden to draw Peter’s motifs. He came to the Summer Palace and stayed there. And I went to State University of Civil Engineering for graduate school, which I really liked. He wrote his dissertation “Monumental and Decorative Sculpture of the Art Nouveau Era” and eventually began to restore. And so it goes on. I passed the pre-defense, I am constantly rewriting and rewriting... I hope that Trezzini is already standing, and this year I will finish my dissertation.

- I wanted to talk about the plastic problems that you solve.
- We have so many different problems that are solved plastically, when you stage life... Here I have “Fortune”, which stands on the “Summer Palace” restaurant in Strelna. I put the model in this position straight up, hung her legs, framed her, pulled her up. She could stand in this position for about 15 minutes, then rest.

- It’s hard to be Fortune! And none of the sculptors, except you, spoke to me about sitters, unless it was about a portrait. You seem to be stuck in the 19th century.
- It’s so natural, in my opinion. This is not only the 19th century, but also the Matveev school. I have a mannequin for Louise of Prussia (Ignatiev is working on restoring a monument for Kaliningrad. - M.Z.) with folds.

- But you still didn’t sculpt Likhachev from life (the statue stands in the building of the Twelve Collegiums at the entrance to the Fundamental Library of St. Petersburg State University, 2006)?
- First I blinded the naked old man.

- From a sitter?
- Yes.

- So that there is anatomy?
- Not even anatomy, but some kind of feeling for a person. First he molded a naked elderly man inside, and then... How did Matveev teach my grandparents? The peculiarity is that there is a very long preparatory sketch work, a search for a plastic solution through sketches. The distribution in volume was decided at the sketch stage. For example, for Tyuzov’s boy and girl (sculptures “Youth”, 1961, works by Kholina and Ignatiev; installed in front of the entrance to the building of the Theater for Young Spectators. - M.Z.) there are a lot of sketches. First, anatomical truth appears, and then plastic truth appears.

- They are quite conditionally generalized. Is this concrete?
- No, this is Inkerman stone, which was brought from Crimea, because we don’t have Pudozh stone at all, and didn’t have it then. By the way, there was a whole scandal then; they were forced to remove the statues. Socialist realism was still going on then, but they, Kholina and Ignatiev, were already different at the end of the 1950s. And this was the first time Matveev’s plastic arts went out into the streets, and therefore a scandal began, there were meetings in the Union of Artists... Some of the bosses came up to my grandfather and said: “Sasha (and Sasha was already 50 years old), bring the crane, it’s better to take it to the park , we will put, we will give any park, just not in front of the theater building.

- What exactly were they charged with?
- Formalism! In 1948, Matveev was expelled from the academy, and his grandfather was expelled from graduate school along with him, and he also taught a little. After the expulsion, the academies destroyed their diplomas... At some point, they lived thanks to the fact that their grandmother could teach at the Serov School and work at the Lomonosov Plant. By the way, my grandmother’s diploma was “Gogol”. And during her defense in 1945, she was scolded for being “mystical.”

- In general, the story with the sculptures near the Youth Theater is a continuation of Matveev’s expulsion from the academy and from Soviet sculpture.
- This is the last exhalation... The dragon is already lying down, but the last convulsions of the paws are still there. It is important for a sculptor to make work on a large scale; you get something like this for your own artistic experience... This is a completely different state. After the sculptures near the Youth Theater, they began to practice their art - as they thought. And my grandparents didn’t like the previous period. In 1938, my grandfather sculpted Dzhambul from life (the then famous Kazakh akyn, who glorified Stalin and Yezhov - M.Z.), and in 1946 he sculpted a diploma “Dzhambul on a horse” (shows a sketch). And, for example, in Leningrad there was a competition for designs for a monument to Alexander Ostrovsky, four rounds, I have several options for a bust of Ostrovsky, which my grandfather made (shows)…

- Where was the monument planned?
- I don’t know, I hope that Vera Valentinovna Rytikova (chief curator of the Museum of Urban Sculpture. - M.Z.) will publish a study (as Rytikova told me, the monument should have stood in front of the facade of the Lenin Komsomol Theater. - M.Z.) . Then, together with Nikogosyan, a Moscow sculptor, he also studied with Matveev, his grandfather made sculptures for a high-rise building on Vosstaniya Square in Moscow.

But they didn't like this whole period. My grandmother worked at the Lomonosov Porcelain Factory and made a model of a huge multi-figure porcelain vase, which is considered one of the wonders of post-war porcelain art****. My grandmother later denied all this... She had two post-war porcelain figures, they stood in the studio, she broke them in front of me, saying that it was all complete nonsense. Here! The attitude towards art and one’s place in it was very serious. Matveev School .

Mikhail ZOLOTONOSOV

* The finished form is removed in parts from the plasticine model. Next, the pieces of the mold are folded together again, creating a cavity inside the mold that exactly repeats the shape of the plasticine model. Melted wax is poured into this cavity, which, when solidified, forms a crust on the walls of the mold. It is important that this crust is of optimal and uniform thickness over the entire surface. Now they carefully disassemble the plaster mold, inside of which a wax has already formed - a wax sculpture hollow inside. But the surface of the wax still requires careful manual finishing, eliminating bubbles and seams. The processed wax is sent to the foundry, where a technologically complex casting process begins, as a result of which the wax is replaced by bronze.

** Matveev Alexander Terentyevich (1878 - 1960), Soviet sculptor.
*** Vasily Semenovich Goryunov, professor, doctor of architecture.
**** In fact, it was not a vase that was made, but a multi-figure sculptural composition “Under the Sun of the Stalin Constitution”, 1951, together with M.K. Anikushin and S.B. Velikhova; The composition is on display in the Museum of the Imperial Porcelain Factory.

There is a monument to Domenico Trezzini on Vasilievsky.

The opening took place on February 19, 2014. The authors of the monument: sculptor Pavel Ignatiev, architect Pavel Bagryantsev. The bronze monument is installed on the square near the Blagoveshchensky Bridge. The height of the structure is 5.5 m. The first architect of St. Petersburg, the concept of “Petrine baroque” is closely connected with his name. There is no point in retelling the biography; it is generally known even to schoolchildren. Unfortunately, very few portraits and paintings of this great man have survived. When talking about Trezzini, people often refer to this ancient painting-engraving, where he is implied to be third from the right.

The uniqueness of this architect is evidenced by the fact that Peter I, having invited Domenico to Russia, granted him an annual salary of one thousand rubles, while he himself received three hundred rubles for the title of captain-scorer. The contract was concluded for a period of one year, but as time passed, realizing the prospects and falling in love with his brainchild, the architect remained in St. Petersburg forever. By the way, initially, Trezzini was invited as a fortification engineer, i.e. specialist in the construction of fortresses. The Peter and Paul Fortress resembles the ancient fortresses of Italy in outline.

Trezzini was two years older than Peter and outlived him by nine years. After the death of Peter I, he became unfashionable and undeservedly forgotten. Anna Ioannovna, although she seemed to declare herself a continuator of the deeds of her great uncle, did not pay attention to Domenico Trezzini. Forgotten and resentful, with no means of support, he died in a hospital for the poor in 1734. He was buried in a cemetery of other faiths; the grave has not survived.

By decree of Peter I, the architect created projects of model houses: for the rich, for people of average income and for vile people. In the eighteenth century, working, poor people were called mean. Model houses based on these projects were erected on the territory of the Peter and Paul Fortress. The original drawings can be seen in the Commandant's House in Petropavlovka.

One can only be glad that the genius of this man was given worthy honors. Finally!