Bartolomeo Rastrelli, architect: biography, works. Smolny Cathedral, Winter Palace, Stroganov Palace

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli is the creator of many amazing, beautiful structures. Its palaces and religious buildings amaze with their solemnity and splendor, pride and roy alty. And this is not surprising. After all, Bartolomeo Rastrelli, whose biography interests many modern architecture lovers, created and created for emperors.

Childhood in brief

Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli was born in Paris, in the family of the talented and famous Italian sculptor Bartolomeo Carlo Rastrelli. This happened back in 1700, when France was ruled by Louis XIV. The king greatly appreciated his court sculptor, so little Francesco's childhood passed in contentment and carelessness.

The boy grew up very inquisitive and diligent. He liked to do something with his hands, he liked to imitate his father and hone his skills.

Moving to Russia

After the death of the "Sun King" Carlo Rastrelli received an invitation from the Russian court for a three-year work in the Northern Kingdom. At that time it washabitual talented craftsmen go to work in Russia, so Rastrelli Sr., without thinking twice, gathered his family and went to St. Petersburg.

The capital welcomed foreigners favorably. The family settled in their own house, enjoyed respect and honor. Peter I, busy with the arrangement of the new city, treated the talented artisans kindly and considerately. He, seeing their skill and skill, supplied specialists with orders, which were followed by a good, truly royal reward.

The beginning of creativity

From a young age, Bartolomeo Rastrelli was engaged in serious architectural work under the guidance and supervision of his father. For example, he participated in the completion of some of the palaces of Prince Menshikov, an energetic and power-hungry ally of Emperor Peter.

The first relatively independent work of Bartolomeo Rastrelli (by the way, in Russia the young architect was called Varfolomey Varfolomeevich) was the construction of a three-story palace made of natural stone for His Serene Highness Prince, statesman and scientist Dmitry Konstantinovich Kantemir.

The architect did not endow his first building with any distinctive features and properties. No, the palace was built in accordance with the generally recognized style of Peter I, it was characterized by volumetric fullness, clarity of divisions and flatness of facades. Rastrelli will choose his own style later.

In the 1720s, the aspiring architect made several trips to France and Italy to get acquainted with new fashion trends and trends in building art.

Political coup

In the early 1930s, at the dawn of the reign of Anna Ioannovna, Rastrelli the father decided to establish relations with the new empress and went to her for an audience, taking his son and drawing sketches with him.

The young queen, who gravitates toward pomp and sophistication, favorably received talented architects and honored them with building her own palace. So the young architect had the opportunity to distinguish himself in front of the Empress. All his projects have been approved and implemented.

Winter Palace

With the coming to power of Anna Ioannovna, the gifted architect begins the work of his life - he is instructed to complete the construction of the main royal palace in St. Petersburg. What does Bartolomeo Rastrelli do? The Winter Palace, built back in the early 1700s, seemed to the Empress small and ordinary, so she happily approved the grandiose plan of the inspired architect, according to which it was necessary to buy out four adjacent houses and erect a magnificent building complex in their place.

A few years later, the construction was completed, and before the eyes of St. Petersburg residents, a solid four-story building appeared, facing the Neva with its facades and containing almost seventy ceremonial halls and more than a hundred bedrooms, as well as a theater, a gallery, a chapel and many office and guard quarters.

The palace was skillfully and richly decorated, had round rusticated columns and pediment sculptures, and huge galleries occupied the entire first floor of the housewith arches.

It is noteworthy that Rastrelli had to redo the Winter Palace again. It happened twenty years later, during the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna.

The new empress found the main residence of the Romanovs dirty and inappropriate for her status. She wanted to increase the building in height and length. To do this, it was necessary to demolish the building, and in its place to build a new one, more appropriate for receiving foreign ministers and holding festive celebrations.

What is remarkable about the structure of the new Winter Palace, built under the supervision of Bartolomeo Rastrelli? The building had one and a half thousand rooms and occupied an area equal to sixty thousand cubic meters.

The palace, which has the shape of a huge rectangle, had an internal front block and a massive, magnificently decorated facade, which was equipped with widely spaced columns and spacious windows, all kinds of window architraves and numerous vases and statues placed above the parapets.

It is noteworthy that the modern look of the Winter Palace, also called the Hermitage, almost completely corresponds to the last project of the great architect.

Architect for Biron

In the 1730s, Bartolomeo Rastrelli began to communicate closely with Biron, the favorite of Anna Ioannovna. Under the patronage of the uncrowned emperor, the architect becomes the royal architect of the current empress. By the way, Elizaveta Petrovna, who came to power fifteen years later with the help of a palace coup, also enjoyedservices of Rastrelli as chief architect.

For Biron, the architect develops and implements projects for the construction of the Mitava and Rundale palaces. Here the master creates large-scale buildings that gravitate towards a closed structure, where the dominant element is an elongated central body.

With each new drawing, the art of Bartolomeo Rastrelli develops and improves, lines and techniques become more plastic and more embossed.

Work on rebuilding. Anichkov Palace

With the advent of the next mistress, the talented architect began to receive interesting and amazing orders, one of which was the completion of construction on the embankment of the Fontanka River, begun by the architect Zemtsov.

Luxury building, erected in the Baroque style, went down in history as the Anichkov Palace. Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli supervised the construction and decoration of an unusual building, shaped like the letter “H”.

Work on rebuilding. Peterhof

Rastrelli's next order was to rebuild Peterhof.

Elizaveta Petrovna wholeheartedly wanted to improve and enrich the residence of her deceased father. To do this, she ordered to preserve the Petrine style and atmosphere of that time in the appearance of the building, but ordered to endow the building with modern splendor and scale.

Bartolomeo Rastrelli managed to expand and modify the palace complex, leaving its expressive central building almost unchanged. On the sides, he added buildings and erected new ones.pavilions, connecting them with colorful galleries, and also built on the third floor and developed a picturesque park system.

The most spectacular element of the Peterhof interior is the square front hall with a two-tone staircase, decorated with luxurious finishes.

Everything is present here - expensive gilding of objects and chic wall painting, as well as stucco, wood carving and forging.

Work on rebuilding. Tsarskoye Selo

Another important construction site that needed to be redone was the royal summer residence in Tsarskoye Selo. Her empress considered too old-fashioned and small.

What changes needed to be made in order to improve the Catherine Palace? Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli, in order to satisfy the desires of the Empress, rebuilds in the Russian Baroque style, sparing neither money nor any other means. It takes more than a hundred kilograms of gold to decorate facades and statues.

In the process of restructuring, the architect moved the main staircase to the southwestern side of the palace, exposing the length of parallel, adjoining front halls; deepened the hollows of the windows, forming a rich play of chiaroscuro; decorated the facades with stucco and sculpture, decorating them in pale blue and rich gold. All this gave the empress's favorite palace a festive, solemn look and a rich emotional expression.

New projects

However, architectur althe work of Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli was not limited to the restructuring of other people's projects. The architect created his own talented and original drawings, according to which he erected luxurious and solemn buildings. One of these structures was the Smolny Cathedral. Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli executed it in the opulent and pretentious style of the Elizabethan Baroque, embellishing it with lucarnes and pediments and painting it in soft light blue.

The complex of the cult building is made in an unusual and special way. The cathedral was erected with five domes, but only one single dome (which has the largest size) is directly related to the temple, while the other four are bell towers.

Another talented creation of the architect is the Stroganov Palace. Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli combined the three buildings into one with a common façade, in the center of which he installed a portico with a coat of arms, and also completed a large front staircase decorated with rich stucco and gilded forged railings, and a spacious gallery decorated with gilded sculpture and huge mirrors.

Inside the building was a grandiose hall with an area of one hundred and twenty-eight square meters.

The sunset of creativity

With the death of Elizabeth Petrovna, the pompous and expensive Baroque style sunk into oblivion, so Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli was out of work. He was replaced by new masters, more knowledgeable in contemporary art. Having no orders and experiencing financial difficulties, the aging architect decides to ask forvacation and goes to Italy, ostensibly for treatment.

Here the architect is intensively looking for customers, but he does not succeed. In parallel with this, the talented Rastrelli learns that Empress Catherine uses the services of another architect. So the great Italian receives a sad resignation and a decent pension of a thousand rubles.

Together with his family (the architect had a beloved wife and two children), Rastrelli leaves Russia. On the way, he meets his former patron Biron and goes to his homeland in order to rebuild and improve the Courland property of the former regent of the Russian Empire.

They say that the last work of the talented master was the project of the Church of St. Simeon and St. Anna, which was presented by the gifted craftsman personally to Count Panin with a request for a reward of twelve thousand rubles. However, the count did not consider it necessary to answer Rastrelli's petition, although he built the church in accordance with the drawings after the death of the architect.

Last days

The last years before his death, the great architect spent in oblivion and loneliness. World art no longer needed his new creations, no one asked him for new projects and buildings. The talented master spent his days sadly and dejectedly. Especially sad was his existence after the death of his wife.

Historians and art historians do not fully know the exact date of Rastrelli's death. Presumably, he died in March-April 1771. The place of his burial is still unknown.

However, he left a huge, priceless and luxurious legacy - his great creations,passed through centuries and adversity. They still cause admiration and delight among tourists from all over the world.