Possibly the greatest museum in the world, the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, began as a showcase for the legendary art treasures of the czars. This exciting history tells how imperial romance and marriage, murder, war, revolution, and international politics shaped the fabled collection over the centuries, until it filled the Winter Palace and three riverside pavilions with priceless art from antiquity to the modern day. 25 color photos. b&w photos.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Geraldine Norman, the English cultural reporter and author, has written a scholarly page-turner about the political intrigue, murders, royal indiscretions, property seizures, heroic preservation efforts, wartime crises, obscenely prodigal spending, and equally obscene fiscal cutbacks that have shaped the long history of the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. It puts our millennial excesses in perspective to learn that the Russian empress Catherine the Great bought Old Master paintings at the rate of one every other day from 1762 to 1772, tapering down to one or two a week for the next couple of decades. Catherine dubbed her royal digs the "hermitage," or retreat, "where she could forget her rank and relax," writes Norman. (One of Catherine's rules: Visitors "shall be joyful but shall not try to damage, break, or gnaw at anything.") The empress was "gluttonous"--her own word--in her acquisition of art, buying 4,000 paintings, massive amounts of classical sculptures, porcelains and other decorative arts, the stray Michelangelo marble or two, and a national treasury's worth of engraved gems. Plus 38,000 books, not to mention four roomfulls of prints. And that's just part of the collection. Reading Norman's well-crafted tale of the great museum, a reader absorbs vast amounts of history and fiscal detail, while turning pages through machine-gun fire, lovers' trysts, clandestine international negotiations, and other thrills. --Peggy Moorman
From Publishers Weekly
The controlled and focused style that served Norman in her previous books, such as Biedermeier Paintings, works well in her compact history of the great St. Petersburg museum. From its origin as the fashionable pavilion where Catherine the Great hung her paintings, the Hermitage grew through the 19th century until it was nationalized by the state after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. Norman, who is a former art market correspondent for the Independent, does not divorce the institution from the political culture around it. Nor could she, when Stalin, desperate for foreign currency, would sell several thousand items from the Hermitage in the late 1920s. Norman is suitably aghast that this has aroused more complaint than the dictator's execution or imprisonment of at least 50 staff members a few years later. To these situations and others?such as the siege of Leningrad during WWII, when the staff living in the Hermitage ate furniture glue to survive?this book proves itself an effective and articulate guide. Although Norman explains how the Soviet Union used the museum's archeological activities to bolster its Marxist ideology, she is less clear on the museum's future in Russia's current free market. Still, this study is an achievement because it remains so readable, despite the encyclopedic march of facts. Its nearly 60 illustrations reproduce works from the collection as well as photographs of the staff and the museum; an appendix contains brief biographies of the employees who were prosecuted in the Stalinist purges.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
35 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
When excess can be a good thing for posterity.,
This review is from: The Hermitage: The Biography of a Great Museum (Hardcover)
The only reason the 5th star was not placed is that I do not believe it possible to put even the history of this building that is The Hermitage into a single volume. The centuries it has endured, the wars, the changes in government, its continued presence today, is a remarkable tale prior to a review of the Art it contains.The Authoress Geraldine Norman has produced a highly readable book that requires only an interest in the subject to be enjoyed. Art History Majors may glean even more from what she presents, but all others will enjoy it as a wonderful history of a building, the persons who created it, and finally those who have filled it to near bursting. Before Catherine The Great could accumulate the work of Masters on an almost unbelievable scale, Peter The Great provided the city and she then began what was the largest museum until the Louvre expanded at the close of the 20th Century. If and when Russia can finance the planned expansion, The Hermitage will once again be the largest museum on Earth. The building has housed Art, served as a Hospital during WWI, and housed upwards of 2,000 people in bomb shelters during WWII. Even though Nationalized by The Bolsheviks after they left their mark on the building by destroying whatever struck their fancy, the building and it's collections were to endure even this group of cretins. World War Two would also heavily damage the museum, which would be restored with astonishing skill. Whether you love Art, Russian History, or a combination of the two this book is to be enjoyed. While it is the first full History of this great monument I doubt it will be the last. What I also find fascinating are those treasures that are starting to see the light of day, and more that will, as the building now stands once again in Russia. Highly Recommended.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating Biography,
By Dag Stomberg (St. Andrews, Scotland) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Hermitage: The Biography of a Great Museum (Hardcover)
The Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia got its name from the French word meaning 'a place of solitude.' Where else in the
world is it possible to find solitude with Culture? Catherine the Great (reigned 1762-96) wanted to introduce French culture into Russia. Therefore, Russia's extraordinary address takes its name. She began to collect paintings of the highest quality for political as well as aesthetic reasons. When her reign came to an end, The Hermitage took on the character of a museum. Geraldine Norman has an enviable educational and professional back ground to permit her to write this book and consequently it ranks as one of the best. A true biography begins at the birth, the formation, adolescence and maturity and of couse, the expectation of the future! Dag Stomberg St. Andrews, Scotland
0 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating history, ace bookseller,
By H. Lundwell "Grandma" (Massachusetts) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Hermitage: The Biography of a Great Museum (Hardcover)
The book is great. Fascinating history!
Brand new condition. Here in four days. So inexpensive I felt guilty buying it.
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