Leo von Klence biography

Leo von Klence: The man of the world on May 18, culture, Germans in Russia on December 17, the St. Petersburg Winter Palace was almost completely destroyed by a fire. Thanks to the dedication of the soldiers of the Preobrazhensky regiment who managed to lay with bricks all the passages from the palace to the Hermitage buildings, the collections of the imperial museum were not injured.

However, in parallel with the restoration of the palace, Nicholas I thought about building a new museum building on the site of the so -called Shepelevsky house in Millionna Street. This house, one of the creations of Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli, was erected under the leadership of General Dmitry Andreyevich Shepelev even under Elizabeth Petrovna as a residence of foreign monarchs who came to St.

Petersburg and the princes who were tender for the Russian great princes. In Pushkin’s times, in the Shepelevsky house, a workshop of the creator of the military gallery of the Winter Palace of the English portrait painter George Dow was located and lived, in addition to others, the poet and teacher of the Tsarevich Alexander the future Alexander II Vasily Andreyevich Zhukovsky.

Pushkin, Gogol, Krylov and the whole color of Russian literature of this era gathered in the salon of Zhukovsky. Having visited the capital of the kingdom of Bavaria Munich in the same year, Emperor Nicholas decided to entrust the construction of the new Hermitage to the court architect of King Ludwig I von Vitthensbach Leo von Klence, a native of Shladin in Lower Saxony, von Klen was an education in Germany and France, then he was trained in Italy, where he had fallen in love with the architecture of the ancient Mira.

Having served the Westphalian king Zhirom Bonaparte and the Vice-Korol of Italy Evgeny Bogarne to his brother and stepson Napoleon, he, after the collapse of the Napoleonic Empire, finally settled in Bavaria, where the kingdom king rules, in particular, the famous “Gallery of beauties” in Nymphenburg near Munyon Ludwig I-, Haded in the revolutionary year. In the years, Klenz creates in the western part of Munich the ensemble of the Royal Square - Königsplaz: Propilei - gates in the image and likeness of the ancient boots of the Acropolis; The glyptotete, where a unique collection of ancient sculpture is still stored, the building of the State Antique Museum.

The columns of the first building are crowned with a Doric Order, the second - ionic, the third - Corinthian. So Leo von Klence became the ancestor of the architectural style “Neogrek” or “Munich Hellenism”, and Munich has since been called “Athens on Isar”, a river that flows through the city. Two years later, von Klence visited Athens, leaving after the trip a whole gallery of types of world -famous attractions reconstructed by his imagination; First of all, the famous acropolis.

Flla of their archive of Leo Baron, please, pay attention to the picture of von Klence “Palace in Athens” stored in the Hermitage and compare the building depicted on it with the view of the new Hermitage of the work of Joseph Iosifovich Charleman, by the way, a graduate of the St. Petersburg Petrishule. A masterpiece von Klence - erected on a hill over the Danube 10 km from the Bavarian city of Regensburg, the Valhalla Pavilion.

He copies the Athenian temple of Parfenon V century BC. These are the heavenly dashes where the Valkiri Virgins deliver the Vikings who have fallen on the field for the eternal bliss. Ludwig I personally chose both the place of construction of the Bavarian Valhalla and the date of laying and opening the pavilion, respectively, on October 18 and October 18: that occurred on October 16-19 near Leipzig “The Battle of Peoples” finally decided the outcome of the campaign against Napoleon.

Inside the pavilion, about two hundred statues, busts and memorable boards in honor of the great Germans of all historical eras have been installed inside the Pavilion today. Photo from the archive of Leo Baorne So, in the year, Leo von Klents arrives in St. Petersburg, draws up projects of facades of the building and its halls performed in various styles of interiors and are present at the ceremony of laying it.

But his cartridge - King Ludwig I, who “graciously commanded” the architect, would not allow his construction, to directly lead his construction, to return back to Munich after the fire, the National Theater photography 5, to complete “Valhalla”, work in Hofburg - the royal residence photo 6. Among the other Munich works, we will mention the building of the old mail, photography, 7 The old Pinakoteki, the Pantheon in the meadow of Teresa, where the OKTOBERFEST beer is traditionally held.

One of the most popular symbols of St. Petersburg was the famous portico, near which ten Atlantes support the balcony. The figures were cut down from gray compassionate granite one hundred and five stoves under the leadership of Alexander Ivanovich Terebenev-according to the model, again, the Munich sculptor Johann von Galbig-in addition, on the surfaces and niches of three facades of the new Hermitage, the fourth adjoins the building of a large old Hermitage.

Dozens of statues of outstanding artists, sculptors, theorists of the art of ancient times, the Renaissance and later. Among them are the statues of the great artist and graphics from Nuremberg Albrecht Durer - and the famous German researcher of ancient art Johann Joachim Winkelmann -, according to some information that consulted Catherine II when she decided to collect the collections of the Hermitage.

The first statue is clearly visible in the second tier of the left wing of the facade along Millionnaya Street, the second - the extreme on the right in the niche of the first floor on the corner with the embankment of the winter groove. The grand opening of the new Hermitage took place on February 5. Before the war, it was here that the main entrance to the state Hermitage was.

And on December 29, in the fourth month of the blockade, one of the Atlanteans was seriously damaged by the direct hit of the projectile ... Leo Baron photo from the archive of Leo Baron Rubric.