The exhibition "Nicholas I (1796-1855)" (from the series The Saga of the Romanovs)

The Russian Museum presents the sixth exhibition from the series The Saga of the Romanovs, which is dedicated to the era of the reign of Nicholas I.

For the first time, the exposition will present this period as an independent and integral artistic and cultural phenomenon. More than 200 works of painting, sculpture, graphics, arts and crafts from the collection of the Russian Museum and other collections of the country will give an idea of the panorama of the artistic life of a prosperous country, the refined interiors of the royal residences and the peculiarities of the life of the highest court.

The exhibition is intended to designate how the key ideologeme of the epoch, proclaimed by the Minister of Public Education S. S. Uvarov, was realized in a fruitful and contradictory unity in artistic practice - “Autocracy. Orthodoxy. Nationality ".

Despite the ambiguous assessment, the reign of Nicholas I was one of the most brilliant in the history of national culture and presented the world with V. Zhukovsky, A. Pushkin, N. Gogol, M. Glinka and a whole constellation of artists’ names, including M. Vorobev, A. Venetsianov , K. Brullov, A. Ivanov, F. Bruni, I. Aivazovsky, P. Fedotov, F. Tolstoy.

The exhibition included a whole series of ceremonial portraits of Emperor Nicholas I, his associates (A. Menshikov, A. Benkendorf, I. Paskevich, etc.) and members of the royal family. The portraits are made by Russian and foreign artists and sculptors, such as J. Dow, F. Krueger, O. Kiprensky, F. Tolstoy, and others.

Separate sections of the exhibition are devoted to the dramatic pages of Russian history, actions on the fronts of the Russian-Turkish and Crimean Wars, as well as the journeys of the emperor and his family.