2009-01-15
© Michael Mirbach
The Hermitage opens up
Soon the closed archives at St. Petersburg’s famous museum will become accessible to the public.
“The Hermitage is both a Russian museum and a museum that belongs to the world” claims the director Michail Piotrovsky.
It is said that keepers do not leave the famous museum even when they die. Their souls are taken over by the cats that live in the cellar of the museum. The cats do not receive a government grant but are well looked after in the underground labyrinths by a dedicated foundation: “Friends of the Hermitage Cats”. In spite of very modest salaries, the majority of the staff of the Hermitage remain faithful to the museum throughout their lives. Many lives and many fascinating stories.
A visitor pours acid on a painting by Rembrandt
Conservator Yevgeny Gerasimov cannot forget the dark day in June 1985 when a mentally ill man poured acid over Rembrandt’s painting “Danae” and tried to cut it with a knife.
“He stabbed the painting but, thank God, the knife fastened in the stretcher that the canvas is mounted on.”
The attack took place during a weekend: “I suddenly got a call telling me to hurry to the museum because something terrible had happened. The whole painting was covered with a sort of sticky substance that slowly ran down the wall. There were people from the city’s Party Committee, from the KGB and from the police. Boris Piotrovsky, who was the director at the time, was also present.”
Soon thereafter an expert on chemicals from the Academy of Sciences turned up and established that the substance was sulphuric acid. The acid reacts in different ways with varnish, bonding agent and various pigments. It reacts most strongly with white lead. Fortunately the acid hit the Danae’s face. It did not penetrate the canvas much because there are several layers of paint, primer and varnish. A government commission was immediately set up with people from the Tretjakov Museum and the Pushkin Museum in Moscow and there was constant consultation with conservation experts in other countries. The painting was held upright and rinsed with distilled water. It was then treated with chemicals that neutralized the acid and was stabilized with special glue. Measurements of the acid level were taken and the stretcher, which had been damaged by the acid, was exchanged for a new one.
“We were able to save most of the painting, though we left small parts as they were. However good we may be at copying Rembrandt it is better to leave this work to coming generations in the hope that they will find a way of recreating the original.”
Behind the scenes
Work on a documentary on the collections at the Hermitage Museum enabled me to see things that are normally hidden to the ordinary visitor. We filmed in the cellar of the museum as well as on the roofs of the buildings. We filmed in the Tsar’s private apartments and in the conservation studios.
The staff also let us inspect the archives where they keep tens of thousands of items that cannot be displayed in the 365 public rooms. It is in these premises – surrounded by ancient armour, antique religious artefacts and medieval swords and guns that the faithful keepers of the museum spend their lives. Several of them have been working there for 50 to 70 years and they risked their lives in order to save the collections they were responsible for while the city was under siege from 1941-44.
An important symbol for Russia
Michail Piotrovsky comes from a real Hermitage dynasty. His father, archaeologist Boris Piotrovsky, was the previous director of the museum. Piotrovksy is a very busy man but he took the time to act as principal narrator in our documentary and I had the opportunity of talking to him. He almost always wears a long scarf over a neat suit. His hair is grey and he wears glasses.
“The Hermitage is both a Russian museum and a museum that belongs to the world”, he explains. “It is an encyclopaedic museum that sheds light on world culture. The history of the Hermitage should be seen in the context of encounters between the world’s diverse cultures. It is a remarkable and characteristic memorial of Russian culture, a symbol for its openness towards the entire world. And so the museum is an important symbol for Russians, a symbol that makes all Russians proud.
Government popular education
Russia has a long history of government popular education and the basis of the museum’s economy consists of government grants. “The grant to the Hermitage is treated as a separate entry in the budget of the Russian Federation. And all the money earned from ticket sales and suchlike is ploughed back into developing the museum. We also have numerous private and corporate sponsors who assist us in our projects. But the government subsidies provide about 70 per cent of the museum’s budget.”
How important are educational activities to the museum?
“The Hermitage is highly democratic as to its content and it targets every possible group in society; both as regards age and education. Particularly important to us is our largest group of visitors: children and young people. They are not charged for admission. Pensioners who are Russian citizens also get in free. These categories make up about half of our visitors. We are an important centre of instruction and of educational methodology. We have a school centre and run circles for children. There is also an auditorium at the museum where we organize an extensive programme of lectures for adults.”
The Hermitage in the world
In recent years the Guggenheim Hermitage Museum in Las Vegas, the Hermitage Amsterdam and the Hermitage Rooms in London have all been opened. New thematic exhibitions of the Hermitage’s artworks and treasures from foreign museums are held several times a year. “We naturally undertake visitor surveys and use the results in creating new exhibition projects that have to be agreed by the museum’s exhibition committee”, Piotrovsky explains.
Magnificent interior
Having filmed in the Heritage for more than a month I can understand why the staff of the museum are so loyal. Wandering for miles through the galleries, especially on Sundays when the museum is closed to the public, is a fantastic experience.
One is alone with the impressionists, with Canova’s sculptures, with busts of ancient Romans who stare at one rigorously in the Antique galleries. And each window affords fine views over the Palace Square and the majestic River Neva.
Besides this, the most important of the Hermitage’s six buildings is the Winter Palace, the residence of the Russian Tsars built in the 18th century by Bartolomeo Rastrelli. Here the beauty of the artworks is complemented by the magnificence of the interiors: marble staircases with wrought-iron balusters, huge doors, carved and gilded furniture, red velvet settees, hundreds of gold clocks, gigantic candelabra, heavy silk drapes, indescribably beautiful urns made of various sorts of Russian jasper. One can almost hear the sound of the balls that were held in the vast apartments in which the gilded stucco of the ceilings and the elaborate parquet flooring are reflected in numerous mirrors. Each room has its own pattern of parquet flooring as well as the wall and ceiling decorations. No room is like the next one.
Improving access
A month is merely a month while the head of the museum has been roaming the galleries ever since childhood. What is it, then, that continues to inspire him? “My inspiration comes from the traditions of the Hermitage and its reputation as one of the world’s great museums.”
What are your dreams for the future?
“I have no specific dream for our future. But we have a development concept. The main precept is to improve access to the collections. The development concept also includes the construction of new buildings for storing artefacts, a new and larger Hermitage Centre in Amsterdam, the development of a flexible network of our scientific and exhibition centres in Russia and abroad; and a new design for our interactive website.
Bird’s-eye view of St. Petersburg
During our final evenings at the Hermitage we found ourselves at the highest point
of the buildings. First we filmed on the roof of the Winter Palace. At sundown this affords fantastic views over the Palace Square and all of old St. Petersburg. The sculptures that decorate the roof look down on the River Neva and the Peter & Paul Fortress. We then moved to the roof opposite, setting up the camera beneath Carlo Rossi’s horses above the vault of the former General Staff Headquarters. The sun goes down and the Hermitage is illuminated by hundreds of lamps and floodlights.
Soon the General Staff building will become part of thee Hermitage. A museum is being created for 19th and 20th century art. Some of the works will be taken from the archives and made available to visitors from all over the world.
The Hermitage collections comprise some 3 million artefacts from Western Europe, Russia and the Orient – from the Stone Age to the 20th century. If you want to look at each object for 30 seconds you will have to spend all your working days at the museum for almost ten years.
The education department of the Hermitage Museum has a staff of 128. During a year they organize some 26 000 guided tours and give 700 lectures.
Michael Mirbach
Documentary film-maker and freelance journalist