Anna Sansieva

Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia

By the middle of the 18th century works of Italian architects had been increasingly exposed to classical influence. The 1732 competition for the facade construction of the Sun Giovanni basilica in Late­rano in Rome is recognized as the conditional starting point for the dissemination of neoclassicist trends in the architecture of Italy.
Recognition of ideal in antiquity, interest in studying it and its emulation became the basis of neo-­classicism ideology formation for Europe. But for Italy the antiquity was one of the components of the unique heritage, but not a single dominant prototype.
For this reason masters of the second half of the 18th century who were educated in the Academy of S. Luca in Rome and acquainted themselves with monuments of the city, more often gave their preference to research into the Renaissance architecture. Regarding monuments of the Renaissance as a source for borrowing of constructions, plans of compositions and decorative elements, the architects processed the collected material again, and it was spread on all the territory of Italy as well as abroad.
Perception of the Renaissance heritage by architects followed several directions. The first one was determined by the origin of separate masters. In the middle of the 18th century among the cultural figures in Rome the so-called “Florentine party” was formed which united the architects Alessandro Galilei and Ferdinando Fuga from Tuscany. All their works were labeled by traits of influence of the late stage in the Renaissance in Florence, namely mannerism. In particular, it refers to the presentation of the palazzo facade as a theatrical scenery as it was in  the works of mannerist architect Bartolomeo Ammanati.
Another direction represents the reelaboration of Renaissance church architecture. Such masters as Luigi Vanvitelli and again Alessandro Galilei turned to the centric building in their works, borrowing the majority of ideas from Michelangelo’s project for the Sun Giovanni dei Fiorentini church in Rome. Vanvitelli and Galilei cited even architecture of the earlier Renaissance architects. Creating projects for churches in England, Galilei used images of Filippo Brunelleschi and Vanvitelli in secular buildings in Naples, reworking ideas of Donato Bramante’s centric space.
Renaissance traditions of Italian architects of the second half of the 18th century give the clearest understanding of neoclassicism in Italy.

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Maria Sokolova

Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia

The report focuses on the subject that seems to be insufficiently studied, in our opinion, in both Russian and foreign historiography — the influence of the Italian monuments on the Victorian country house architecture. The British architectural heritage of the period is rightly regarded by researchers as the part of the European historicism. In this regard, there is nothing surprising in the fact that it is by its very nature polystylistic. As a rule, the focus is on learning how the national heritage was reinterpreted in this period, whether it were Gothic monuments or Tudor architecture. However, it should be noted that the interest in the architectural heritage of other European countries remained consistently high. Monuments of Italy in this respect played a special role. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, the Palladian tradition left its mark in Britain. Secondly, under the influence of travelling to the Continent and due to the books of J. Ruskin, the British discovered new layers in the architectural heritage of Italy: medieval and early Renaissance.

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Boris Sokolov

Russian State University for the Humanities, Russia

Stowe, Richard Temple’s estate at Buckinghamshire, became a model of the landscape garden style as early as in the mid-18th century. It was frequented and studied from books (Benton Seeley’s Description was first published in 1744 as first garden guidebook ever), its scenes and farbiques were varied in a number of European gardens, from Merevilles to Tsarskoye Selo (“Russian Stowe” topic was investigated by Hayden and Shvidkovsky). It was there that the main ideas of the English style were fulfilled, namely 1) improvement conception, realized in four building stages, 2) unbroken landscape without borders and fences, 3) its scenes, having their own characters, and 4) a sequence of farbiques, showing the shades of this character.
The paper presents materials of the four building periods of Stowe, that is the first layout of the late 17th century, the Italianate park by Charles Bridgeman (1710s–1720s), landscaping by William Kent (1730s–1740s) and, the last word in Stowe and the first in the new school, Grecian Valley by Lancelot Brown. The span of the place, therefore, stretches up from the beginning of the landscape style toward the final, Brownian type of the Enlightenment garden.
Aesthetic qualities and universal landscape of Stowe brought to life numerous texts. This variety includes tourist pamphlets by Seeley and Gilpin, memoires by Defoe and de Ligne, a description by Latapie, added to the French translation of Whately’s book. Two crucial theoretical texts (Epistle to Lord Burlington by Pope and Observations on the Modern Gardening by Whately) will be analyzed at length; the Epistle, beside the praise toward Stowe, coins the expression “Consult the Genius of the Place in all”, and explains its garden implications. The author of the paper has been studying English garden history for 25 years (ca. 50 publications, see http://www.gardenhistory.ru/page.php?pageid=421; http://www.gardenhistory.ru/page.php?pageid=130) and has visited Stowe four times (1994–2011). The paper will be illustrated by historical engravings, the author’s photos and the author’s complete translations of all the texts mentioned above.

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Anna Korovkina

Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia

The paper is dedicated to the problems of European portrait painting at the turn of 18th–19th centuries and formation of romantic portrait concept.
The portrait became the main genre in that period. Acute interest to the neo-classical historical painting gave way to romanticism desire for expressing model’s individualism and new artistic methods in portrait genre.
At the turn of the century there were two schools which better reflected tendencies of the period. France tended to the classical tradition of the 18th century, while England adhered to traditions of sentimentalism, as the Royal Academy of Arts was established later, in 1768 only.
To make such research, paintings which mostly reflect main trends in art around 1800 as well as paintings of the middle of the 18th century by well-known artists were analysed.
The aim of the study was to identify distinctive trends of each school and common features of European portrait art of the 18th–19th centuries.
The conclusion of the research is that the concept of romantic portrait was identified by cre­ation of a unique image by means of portrait. It was expressed by the choice of unusual compositions, si­zes, background, making more nuanced colors. Most of paintings were filled with air and natural light.
It should be noted that there is a lot of literature devoted to European art of early Romanticism but none of the authors singles out the phenomenon of portraiture around 1800 as a particular problem. However, in our view, this problem is interesting for future researches.

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