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THE ACTIVITIES OF FRANCESCO BARTOLOMEO RASTRELLI AS REFLECTED IN LATVIAN ART HISTORY (Francesko Bartolomeo Rastrelli darbiba Latvija makslas vestures atspogulojuma)

100%

Lancmanis I.

Materiali Latvijas makslas vesturei

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2001

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vol. 2

47-54

EN

The Italian architect Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli worked both in Russia and in Latvia, but his work has never been researched in any complete way, nor has it gained international recognition. In Latvian art history, however, the reflection of Rastrelli's activities is a vivid example of the way in which ideas about art history can develop with a great proportion of mistakes in fact and interpretation and falsehood in accumulated traditions. The work which Rastrelli did in Kurzeme (Courland) appeared in the historical literature of Latvia quite early, thanks to the publication of an article about the laying of the cornerstone of the Rundale Palace in 1736. Rastrelli's work in Russia was reviewed in a general way for the first time in 1876, in an article by Andrej Petrov. Early in the 20th century, Igor Grabar, a Russian art historian, in his analysis of Rastrelli's work that was based on a fairly high level of knowledge and methodological approach, treated the Rundale and Jelgava palaces critically and in passing. It was during this period of research that mistaken information about the supposed work of the painters Pietro Rotari and Francesco Fontebasso in the palaces of the Courlandian dukes first appeared in public. Thanks to Wilhelm Neumann, these falsehoods were promoted in the artists' lexicon of Thieme-Becker. The work of the painter Friedrich Hartmann Barisien in the palaces of the dukes was misinterpreted, and the sculptor Johann Michael Graff was confused with the painter Anton Graff. Boris Vipper tried to move the analysis of Rastrelli's work in a more original direction in his ‘Latvijas maksla baroka laikmeta' (Latvian art in the Baroque period) in 1937, but he, too, produced a series of errors and unjustified conclusions. Art historian Anna Muller-Eschebach's doctoral dissertation in 1939 marked a turning point in the research of buildings which Rastrelli built in Latvia (or which were attributed to him) from the perspective of fact, stylistic analysis, and modem methodologies of the age.

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KRISTAPS ELIASS - 120: HIS WORK AS MUSEUM DIRECTOR AND FINAL YEARS (Kristapam Eliasam - 120: Darbibas laiks muzeja direktora amata un dzives pedejie gadi)

88%

Konstante I.

Makslas Vesture un Teorija

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2006

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vol. 6-7

115-123

EN

The article based on archival materials examines the late period in the life of Latvian art historian Kristaps Eliass (1886-1963) when he suffered from repressions endorsed by Stalinist regime: his work as the Director of Riga City Art Museum (now Latvian National Museum of Art) was disapproved and he was also expelled from the Artists' Union and fired from the pedagogical work at the Academy of Art. In 1951 he was arrested and deported to USSR and released in 1954 after Stalin's death.

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ENTRAPPED BY CONVICTION: KRISTAPS ELIASS' CONTRIBUTION TO LATVIAN ART HISTORY (Parliecibas slazda: Kristapa Eliasa ieguldijums latviesu makslas vesture)

51%

Pelse S.

Makslas Vesture un Teorija

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2006

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vol. 6-7

71-76

EN

The contribution of Latvian authors not only to the study of the local artistic heritage but also in raising the general cultural level of society is an important aspect of history of this branch. Art historian Kristaps Eliass' (1886-1963) publications are mostly dedicated to the popularization of the most renowned phenomena of 18th - 20th century Western European art and French art in particular. The main sources of Eliass' theoretical principles came from the then influential but today less known writers on art (Julius Meier-Graefe, Richard Muther, Werner Weisbach, Ludwig Coellen etc.); this allows us to define Eliass' approach as scientifically grounded, especially when compared to the local setting of the social sciences. (Karl Marx's ideas, although found in many quotes, could hardly provide him with a consistent example of writing on art). Since becoming a follower of the ideas of social democracy in his early youth, Eliass' leftist stance placed him in almost perpetual opposition to the ruling state system. These ideas were hated in tsarist Russia as well as during the local nationalist authoritarian regime after 1934 and equally under Stalin's rule after the Soviet occupation. After the end of the Soviet era his leftist phraseology also seems outdated. Nevertheless, his books 'French Contemporary Painting' (written together with his brother, painter Gederts Eliass, 1940), 'Dutch Old Masters' (1957) and 'Honoré Daumier and His Time' (1960) belong to the few comprehensive sources on Western European art published in Latvian during the 20th century. Their informative and educational role, unlike scattered articles in periodicals, reaches far beyond the audience of contemporaries.

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2 Makslas Vesture un Teorija

1 Materiali Latvijas makslas vesturei

1 Konstante I.

1 Lancmanis I.

1 Pelse S.

2 2006

1 2001

THE ACTIVITIES OF FRANCESCO BARTOLOMEO RASTRELLI AS REFLECTED IN LATVIAN ART HISTORY (Francesko Bartolomeo Rastrelli darbiba Latvija makslas vestures atspogulojuma)

KRISTAPS ELIASS - 120: HIS WORK AS MUSEUM DIRECTOR AND FINAL YEARS (Kristapam Eliasam - 120: Darbibas laiks muzeja direktora amata un dzives pedejie gadi)

ENTRAPPED BY CONVICTION: KRISTAPS ELIASS' CONTRIBUTION TO LATVIAN ART HISTORY (Parliecibas slazda: Kristapa Eliasa ieguldijums latviesu makslas vesture)