Paintings from the Catherine Palace. Ruins and more

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The European ruinist painters are well known to all. There are many of them. This is Hubert Robert, this is Jean Battisto Piranesi and many others. Their work has been well studied. Their drawings and paintings are widely represented in various museums around the world, digitized into electronic media. That is, they are massively available. However, there are also paintings by unknown authors. And, the most interesting thing is that in a number of cases they captured not southern Europe, but our mother Russia. Or rather, not so. Not only southern Europe, and not only Europe as a whole, but including Russia. You can find such pictures in our various museums. Unfortunately, for some reason, none of the history buffs was seriously carried away by this topic. But in vain. In the same Hermitage, there are quite a few paintings with ruins. It is also noteworthy that in the Hermitage, as a rule, the author and date are indicated. Unfortunately, this cannot be said about our other museums. There is just a picture hanging, and who is the author, when it was written, it is not clear.

Nevertheless, the question of depicting the ruins is important. Important for understanding our history. You can say as much as you like that the artists painted the ruins solely as a tribute to the fashion of that time period, but the fact remains. And not all people will be naive to believe in this kind of fashion among artists. Okay, I'm not going to rant, but I'll get straight to the point. In this article I will show a photo of paintings with ruins from the Catherine Palace in Pushkin. Filmed with a phone, so don't blame me.

All photos are clickable. Click on the picture and it will open in full size.

I'll start with the Amber Room. It is noteworthy that the paintings presented in the Amber Room are almost exclusively in ruins. In the first picture, we can clearly see the mountains. And with snow-capped peaks. And on the fourth, there are pyramidal poplars. Of course it could be Italy. But it is possible that this is something else. For example, our Caucasus. Some Pyatigorsk.

From the Amber Room, we will move on to other halls of the palace.

Here we see some kind of rock mass with the remains of a fortress.

Here, in the foreground, the ruins of a building, and in the distance something similar to the Colosseum. Behind the "Colosseum" there are again some ruins. In general, a dead city.

There is most likely some kind of ruined temple complex.

Here are the remains of some kind of colonnade.

There is some kind of Kremlin here. Perhaps Moscow. Unfortunately, it is forbidden to come close to the pictures, I dodged as if to somehow remove. If this is Moscow, then too many questions arise. If not, then the only question is - where is it?

And this is Peter. Here, without any assumptions. In the foreground, we see scattered granite blocks. One could assume that this is a picture of the process of arranging a granite embankment, but the stones are of an irregular shape. So it is far from a fact. Moreover, most likely these stones have nothing to do with the arrangement of the embankment. It is difficult to imagine that stone processing was carried out directly on the spot. It is much more convenient and easier to do this in a specially equipped place and not to transport excess cargo first there and then from there.

These are not ruins. This is a map of St. Petersburg. Very detailed, large. For a long time I begged the attendant of the hall to come closer to the map and photograph it in good quality. But the aunt was unapproachable. This is the best shot, the rest did not work at all. Photographed stretched out with a raised hand and on tiptoe to the squeal of the alarm sensor. By the way, not only to take a picture, but also to go behind the fence to look carefully, she did not let me in.

Back to the ruins. Cows, cows … There was a time when cows had a particularly sweet life. They drank water directly from the fountains. And you don’t need to tell me that this is not a cow, but a bull. I think the cows could also quench their thirst in the fountains. Moreover, this level of service presupposes gentlemanly relations. The bull will gladly yield the swill to the lady.

And then the horses. The size of the steps is just right for a horse. I would even say more for a horse. This is a real horse of a manufacturer, a heavy breed. Two meters at the withers. One can see how difficult it is for a peasant to climb the horse steps.

Some columns …

Apparently in the same place, but from a different angle. Or on the other side of the building.

This is a fragment of a wall in one of the halls. The picture of the horse steps from this wall. To one degree or another, ruins can be found in several paintings from this panel.

This is the left wing of the wall. In six out of ten paintings we see ruins.

Everything is with the ruins.

And this is a Russian church. Beautifully drawn, I love natural colors. Based on the cross on the main dome, I can only say for sure that the picture was painted not earlier than the 19th century. To be more precise, this is probably the second half of the 19th century, provided that this is not the capital or its environs. Nevertheless, if you look closely, you can clearly distinguish pagan symbols. In particular, the sun sign on the chapel.

A little distracted. This church is typical. Rebuilt from an old pagan temple. As well as the overwhelming majority of our Orthodox churches. The modern church has preserved the old heritage in many ways. True, now knowledge has been lost, but traditions are being observed. What do we see here, so that you, dear reader, would know the origins and understand what is what. In order. Note that there are symmetrical entrances to the left and right of the church. Once they were on all four sides. Then the two entrances were dismantled. From the west and from the east. On the site of the first one, which is from the west, a direct entrance to the church was made. He is shown in the picture. Red brick steps were attached to it; they had not even had time to plaster or whitewash them. The eastern entrance was converted into an altar. He is not visible in the picture. The north and south entrances (right and left in the picture) will eventually be converted into a refectory, a stoker, or something else. Perhaps they will completely dismantle, such a practice also existed. So, once upon a time all four entrances were working. Inside the temple, in the very center, there was an altar to which the sacraments were brought. Treba is apples, grain and similar things, depending on who was honored in a particular case (date of veneration). On the altar, as a rule, there was an idol of the god to whom the temple is dedicated or, in a particular case, a holiday. Based on the architectural style (four entrances, an octagon on a four, etc.), I can assume that this is originally a temple of some earthly god. Or the temple of Makosha, the goddess of space, the Mother of God of the Sun. There were pantheons of earthly gods and cosmic gods. The cosmic were higher in rank and there were more temples to the cosmic gods in quantitative terms. At the same time, the temples dedicated to the sun gods had altars, in fact, the tradition of erecting an altar is nothing more than a modern heritage from the temples to the sun gods. There were three sun gods. These are Kolyada, Yar (Yarilo) and Horst. Kolyada was the god of the young winter sun, he was born on December 25, after 3 days of Timelessness from December 22 to December 24, after Horst's death on December 21 (winter solstice). In the temples of Kolyada, the altar was in the southeast because in winter the sun rises late. The domes of the Kolyada temples have always been golden. Kolyada was seen off to the pagan Shrovetide (it is the pagan Easter among a number of southern peoples) on the day of the vernal equinox. The same day (March 20-21) was considered the birthday of the god of the spring sun Yar (Yarila). The temples of Yar (Yarila) always had green domes, and the altar faced the northeast, since the sun rises early in summer. Yar was seen off and Horst was met on the day of the autumnal equinox, September 20-21. Horst was the god of the dying autumn sun. Most of the autumn holidays - seeing off the birds, thanksgiving for the harvest and others, fell on the beginning of autumn, when the sun rises strictly according to astronomical coordinates, therefore, the altar of Horst's temples was always strictly to the east. The domes of Horst's temples were dark brown. As a rule, Horst's temples were combined with the temples of Mary - the goddess of death, whose symbol was the night luminary - the month. Horst's symbol was an equilateral cross in a circle. It is these symbols that we often see in early Christian images, for Christ (HRST without vocalization) is just one of Horst's versions. Horst died on December 21 and was resurrected three days later by Kolyada. Hence the resurrection of Christ. The temples of the supreme god of the creator Svarog (Sabaoth, Ra, Allah and his other variations), Makoshi (mocos = cos-mo (s)) - the goddess of space, Perun (Zeus and his other variations) did not have a binding to the cardinal points and did not have altars … As well as the gods of the earthly pantheon - Veles, Lada, etc.). They were usually placed just along the main road or section of the river in a given place. In order not to tire you, I will only note that the temples of Makosha always had blue domes, usually with stars, and the temples of Perun had multi-colored domes, and there were many such domes, large and small, like sparks after a lightning strike (Perun is the god of thunder). A typical temple of Perun is St. Basil's Cathedral. The temples of Svarog were not actually temples, they had the shape of a tower, of masculinity - a phallus. They were placed simply next to the temple or as an extension to the temple, and only in the case of a temple to some cosmic god. Later, this tradition among Christians was transformed into bell towers, and in Europe even the so-called Gothic style arose on this basis. For Muslims, the phallic concept has become a visiting card, these are minarets. So let's get back to this picture. We see an already converted temple of some earthly god or, most likely, the goddess Makoshi. A building is too large for an earthly god, although everything can be. Now one can only speculate. Moreover, this is clearly not the first alteration of the building. Okay, for anyone interested in the topic of the church, I recommend reading my 5-part article written a few years ago. Everything is detailed there. What are the symbols, why and how. The first 4 parts are on the history of the church, and in the final part, the principles on which the very essence of faith rests, how it works and why it helps some, but not others, are described. Link to part 1 of the article, further in order.

At this point I will end, thank you all.