The Marble Palace in Saint Petersburg (must see)

The marble palace is a (relatively) small palace built palace was built in 1768 by Count Grigory Orlov, one of the most powerful Russian nobleman of the 1760s, during the ruling of Empress Catherine the Great. It is hosting one of the branches of the Russian State Museum and because it is not so big and not so touristic, I would recommend to go and see it. It is also beautiful in design and very special due to the marble decoration walls and stairs which build it. Entry price was 300 rubles (around $8NZ) for both floors of the museum.

Alexander III monument at the yard of the marble palace

The museum exhibits several permanent exhibitions (The Rzhevsky Brothers Collection and Poet of the Silver age – Konstantin Romanov) and several temporary moving exhibitions. What was interesting in the permanent exhibitions was not the exhibitions but the marble palace rooms that they were presented in. I liked the modern art exhibition which was presented in the second floor, and also works by an American modern contemporary artist named Hunt Slonem. First you can see how the entrance and the marble palace looks, below I will write some thoughts about the contemporary art and the works of Hunt Slonem:

Amazing wood floors at the marble palace.

Spectacular marble decorations at the marble palace

I didn’t like the art from that collection, except the above painting which looked like it is live and moving.

The ceiling decorations are remarkable.

Spectacular marble decorations at the marble palace

Spectacular marble decorations at the marble palace

Contemporary art by Hunt Slonem.

Those exhibitions actually surprised me for the good. The first one was by an American artist named Hunt Solemn, I usually don’t like modern art and at a first glance I thought that this artist is a joker: all painting looked the same, sort of – most of them were of rabbits and others of butterflies. But then I had a second look and actually noticed that the guy, that now I consider him as a genius, had got a very special technique of painting: he is using thick oil lines to build and create the colour, and resolution, of his painting. Thus – it looks like there was a reason why lots of paintings looked sort of the same – but when you look good you notice that it is not about the rabbits or the butterfly, but about colours and intensity, while the subject stays the similar – the result is different from one painting to another. It also means that the painting looks different when you step back and look at it from far away. Since I personally used to design computer graphics at the time when computers had very limited graphics, sometimes of 8 pixels by 8 pixels a letter, I understood that Mr. Hunt actually did a very smart, and difficult thing – he created resolution like layers with his own hands. I hope the pictures will be able to emphasize what I mean:

Queen Elizabeth also looked different when you got closer:

And from really far away, things looked totally different – it is all a matter of perspective:

Contemporary art at the second floor of the marble palace.

I usually do not like contemporary modern art and prefers to focus on the classical one, usually the modern art looks to me like something amateurish, my thought is, that if my 10 years old boy could do it – then it shouldn’t be in the museum. If I could do it – then it shouldn’t be called “art”. If it is made out of rubbish or collection of junk – then it is not art.  However the gallery surprised me for the good – some art made you think, other exhibits looked like they required talent to make them, and some other works looked like they require a bit of geometrical or mathematical understanding. So in the end, I liked most of it, and took pictures of what I liked:

I hope you liked it, give me a note if you did 🙂