Monument to Peter I on the territory of the Peter and Paul Fortress.
Description:
In the Peter and Paul Fortress, next to the cathedral, there is a monument to Peter I created by sculptor Mikhail Shemyakin. From the first day of the opening of the monument in 1991, the statue of Emperor Peter I began to attract the attention of visitors to the Peter and Paul Fortress with its originality. The authors of the statue can be considered not only Mikhail Shemyakin, but also the great sculptor of the XVIII century Bartolomeo Carlo Rastrelli, which is narrated by the inscription on the pedestal “To the founder of the Great City of the Russian Emperor Peter the First from the Italian sculptor Carlo Rastrelli and from the Russian artist Mikhail Shemyakin.” 1991. It's cast in America. The fact that Shemyakin for the portrait of Peter I in his statue used a copy of the cast of the lifetime mask of the king, made by the sculptor B. K. Rastrelli in 1719, shot by the master for sculpting the wax bust of the emperor. The idea to use the mask of Peter I for sculpture was given to Mikhail Shemyakin by his close friend Vladimir Vysotsky, who visited the artist’s Paris workshop in the 70s of the twentieth century. To implement the idea of creating a statue of Peter the Great, Shemyakin returned to the 80s.
The monument to Peter I in the Peter and Paul Fortress bears similarities not only with the life mask of the emperor, but also with the “Wax persona” of the tsar, made by B. K. Rastrelli after his death, which was exhibited for public viewing in the Kunstkamera. Now "Wax persona" is exhibited in the State Hermitage. Shemyakin himself explained the disproportion of the tsar’s body by the fact that he himself “represents” Peter. Everyone has their own creative vision, and modern sculptors have it special.
The monument to Peter I, at first after the opening in the Peter and Paul Fortress, caused a contradictory attitude among the public with its unusual decision, but over time it was used to and today it is one of the most visited monuments of St. Petersburg.