Shifting monuments: Falconet's 'Peter the Great' between Diderot and Eisenstein

Authors
Citation
B. Grosskurth, Shifting monuments: Falconet's 'Peter the Great' between Diderot and Eisenstein, OX ART J, 23(2), 2000, pp. 31-48
Citations number
30
Language
INGLESE
art.tipo
Article
Categorie Soggetti
Arts & Architecture
Journal title
OXFORD ART JOURNAL
ISSN journal
0142-6540 → ACNP
Volume
23
Issue
2
Year of publication
2000
Pages
31 - 48
Database
ISI
SICI code
0142-6540(2000)23:2<31:SMF'TG>2.0.ZU;2-Q
Abstract
This article examines changing accounts of Falconet's Peter the Great from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. From the texts of Diderot to Pus hkin's poem, from Herzen's polemics to Bely's fictions, the monument is mar ked by shifting identities. Instead of being stamped with stable, unchangin g form and significance, Falconet's sculpture proved to be remarkably malle able within the space of the work's reception. Although it survived initial threats of destruction, the work became transfigured in the texts of later writers. The article traces the history of these transformations as sympto ms of a crisis in sculptural and political symbolization. From the enlighte ned absolutism of Catherine II to the dramatic shifts of the October Revolu tion, the monument formed a compelling seismograph of political change.