Alexandre Benois

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Alexandre Benois

Alexandre Nikolayevich Benois (St. Petersburg

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a types of inhabited localities in Russia and a federal subjects of Russia of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea....
–9 February 1960, Paris

Paris

Paris is the Capital of France and the country's largest city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the ?le-de-France Regions of France ....
), an influential artist, art critic, historian, preservationist, and founding member of Mir iskusstva

Mir iskusstva

Mir iskusstva was a Russian magazine and the artistic movement it inspired and embodied, which was a major influence on the Russians who helped revolutionize European art during the first decade of the 20th century....
. His influence on the modern ballet

Ballet

Ballet is a formalized type of performative dance, the origins of which date lay in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century France courts, and which was further developed in England, Italy, and Russia as a concert dance form....
and stage design is considered seminal.

He was born into the artistic and intellectual Benois family, prominent members of the nineteenth and early twentieth century Russian intelligentsia

Intelligentsia

The intelligentsia is a social class of people engaged in complex mental and creative labor directed to the development and dissemination of culture, encompassing intellectuals and social groups close to them ....
.

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Encyclopedia

Alexandre Nikolayevich Benois (St. Petersburg

Saint Petersburg

Paris

Mir iskusstva

Ballet

Intelligentsia

Nicholas Benois

Nicholas Benois was a Russian architect who worked in Peterhof and other suburbs of St Petersburg.Benois was born of French people parents in Russia and studied at the Imperial Academy of Arts from 1827 to 1836....
and brother Leon Benois

Leon Benois

Leon Benois was a Russian architect. He was the son of architect Nicholas Benois, the brother of artists Alexander Benois and Albert Benois, and the grandfather of the actor Sir Peter Ustinov....
were noted Russia

Russia

Russia , or the Russian Federation , is a list of countries spanning more than one continent country extending over much of northern Eurasia....
n architects. Alexandre didn't plan to devote his life to art and graduated from the Faculty of Law, St. Petersburg University

Saint Petersburg State University

Saint Petersburg State University is a Russian federal state-owned university based in Saint Petersburg and one of the oldest, largest and most prestigious universities in the country....
in 1894. Three years later, while in Versailles

Versailles

Versailles , formerly de facto capital of the kingdom of France, is now a wealthy suburb of Paris and is still an important administrative and judicial centre....
, he painted a series of watercolor

Watercolor painting

Watercolor or Watercolour is a painting method. A watercolor is the Processing medium or the resulting Work of art, in which the paints are made of pigments suspended in a water soluble vehicle....
s depicting Last Promenades of Louis XIV
Louis XIV of France

Louis XIV ruled as List of French monarchs and of King of Navarre. He ascended the throne a few months before his fifth birthday, but did not assume actual personal control of the government until the death of his prime minister , the Italians Jules Cardinal Mazarin, in 1661....
. When exhibited by Pavel Tretyakov

Pavel Tretyakov

Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov was a Russian businessman, patron of art, collector, and philanthropist who gave his name to the Tretyakov Gallery and Tretyakov Drive in Moscow....
in 1897, they brought him to attention of Sergei Diaghilev

Sergei Diaghilev

Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev , also referred to as Serge, was a Russian people art critic, patron, ballet impresario and founder of the Ballets Russes from which many famous dancers and choreographers would later arise....
and Leon Bakst

Léon Bakst

L?on Samoilovitch Bakst was a Russian Painting and scene- and costume designer who revolutionized the arts he worked in. Born as Lev Rosenberg, he was also known as Leon Nikolayevich Bakst ....
. Together they founded the art magazine and movement Mir iskusstva
Mir iskusstva

Mir iskusstva was a Russian magazine and the artistic movement it inspired and embodied, which was a major influence on the Russians who helped revolutionize European art during the first decade of the 20th century....
which aimed at promoting the Aesthetic Movement and Art Nouveau

Art Nouveau

Art Nouveau is an international Art movement and style of art, architecture and applied art?especially the decorative arts?that peaked in popularity at Fin de si?cle of the 20th century ....
in Russia.

During the first decade of the new century, Benois continued to edit Mir iskusstva but also pursued his scholarly interests. He prepared and printed several monographs on the 19th-century Russian art and Tsarskoye Selo

Tsarskoye Selo

Tsarskoye Selo is a former Russian Empire residence of the Romanov and visiting nobility, located south from the center of Saint Petersburg....
. From 1918 to 1926, he ran the gallery of Old Masters in the Hermitage Museum

Hermitage Museum

The State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia is one of the largest museums in the world, with 3 million works of art , and one of the oldest art gallery and museums of human history and culture in the world....
, to which he secured his brother's heirloom—Leonardo's Madonna Benois
The Benois Madonna

Madonna and Child with Flowers, otherwise known as the Benois Madonna, could be one of two the Madonnas started by Leonardo da Vinci, as he remarked himself, in October 1478....
. In 1903, he printed his illustrations to Pushkin's Bronze Horseman which have since been recognized as one of the landmarks in the genre.

In 1901, Benois was appointed scenic director of the Mariinsky Theatre

Mariinsky Theatre

The Mariinsky Theatre is a historic theatre of opera and ballet in St Petersburg, Russia. Opened in 1860, it became the preeminent music theatre of late 19th century Russia, where many of the stage masterpieces of Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov received their premieres....
. Since then, he devoted most of his time to stage design and decor. Sets and costumes he designed for Ballets Russes

Ballets Russes

The Ballets Russes was an itinerant ballet company which performed under the directorship of Sergei Diaghilev between 1909 and 1929. Some of their places of residence included the Th??tre Mogador and the Th??tre du Ch?telet, though they worked in many countries, including England, the U.S.A., and Spain....
productions of Les Sylphides
Les Sylphides

Les Sylphides is a short, non-narrative Ballet Blanc. Its original choreography was by Mikhail Fokine, with music by Fr?d?ric Chopin orchestrated by Alexander Glazunov....
(1909), Giselle
Giselle

Giselle is a ballet by Adolphe Adam. It has 2 acts, 2 scenes, with a libretto by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges and Th?ophile Gautier and was originally choreography by Jean Coralli and Jules Perrot ....
(1910), and Petrushka (1911) are counted among his greatest triumphs. Although he worked primarily with Diaghilev for the Ballets Russes, he simultaneously collaborated with the Moscow Art Theatre

Moscow Art Theatre

Moscow Art Theatre is a theatre company in Moscow, Russia, founded in 1897 by Constantin Stanislavski and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko. It was conceived as a venue for Naturalism theatre, in contrast to the melodramas that were Russia's dominant form of theatre at the time....
and other notable theatres of Europe

Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
.

His brother Albert Benois

Albert Benois

Albert Nikolayevitch Benois , was a talented Russian water-colorist. The Benois family produced many talented artists over several generations. Albert was the elder son of architect Nicholas Benois, brother of artist and theatrical designer Alexander Benois, uncle of the painter Zinaida Serebriakova, and great-uncle of Sir Peter Ustinov....
's son, Nikolai, was married to opera singer Maria Kuznetsova

Maria Kuznetsova

Maria Nikolayevna Kuznetsova , was a famous Twentieth century Russians opera singer and dancer. Prior to the Russian Revolution , Kuznetsova was one of the most celebrated opera singers in Imperial Russia, having worked with the likes of Richard Strauss, Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov and Jules Massenet....
. He was the uncle of Russian artists Eugene Lanceray

Eugene Lanceray

Yevgeny Yevgenievich Lanceray, also spelled Lansere , was a Russian graphic artist associated stylistically with the Mir iskusstva, a Russian magazine and the artistic movement it inspired....
and Zinaida Serebriakova, and the great-uncle of British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom , the UK or Britain,is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe....
actor Sir Peter Ustinov

Peter Ustinov

Sir Peter Alexander Ustinov CBE or ;, born Peter Alexander Baron von Ustinow, was a British actor, writer and dramatist.Ustinov was also renowned as a filmmaker, theatre director and opera director, film director, stage designer, screenwriter, comedian, humorist, newspaper and magazine columnist, radio broadcaster and television pres...
.

His Memoirs were published in two volumes in 1955.

Works

Bibliography

Katerina Clark, Petersburg: Crucible of the Cultural Revolution (Cambridge, MA, 1995).
John E. Bowlt, The Silver Age: Russian Art of the Early Twentieth Century and the “World of Art” Group (Newtonville, MA, 1982).
Janet Kennedy, The Mir Iskusstva Group and Russian Art, 1898-1912 (New York, 1978).
Sergei Makovskii, Stranitsy khudozhestvennoi kritiki – Kniga vtoraia: Sovremennye Russkie khudozhniki (Petersburg, 1909).
Gregory Stroud, Retrospective Revolution: A History of Time and Memory in Urban Russia, 1903-1923 (Urbana-Champaign, 2006).