“Why is the head so small and bald? And why are the fingers so long? What kind of horror is this?” Such words usually start the discussion about Shemyakin’s monument. Indeed, the monument installed in the Peter and Paul Fortress in the 1990s leaves a very ambiguous impression. Over time, however, people got used to it, and now it has become an integral part of the Peter and Paul Fortress. Truly, Peter here is completely different, not from a textbook. There is no monumentality typical of other monuments: narrow shoulders, a small bald head, long fingers, thin legs, huge feet, and an unnatural stiffness of the entire figure. Why did Shemyakin depict Peter exactly like this?

The history of the monument began in the 1980s. According to the author of the monument — sculptor Mikhail Shemyakin — in his interview, the idea to create the monument belonged to his friend Vladimir Vysotsky. The latter even has a song dedicated to Shemyakin, “…and what my friend created – from God, not from the devil. He was of a coarse grind, a tough mix…” Vysotsky knew that Mikhail Shemyakin often drew Peter I and asked why he did not want to make his sculpture. Then Mikhail Shemyakin replied that monuments to outstanding people did not work out for him, but later, after Vysotsky’s death, he returned to this idea. He began creating life-size clay models of the monument, but it turned out that Peter’s figure was unremarkable — Peter I appeared to be a short man. Then the sculptor began to enlarge the proportions of Peter I’s body without changing the size of the head, and thus came to the proportions of Russian icons. The face of the sculpture was made based on a well-known authentic wax mask of Peter’s face and the “Wax Person,” made by B. K. Rastrelli and kept in the Hermitage.

The clay sketch of the monument was approved by Dmitry Likhachov, and two years later Mikhail Shemyakin was offered to install the monument in Leningrad. Some time was spent searching for a place to install the monument: the Union of Artists and the Union of Architects proposed erecting the sculpture in the courtyard of the Hermitage; there was even an idea to place it in Kupchino, but in the end, on Anatoly Sobchak’s initiative, it was installed on the Main Alley of the Peter and Paul Fortress.

The monument was cast in bronze by the Tallix Art Foundry (USA, New York State) and donated to Saint Petersburg, installed on a gray granite pedestal and surrounded by a metal fence. The sculpture depicts Peter I sitting on a throne. The height of the sculpture is 1.9 m, the height of the pedestal is 0.36 m. On the front side of the pedestal, a bronze plaque is installed, which tells in Russian and English about the makers of the sculpture and the use of Peter’s life mask in the work. On the side of the pedestal, a copper plaque is attached with the inscription: “To the Founder of the Great Russian City, Emperor Peter the First, from the Italian Sculptor Carlo Rastrelli and the Russian Artist Mikhail Shemyakin, 1991. Cast in America.” The monument was unveiled on June 7, 1991.

Today, this monument is one of the most popular attractions of the Peter and Paul Fortress. Visitors love to take photos on Peter I’s knees. Most people fit there easily — the sculpture’s proportions allow it. The knees and fingers of the sculpture are well polished. There is a superstition that a person who touches Peter I’s finger will gain wealth.

There is an urban legend that this monument to Peter saved the city from another, even more controversial monument. At one time, Zurab Tsereteli tried to gift the city a gigantic monument to Peter the First, which was eventually installed in Moscow. He came to Anatoly Sobchak with this idea. And Sobchak, having listened to Tsereteli and recalling how much criticism he had faced for installing the monument to Peter in the Peter and Paul Fortress (a seemingly small monument), refused Tsereteli’s gift.

Let’s analyze why the monument has such strange proportions.

Firstly, Shemyakin’s work is complex and intellectual. In his youth, Shemyakin authored the manifesto of “Metaphysical Synthetism.” Many regarded his theory with irony. In one of the stories from the collection “The Suitcase” by Dovlatov, a sculptor creating a monument of dubious merit to Lomonosov shouts: “You don’t understand anything! My sculpture is the latest fashion of metaphysical synthetism!” But still, Shemyakin is deep and complex — this must be acknowledged. All his works are a play with images. Shemyakin takes a monument, sculpture, or other art object that has long become part of the cultural text, modifies it, adds new meanings, modernizes, and contemporizes it. And thus, he creates works that seem to weave into the fabric of culture like another thread woven into the complex pattern of a carpet.

This is exactly how he worked on the monument to Peter. Shemyakin had at least two sources that inspired him to create this piece. First, the life wax mask of Peter. A copy of this mask is still kept in Saint Petersburg, in the Russian Museum. This mask gives an accurate idea of what our emperor looked like in mature age. And the face of Peter the First created by Shemyakin precisely repeats the real features of the sovereign. Indeed, the man before us is already not young, weathered by life, and frankly unattractive. And that is how he really was. The only difference between the monument and the real Peter is that Peter was never bald. But the baldness of the bronze Peter is also quite explainable. After all, Shemyakin tried to create his image of Peter as close as possible to that original, to that mask he had. And the wax mask, as you understand, does not reflect hair; the wax is applied just up to the upper boundary of the forehead. That is why Shemyakin’s Peter acquired baldness.

The second source of inspiration is the so-called “wax person.” In Europe at that time, a strange custom arose, which, like many other European novelties, migrated to Russia under Peter: after a person’s death, to create his “wax person” — a doll dressed in real clothes, for which a wig made of real human hair was made — a kind of posthumous monument, as close as possible to the model. After all, a figure made of wax, which is closer in color and texture to human skin, looks much more realistic than a monument made of bronze or stone. After Peter’s death, such a “wax person” was created and is still kept in one of the halls of the Hermitage. Interestingly, the wax Peter sits on a chair in exactly the same position that Shemyakin gave his Peter.

Judging by all descriptions of Peter the First, as well as by his preserved personal belongings, this man was unattractive and disproportionate. Peter was tall: two meters and four centimeters. At the same time, he had a tiny head. In Peterhof, in the Monplaisir Palace, Peter’s night sleeping cap is still kept — very small in diameter. Peter was tall but slender and narrow-shouldered. Peter had small feet (size 38), but large hands (imprints of his huge palms have been preserved). According to descriptions, Peter was strong and could bend a metal coin with his fingers. That is, Peter was tall, slender, solidly built, but very clumsy and not at all an Apollo.

In this case, Shemyakin presented to us how Peter was seen and what caught the eye, much more conservatively than we, his contemporaries. After all, many did not like Peter, and to the most radically minded Russians of that time, Peter seemed almost otherworldly. During Peter’s lifetime, various rumors circulated about him: that he was replaced during his foreign trip, that he was a fake tsar; and it was even said that Peter was the Antichrist come into the world. And this is exactly how Shemyakin depicted him: a strange monster not of this world, sitting on a throne like a statue or mechanism, unlike a living person, in a foreign, non-Russian, grotesque costume. It seems to me that Shemyakin’s idea was precisely to convey that sense of foreignness, alienness of Peter the First that many of his contemporaries experienced. In this sense, the sculpture has a deep and complex meaning.

Sources:

https://peterburg-blog.ru/pamyatnik-petru-i-rabot-mihaila-shemyakina/

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monument_to_Peter_I_(Peter_and_Paul_Fortress)