DREAMS OF FREEDOM. Romanticism in Russia and Germany

*    Lyudmila Markina - Doctor of Art History, Professor, Head of the Department of Art of the 18th — first half of the 19th century, State Tretyakov Gallery.

The exhibition “Dreams of Freedom. Romanticism in Russia and Germany” is one of the key events of the Year of Germany in Russia because it was during the Romantic period (1800-1848) that Russia and Saxony were struggling to find freedom in the domains of state, society and art. The project is a cooperative effort of the Tretyakov Gallery and the Dresden State Art Collections (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden) (DSAC), the institution in which it will be presented in 2021.

KARL GOTTFRIED TRAUGOTT FABER. A View of Dresden. 1824
Oil on canvas. 43 × 33.5 cm. © Albertinum, Dresden State Art Collection

This exhibition project does not take a strictly academic approach to the style of Romanticism; rather, it looks at Romantic art from a present-day perspective, thus creating a space for an extensive exchange of ideas at different levels. This is why the display features late-20th and early-21st century artefacts from different countries. Modern art has its own way to address the relationship between an individual's desire for freedom and the limitations imposed by society. Albertinum director Hilke Wagner was right to say that artists such as Tony Oursler and Bill Viola, Susan Philipsz and Nikolay Polissky, Guido van der Werve and Andrey Kuzkin, Hiroshi Sugimoto and Jaan Toomik, James Turrell and Boris Mikhailov take the ideas of their predecessors to a new level.

ALEXEI VENETSIANOV. Harvesting. Summer. Mid 1820s
Oil on canvas. 60 × 48.3 cm. © Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

To design the exhibition space, the project's organisers enlisted the services of Daniel Libeskind, an American architect with Polish roots who has a strong reputation for taking an interdisciplinary approach to designing public buildings (the Jewish Museum in Berlin, the World Trade Center Ground, Ground Zero in New York). The designer has created an installation in the shape of a double helix for the assigned museum space at the Tretyakov Gallery's Krymsky Val campus, which has hosted high-profile expositions of work by Valentin Serov, Ilya Repin, Isaac Levitan, Ivan Aivazovsky and Vasily Polenov. One part of the installation reproduces the geography of Dresden and Moscow and the other symbolises the ephemeral quality of the idea. Visitors to the exhibition find themselves in a complex, labyrinth-like structure, with two perpendicular axes running through it to evoke a coordinate system. The point where these axes intersect is situated at the very centre of the labyrinth and they cut through its walls, creating long, open-ended passages, in contrast to the dead ends elsewhere. This design symbolises the two poles of Romanticism: the spiral stands for eternity and the narrow, dark corners stand for constraint.

The Impossibility of Freedom

‘While freedom kindles us, my friend,
While honour calls us and we hear it...’*
Alexander Pushkin. To Chaadayev. 1818

‘Dreams, dreams,
Where is your sweetness?’
Alexander Pushkin. “The Awakening". 1816-1825

This section of the display features items related to our countries' political histories. At the beginning of the Napoleonic wars in Europe, the Electorate - and after 1806, Kingdom - of Saxony tried to remain neutral, but then joined the Fourth Coalition; after several defeats, however, it became France's ally. Napoleon's army entered Dresden twice: in 1807, after the signing of the Treaties of Tilsit, and in 1812, while they were preparing for the Russian campaign. Thousands of Saxon soldiers were sent to Moscow as part of the French army. As a loyal ally, Frederick Augustus I of Saxony was presented with a large portrait of Napoleon created by Frangois Gérard (1810, Albertinum, DSAC). It would really have been something to see this historically significant piece at the Moscow exhibition! The German curators, however, made the unconventional decision not to show a single image of the European conqueror. A pair of cavalry leather boots (1813, Armoury, DSAC) serve to hint at his metaphysical presence. These high riding boots, paired with a full dress uniform, were an important element of Napoleon's official iconography. The viewer is expected to understand the intimation that the emperor was ruthlessly trampling foreign lands underfoot and suppressing the freedom of the conquered nations.

In 1813, Saxony became the main site of the Wars of Liberation. The famous Battle of Dresden took place on August 26-27. One of the combatants was future poet Konstantin Batyushkov, then Nikolai Rayevsky's military aide. The battle ended in a victory for Napoleon over the forces of the Coalition (consisting of Russia, Austria and Prussia). This would be his last triumph. Just three days later, the French army suffered a crushing defeat near the town of Kulm (Chetmno). Frederick Augustus I was taken prisoner and brought to Berlin. Participants in the battle “against the usurper” included two young officers who would later take part in the Decembrist revolt: Pavel Pestel[1], then aide-decamp of the commander Peter Wittgenstein, and Fyodor Glinka, then aide-de-camp of General Mikhail Miloradovich.

The alliance with France had disastrous consequences for Saxony. Out of the 20,000 Saxons who were mobilised, only about 1,000 came home. Furthermore, as a result of the new division of Europe, sealed at the Congress of Vienna in 1814-1815, the kingdom lost 58% of its territory and 42% of its population. In the absence of its king (who was restored to the throne in 1815), Saxony was governed by a Russian governor general, Nikolai Repnin-Volkonsky.

Romanticism in Saxony originated from losing their status as an independent state and disappointment in the state of civic life, as well as from a rupture in the artistic tradition. After visiting an exhibition of contemporary German artists in Dresden in August 1818, a group of Russian graduates of the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg left an interesting account: “Presently, the Dresden school is at a very low level,” wrote sculptor Samuil Galberg, “and this is all the more surprising given that local artists have every means of self-improvement at their disposal: a gallery of pictures, a wonderful collection of antique artwork, a marvellous library and a charming environment”[2]. Landscape artist Sylvester Shchedrin echoes his friend's opinion: “Don't think that I wish to show off my intelligence, but I simply can't restrain myself from saying ‘oh, my Lord, how wretched the Saxons' work is!'.”[3]

In Russia, the heroic spirit of recent historical events had a profound effect on the local culture of Romanticism. Whereas Romantic artists in Saxony felt very keenly that they were individuals existing in opposition to the state, in Russia, it was the other way round; they experienced themselves as closely bound to their homeland. Romantic portraitists strove to depict their contemporaries at carefully chosen moments, “while freedom's flame within us lives” (Alexander Pushkin). The struggle for creative and social freedom was an important element of Romanticism, with its emphasis on the idea of individuality. Faith in the righteousness of a just cause gave the artists a sense of pride and joyful confidence in the future victory. The Patriotic War of 1812 (the French invasion of Russia) was seen by the future Decembrists and participants in the War of the Sixth Coalition in 1813-1814 (which included battles the Russian army fought abroad) as a war for liberation, first from Napoleon and then from autocracy. “We were children of 1812,” wrote Matvei Muravyov-Apostol.

The display features images that might be called illustrations of these words: Orest Kiprensky's graphic portraits of Sergei Buturlin (1824) and Yegor Komarovsky (1823-1827), both from the Tretyakov Gallery, as well as Carl Christian Vogel von Vogelstein's painting[4] featuring Ivan Sergeevich Leontiev, an Imperial Guard who took part in the Battle of Austerlitz and was rewarded with a gold sword with “For Valour” inscribed on it.

CARL CHRISTIAN VOGEL VON VOGELSTEIN. Portrait of Ivan Leontyev. No later than 1812
Oil on canvas. 62.4 × 49 cm
© The Rostov Kremlin State Museum Reserve, Rostov

Vogel, a graduate of the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts, lived in Prince Grigory Gagarin's palace on Bolshaya Morskaya Street in St. Petersburg from 1808 to 1812. N. Vrangel correctly noted that “the superb portraits he left are among the best works of German artists that we have. Vogel's style was accurate, clear and expressive, and he captured his sitters' individuality with precision, albeit somewhat sentimentally. Many of his pieces in Russia were attributed to Kiprensky and indeed, they are very nearly of the same quality.”[5] Indeed, in depicting Leontiev, the German artist created a heroic image full of energy and individual dignity combined with a sense of military honour, one that truly belongs in the same category as Kiprensky's work.

This exhibition includes archival material related to the Decembrist uprising, including Pavel Pestel's “Russ- kaya pravda” (Russian Truth), the primary manifesto of the Southern Society of the Decembrists written in 1822— 1824, and Nikita Muravyov's “Konstitutsia” (Constitution), which served a similar function for the Northern Society of the Decembrists, produced in 1826 (both documents are held at the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF)). The display features a rare example of Nicholas I's graphic artwork - a sketch called “A Battalion of the Preobrazhensky Regiment of the Imperial Guard Arrives at the Winter Palace on December 14, 1825” (1850, GARF). The Emperor wished to reward the regiment for the loyalty it showed during those tragic events. His drawing inspired Wilhelm-Adolf Ladurner, a noted painter of battle scenes, to create a painting of the same name (1852, State Historical Museum, Moscow). Nicholas I also commissioned the painter Georg Wilhelm Timm to create a composition entitled “Uprising of December 14, 1825, on Senatskaya Square” (1853, Hermitage Museum) as a token of gratitude to the Imperial Guard Cavalry Regiment. The Decembrists can barely be discerned in the background, standing in a square formation. The foreground is packed with everyday details, but the viewer can still find expressive depictions of the archetypical figures of ordinary people. This composition is an impressive demonstration of this noted graphic artist's virtuosity.

As time went by, civic consciousness began to grow among the Saxon community, leading to demands that the socio-political status quo be transformed. In the wake of popular unrest in 1830, the king of Saxony, Anthony the Kind, was compelled to sign a new constitution that granted more rights to the bourgeoisie. The display features a printed copy of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Saxony (1831-1832, Dresden City Museum). The spirit of historical change, however, continued to shape the kingdom's destiny thereafter. On March 3, 1849, an uprising began in Dresden, with the goal of abolishing the monarchy and establishing a republic. In Julius Scholtz's composition “Fighting on the Barricades in May 1849” (1849, Dresden City Art Gallery (Städtische Galerie Dresden - Kunstsammlung)), a heroic moment of resistance is represented with great documentary accuracy. A viewer who was so inclined might identify the central character aiming a gun as Mikhail Bakunin, who was “rescuing the failing revolution”. A poetic illustration of these events can be found in Johann Christian Friedrich Holderlin's “Hymn to Freedom”:

And when, reaching the cherished goal,
We'll reap that longed-for fruit,
And my German people will throw
into dust the tyrants who used to rule.. ,[6]

As a true Romantic poet, Holderlin dreamt of a time when the sun of freedom would shine on his own country as well. Because the idea of the homeland (“Heimat” in German) had great significance for Romantic artists, this exhibit features an entire section devoted to it.

Finding a Homeland

‘What seeks he in this foreign region?
What left he in his native land?[8]
Mikhail Lermontov. “The Sail". 1832

In Romantic art, the image of the homeland often originates from a sense that it has been lost. Most of the movement's renowned artists embraced their national identity while living in foreign lands. Thus, Caspar David Friedrich, a native of Pomerania, came into his own as an artist in Dresden (he joined the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts in 1816), where he pioneered a new form of landscape painting. Friedrich's small-sized pictures are metaphorical reflections of the landscape of his soul (“Seelen- landschaft”). Human figures - lovers, three friends or two sisters - are usually depicted from the back. They are surrounded by majestic landscapes, under a full moon or at nightfall. By creating the illusion of a boundless, expanding space, Friedrich tried to convey his utopian vision of the universe to the viewer.

Friedrich's contemporaries did not understand his work. His composition “Cross in the Mountains (Tetschen Altar)” (1807-1808, Albertinum, DSAC), in which the artist includes Christian iconography in a landscape, caused a real scandal. Unfortunately, this masterpiece cannot be removed from the Dresden museum due to the need to preserve it properly. The exhibit in Moscow will, however, feature a selection of his unique graphic works from the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts (Moscow) and paintings from the Hermitage: “On a Sailing Ship”, “Night in a Harbour (Sisters)”, and “Moonrise Over the Sea”. Thanks to Vasily Zhukovsky, who met Friedrich in 1821, and the patronage of Empress Alexandra Fyordorovna, Russia now has an excellent collection of this significant German artist's work. Friedrich's landscapes are best understood in dialogue with the work of Zhukovsky, who introduced a German concept into Russian poetry, the sense of a world of duality, a longing for a cherished ideal and sweet yearning (“Sehnsucht”), elegy and drama, idyll and bombast. Friedrich's influence is readily apparent in Zhukovsky's graphic art.

A Romantic's rebellious soul causes him to wander the globe in search of his spiritual homeland. Through painter Karl Gottfried Faber's eyes, even the view through his window betrays a wistful melancholy. Dresden appears truly minuscule, its silhouette melting into the horizon (“A View of Dresden”, 1824, Albertinum, DSAC).

ADRIAN LUDWIG RICHTER. Crossing at Schreckenstein. 1837
Oil on canvas. 117 × 157.5 cm. © Albertinum, Dresden State Art Collections

Paintings such as Ludwig Richter's “Ferry at the Schreckenstein” (1837, Albertinum, DSAC) and Anton Ivanov's “Valaam Island at Sunset” (1845, Tretyakov Gallery) present idealised images of nature in each artist's home country. Both artists chose the motif of a quietly flowing stream at sunset in summer. The German painter drew on his impressions from his travels in Bohemia in 1835. “I was stunned by the beauty of those places,” Richter recalled. “The environment looked to me very much like Italian scenery.[7] It was then that I asked myself for the first time — why do you continue to search in faraway places for something you can find close to home?”[8] In his painting, a specific landscape functions as an artistic invocation of his homeland. Through the inexhaustible waters of the Elbe, representing the uninterrupted stream of time, glides a boat, symbolising human life. The painting depicts people of different ages: a little boy, a courting couple, a mature man and an old man playing a harp. This idyll derives from the ancient Greek notion of the “golden age,” when people and nature lived in harmony with each other.

Ivanov's chosen subject of a crossing by ferry is elevated to the level of allegory, taking on an air of timelessness, infinity. This is why the heated debates about the “true topography” of the landscape (is it the Volga or the Dnieper?)[9] never yielded a definitive answer. Research carried out in the past few years suggests that the area featured here is the island of Valaam[10].

Italy: a Chosen Homeland

“I know that land! A land of happiness, my friend! We're going there! The dream is calling! My heart is there forever!” This is how Vasily Zhukovsky translated a fragment of Goethe's famous poem inspired by a journey to Italy[11]. “The magic land, the magic land / The country of sublime inspirations,” exclaimed the great poet Alexander Pushkin, who never once set foot outside of Russia[12]. Each of these poetic fragments represents the essence of the Russian national perception of Italy as a country where dreams of freedom and happiness come true. Italy became the promised land for many Russian and German artists. In their imaginations, its history was bathed in the romantic glamour of the republican ideals of Ancient Rome and the revolutionary zeal of their contemporaries, the Carbonari. Russians regarded Italy as the cradle of art and freedom, what might be regarded as the antithesis of the social order of Russia during the age of serfdom.

Russian students with pensions from the Academy of Fine Arts came from chilly St. Petersburg and its strict educational routines to the carefree atmosphere of sunny Rome, where they lived with only minimal control from the bureaucrats. Some members of the Russian community of artists were recently emancipated serfs, hailing from quiet provincial parts of Russia (Vasily Raev, Anton Ivanov) or Little Russia (Ivan Shapovalenko). It was these artists who enjoyed the atmosphere of liberty in Italy to its fullest. “In the joyful captivity” of Italian life, Russian art students found themselves in a unique cultural space.

In Rome, artists belonging to different schools and following different trends mingled with one another. They participated in the traditional exhibitions on the Piazza del Popolo, visited studios, discussed questions of art at the Caffe Greco, which was what might be called an international art club, and in the hospitable house of the “Roman German” Franz Ludwig Catel. This exhibition includes the artist's only signed piece now in Russia, with the generic title “Italian Landscape” (1840-1850, New Jerusalem Museum and Exhibition Complex, Istra). This piece from a Russian collection is a variation on the compositions “View From Ariccia Against The Sea” (1821-1825, Bavarian State Painting Collections, Neue Pinakothek, Munich) and “View from Ariccia” (about 1821-1825, Berchtesgaden Royal Castle, Wittelsbach Compensation Fund)[13].

The work by Russian and German artists presented in this section of the exhibit features landscapes of the Eternal City and its environs, as seen through the eyes of Romantics (Raev's “Rome in the Evening. A View of the Mausoleum of Hadrian (Castel Sant'Angelo) and St. Peter's Basilica”, 1843, Tretyakov Gallery; Carl Maria Nicolaus Hummel's “Landscape of Campagna in Evening Lighting”, about 1845, Albertinum), as well as landscapes of the Amalfi Coast, where the mild coastal climate and scenic views held special appeal for landscape artists. Sylvester Shchedrin was the first Russian painter to begin using oil paints en plein air. The piece “Terrace in Pozzuoli” (1828, Tretyakov Gallery) is an example of this landscape artist's impeccable mastery of this new artistic form. Shchedrin chose the time in the afternoon when Italy showed off all its radiant natural splendour and magnificence. The painter's colour scheme, enriched due to his regular painting sessions en plein air, acquired a wealth of grey-blue and silvery hues, conveying the peculiar characteristics of Italy's air, which art historians have rightfully called “the air of Romanticism”. Most genre paintings clearly demonstrate the German and Russian artists' shared interest in the Italian way of life, and in uniquely Italian customs and mores. Combining portraiture and genre scenes, these paintings include characters representing ethnic groups from different regions of Italy, their colourful costumes and accessories.

Creative Liberty

At the centre of the Romantic universe is the notion of the “I” - a being with its own individual feelings and world of ideas. As a result, self-portraiture in Russia at the time became the site of a struggle for respect for artists and their work. Practically all the masters featured in this exhibition created wonderful images of themselves. For all the diversity of the interiors, clothes and small details they feature (a brush or a palette, a dressing-gown or a frock coat, a studio or a neutral background), Russian self-portraits share a common idea, preaching the cult of the creator. Dmitry Charushin's “Self-portrait with Palette” (1837, Viktor and Apollinary Vasnetsov Art Museum in Vyatka) is an excellent example. As a self-taught artist from the provincial town of Vyatka, he was proudly aware of his unique mission. Alexander Orlovsky's “Self-portrait” (about 1816, Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts) is a rare example of an image being interpreted ironically. The humorous caption of this image “O! Jakze gtowa boli” (Polish “Oh! What a headache!”) captures the painter's complex emotional state. It is important to point out that for the Romantics self-deprecation, the opposite of rationality, is characteristic of person enjoying the highest degree of freedom.

One can hardly imagine a German artist, even a Romantic, embodying that trait. The German self-portraits of the period are all cut from the same cloth: the same size, the same shoulder-height image of the sitter, the same thoughtful, proud gaze directed at the viewer. This exhibition features such pieces created by young Gustav Heinrich Nacke and mature Heinrich Gotthold Arnold, professor Ferdinand Hartmann and Academy graduate Moritz Retzsch: they are deliberately arranged on the wall frame to frame.

The sketches produced by Romantic artists can also be regarded as a kind of self-portraiture. These unfinished pieces of artwork capture reality as seen here and now. Drafts, studies and sketches, which classicist thinking regarded as mere preparatory material for a composition in the making, had value in their own right when viewed from a Romantic perspective. It was in creating these improvisational pieces that artists were at their most free and expressive. Thus, an entire section of the display is devoted to sketches of nature. These images include mountains by Alexander Ivanov, clouds by Johan Christian Klausson Dahl, surf by Edmund Hottenroth and a valley before a thunderstorm by Sophia Sukhovo-Kobylina. One cannot help but recall Holderlin's line “liberty delights in storms” (“Hymn to Humankind”, 1791).

When Romantics began to paint nature and reality, the goals of the genre of landscape changed. Artists began to specify not only the locations they painted, but also the time of day. New themes were introduced, like “Morning”, “Evening”, “Night”, as well as sunny or stormy landscapes, reflecting different natural conditions. Studyi ng the variable character of nature, the artists changed their approach to composition (which became simpler, more natural looking), drawing patterns and colour schemes. The system of alternating planes, so typical of classicism, had outlived its usefulness. By studying nature, the artists introduced light and air into the images they created, drawing closer to the method of plein air painting. Chiaroscuro became a vital element in paintings. Light, as an immaterial element, helped bring the spiritual foundation of a given painting into relief.

The ambitious exhibition “Dreams of Freedom. Romanticism in Russia and Germany” features a large assortment of items (about 200), offering an objective picture of the historical and cultural exchanges that occurred at the time. Drawing attention to a range of once-obscure facts from the personal and artistic lives of the Russians who immersed themselves, however briefly, in the “Saxon world” demonstrates how generative this interaction was. The Romantic era was the most productive period in the history of artistic ties between the Academies of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg and Dresden. The dialogue between the Russian and German artists demonstrates the special features of each nation's way of life, as well as the national traditions and the originality of each country's art, as they were reimagined by the artists with distinctive individual visions.

This exhibition is a momentous event not only for Russian-German cultural exchange, but in our countries' political histories as well. “For me, freedom and civil rights today,” wrote German foreign minister Heiko Maas in a foreword for the catalogue, “are not just a dream but an essential principle of our international policy, they are among the principles we apply to our cooperation with Russia”.

THOMAS RUFF. Born in 1958, Zell am Harmersbach 18h20m/-25°. 1990
Chromogenic print, plasticisation using Diasec technology. 200 × 134 cm
© Hoffman’s Collection, Dresden State Art Collections

“Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and reverence, the more often and more steadily one reflects on them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. ... I see them before me and connect them directly with the consciousness of my existence.” (Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason and Other Works on the Theory of Ethics. Trans. Thomas Kingsmill Abbott. London: Kongmans, Green and Co., 1889. P 313.) In 19891992, Thomas Ruff worked on a series of photos entitled “Stars”. This series can be seen as an artistic statement about what truly lies behind the distinction between natural science and the arts and humanities. The author transposes reproductions of photographs found in an atlas of the night sky in the Southern Hemisphere into the sphere of art, turning each particular photographic fragment into a vertical positive print. By breaking the boundaries of scientific and mathematical approaches, the artist emancipates our vision of the stars and, like a true Romantic, associates the image of the starry sky with the viewer’s inner world. Ruff is giving us a spectacular example of the unique synthesis of art and science, which in turn correlates with the philosophy of Carl Gustav Carus. Juxtaposing the two approaches shows the direct connection between German Romanticism and modernity yet again.

Maria Isserlis

SUSAN PHILIPSZ. Born in 1965 in Glasgow
War Damaged Musical Instruments
Project in progress Six-channel music installation Artist’s property

Over the past few years, Maria has been working on a sound installation project involving musical instruments damaged in wartime. Some of these were found on battlefields and have long and exciting stories to tell, but most are silent, warped witnesses of a difficult era. The artist believes that it is important to show the instruments that carry traces of use and that a human presence should be felt in the sound recordings made using them. That is why she mainly focused on the wind section, as those instruments are directly related to breathing. The sounds created when playing these damaged instruments are not music, but rather the sounds they make when the musician inhales and exhales.

Sergey Fofanov

1. As young children, Pestel and his brother lived in Dresden with their grandmother, a writer called Anna-Helena Krok, and were tutored by A.E. Seidel. As Pavel Pestel's own written account indicates, “until the age of 12, I received my education in my parents' home, and in 1805, my brothers and I went to Hamburg, then to Dresden, whence I returned to my parents' home in 1809. While I was outside my homeland, our upbringing was the purview of a certain Seidel.” State Archive of the Russian Federation. Coll. 48. Inventory 1. File 394. Sheet 147. This passage was kindly provided by M.V. Sidorova.
2. 'The Sculptor Samuil Ivanovich Galberg in His Letters and Notes from Abroad. 1818-1828'. Collected by V.F. Evald. “Bulletin of Fine Arts. Appendix to the 2nd volume”. St. Petersburg, 1884. P. 33.
3. Shchedrin, Sylvester. “Letters from Italy”. Moscow; Leningrad. 1932. P. 60.
4. In 1831, Vogel was granted a noble title and the surname von Vogelstein.
5. Vrangel, N. 'Foreigners in 19th-century Russia'. “The Past Years” (Starye gody). 1912. July - September. P. 34.
6. Translated from Lev Ginsburg’s Russian version.
7. In the autumn of 1820, they met Wilhelm Kuchelbecker, secretary to the Chamberlain Prince Alexander Naryshkin, in Dresden. He was invited to accompany them on a trip to Italy and sketch views from the road.
8. Richter L. “Lebenserinnerungen eines deutschen Malers”. Frankfurt am Main, 1885. P. 318.
9. The piece was bought in 1894 by Pavel Tretyakov. The owner, M.M. Gubin, claimed that the people in the boat were Nikolai Gogol and the painter Anton Ivanov himself. S.S. Stepanova, who disagreed, proposed that the piece be incorrectly titled “Fishermen on the Volga”. See: Stepanova, S.S. 'On the Real Topography and Stylistic Characteristics of the Landscapes “View of Environs of Albano Near Rome” by Mikhail Lebedev and “Gogol Crossing the Dnieper” by Anton Ivanov' in “Expert Evaluation and Attribution of Works of Non-Decorative and Decorative Art”. Materials of the 17th and 18th academic conferences. Moscow. 2015. Pp.74-75.
10. “Russian Museum Introduces: Valaam. 200 Years Worth of Russian Art: an Almanac”. Issue 574. St.Petersburg. 2019. No. 9.
11. Zhukovsky, Vasily. 'Mina'. “Collected Works". Moscow. 1954. P. 76.
12. Pushkin, Alexander. 'Who knows the land...’ “Collected Works: 10 Volumes". Vol. 2. Moscow. 1959. P 201.
13. Vgl. Ljudmila Markina, „Franz Ludwig Catels Kontakte zu russischen Künstlern und Auftraggebern in Rom“, in: Franz Ludwig Catel: Italienbilder der Romantik, Hamburg 2015, P. 95-96.