City Spectacles

Judging by the advertising from a century ago, Moscow life was full of colourful, alluring, and fascinating spectacles. Throughout the city, posters promoted various goods, promised a new life, suggested taking a trip, invited to exhibitions and balls, and lured people into cinema theatres, where they could get a taste of the ‘upper crust’ of society, imagine being a fetching lady, or a dashing gentleman.

By looking at the exhibits from the Russian State Library collection, the audience can envision the dream world that advertisement created at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, and then compare it to our modern concepts.

The exposition starts at the creative laboratory. Thanks to archival photographs and documents, visitors have a chance to explore urban settings from a hundred years ago. The exhibition is divided into four main sections. The first section, ‘Big City Lights’, is devoted to posters promoting various cultural and entertainment activities, including early Russian film posters. To make the immersion more complete, the auditorium on the first floor of the Ivanovsky Hall will show first feature films produced in the Russian Empire: ‘Stenka Razin’, scenes from the film ‘The Queen of Spades’, and the drama ‘King of Paris’. The second section, ‘Signs in Colour, Letters in Gold’, illustrates the diversity of trade advertising in Russia at the turn of the century. The third section features social and patriotic posters that were particularly widespread during World War I.

Some of the items shared by the Russian State Library have never been exhibited before. Both little-known artists and established masters tried their hand at the new genre: Valentin Serov, Ivan Bilibin, Mikhail Vrubel, Evgeny Lansere, Lev Bakst, Konstantin Somov, Victor Vasnetsov, and Konstantin Korovin. The fourth section of ‘City Spectacles’ displays some truly outstanding examples of this fleeting art form.

In its early stages, the poster art was so liberal, its visual language so diverse, shocking, and controversial, that curators do not recommend this exhibition to underage persons.

The exhibition also includes photographs from the Russian State Film and Photo Archive, photographs and examples of packaging from the Museum of Moscow, and early Russian films from the collection of Gosfilmofond (the State Archive of Cinema).

Project Manager — Natalya Samoylenko, Deputy Director General of the Russian State Library