Dome

Grotto Pavilion, detail of the main portal; Former summer residence of the emperors of Russia, 24 km south of St Petersburg; also the adjacent town. It consists of several imperial and private palaces set in parks: the Bol’shoy (‘great’; or Yekaterininsky, after Catherine I) Palace, surrounded by the Stary (‘old’; or Regulyarny, ‘regular’) Gardens and the Novy (‘new’; or Zhivopisny, ‘picturesque’) Gardens; the Aleksandrovsky Palace; and the Paley Palace, the Fyodorovsky Gorod (a barracks) and other buildings. A village was built close by in the mid-18th century, becoming a town in 1780. In Soviet times the town was renamed Pushkin, in honour of the poet. The Regulyarny Park was laid out at right angles to the main axis of the palace. It was divided into quadrangles, subdivided into countless geometrical patterns of varying forms. It provided a garden for promenading; among its pavilions were a moated hermitage (1754) and a grotto (1761; both by Rastrelli) decorated with sculptures; there were other formal gardens and further away a vast park or ‘menagerie’, intended for hunting. From 1779 to 1796 Charles Cameron was the chief architect for Catherine II at Tsarskoye Selo, his work there being as significant as that of Rastrelli. Tsarskoye Selo is unique in Russian culture; it contains all the stylistic trends of 18th- and 19th-century architecture. Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837), who was educated at the Alexander Lyceum at Tsarskoye Selo, called it his ‘fatherland’. Source: Grove Art Online; http://www.oxfordartonline.com/ (accessed 6/17/2009)