“Kyiv’s Golgotha”

This is the name of the exhibition that is open at the One Street Museum, dedicated to the complicated fate of the legendary canvas. The panorama Crucifixion of Christ was created in mid-1880s as a result of commercial competition in Munich between German and Belgian painters. While thinking about the plot for their debut work, German masters decided to recreate the scene of Jesus Christ’s crucifixion, surrounded by the artistically reconstructed outskirts of Jerusalem, and they sought artist Bruno Piglhein (1848-94).

He was an original master, with a gift of vivid imagination, who combined two trends in his work that seemed to be incompatible: half-naked female nature and religious subjects. Piglhein accepted the offer and went to Palestine together with his partners. He was accompanied by Karl Hubert Frosch (1846-1931), who was responsible for the painting of architectural elements, and landscape painter Joseph Krieger (1848-1914).

The work on the picturesque canvas 17 meters high and 120 meters long began in August 1885. The main sketch was painted with the help of photographic plates projecting images on the canvas. Then the painters started working on details, and the whole process lasted for nine months. And on May 30, 1886, the official opening of the panorama took place.

By the way, Crucifixion was displayed in Munich, later it was brought to Berlin, with London slated as the next destination, but due to the American rivals’ schemes this was not to happen. From Britain the painting moved to Vienna, where it burned down two months later after the opening of the exhibition (the fire burst out on the night into April 27, 1892). There were different hypotheses concerning the cause of the fire (a cigarette, spontaneous ignition caused by gas lamps, or arson), but the official version said that the accident happened due to faulty electrical wiring.

The success of the Munich panorama inspired many artists to paint the Crucifixion plot for various cities of Europe and America. Authorial reproductions were not uncommon, too: as renowned and expert painters, Frosch and Krieger replicated their famed canvas with pleasure.

In July 1901 the Kyiv Municipal Council considered and granted the request of merchant Ivan Zamaraiev, who intended to build a pavilion on St. Volodymyr’s Hill for exhibiting faith-themed art works. Together with his partner Arthur Hashynsky Zamaraiev launched the construction, commissioning civil engineer Volodymyr Rymsky-Korsakov to create a replica of his pavilion in Czestochowa, Poland.

After the companions purchased the replica of the famous Golgotha by Frosch and Krieger, Polish artist Stanislaw Fabianski (1865-1947), whose father was the director of the Kyiv City Theater, arrived in the city of his youth to execute a masterly background to the panorama. This is what a Kyiv correspondent said about this wonderful illusion: “It is impossible to tell where the setting ends and the very painting begins.” The first visitors said that they had seen a bare footprint in the foreground: probably, a viewer overwhelmed by the presence effect tried to enter the painting. The formal consecration of the panorama took place on January 10, 1902.

Golgotha periodically left the pavilion, traveling to other cities for display, with other paintings taking its place. This first happened in July 1903, when Kyiv saw the panorama by a renowned Polish artist, native of Lviv Jan Styka, The Martyrdom of Christians in Nero’s Circus.

In March 1907 Hashynsky became the principal tenant of the pavilion with Golgotha and immediately started an active search for new dioramas to keep his business humming, since the interest in the panorama began to decrease.

In 1909 he took Golgotha to Saint Petersburg, where he offered the famous artist Ilya Repin to paint a new panorama, Gethsemane Night. Soon he received an enthusiastic answer: Repin was looking forward to the commission. Besides, for his pavilion Hashynsky also purchased seven Peter’s Dioramas, painted by Repin and his pupils back in 1903.

These dioramas were life-size paintings, combined with “decorative accessories.” The Battle of Poltava had several dummies in uniform, representing dead soldiers on the battlefield. There were also cannons, wrecked wagons, weapons and cannon balls. The Foundation of Petersburg was set with boats, and The Grandfather of the Russian Navy, with ancient equipment, chests, and a huge globe.

The popular panoramas The Battle of the Nations at Leipzig and Napoleon Crossing the Berezina River (executed with the participation of the well-known artist Jan Stanislawski) were also displayed in Kyiv.

After the revolution the nationalized pavilion continued working till 1924, when the Soviet regime confiscated Golgotha and began to use it for anti-religious propaganda.

In 1934 the pavilion was dismantled, and the painting rolled and transported to the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, where it barely went through the door to the Assumption Cathedral. After bombing of the cathedral on November 3, 1941, the remains of the painting were given to the Institute of Art. Three fragments of Golgotha, depicting the firmament, were preserved at the Institute till early 1970s.