Category Archive: Architecture

St. Basil’s Cathedral is one of the most interesting and beautiful sights of the Russian capital. It was built in the 16th century by order of Tsar Ivan the Terrible. The cathedral was built in the period from 1555 to 1561 in memory of the capture of the fortress city of Kazan by Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich. There are many versions of who was the true creator of this architectural monument. The first of them is the architect Postnik Yakovlev nicknamed Barma. He was a well-known Pskov master at that time. There is also a version that the cathedral was erected by some unknown Western European master, presumably from Italy. The unique style in which the Cathedral was created harmoniously combined the traditions of Russian and European architecture.
There is also a legend according to which all the architects who worked on the project were blinded by Ivan the Terrible. He didn’t want them to build something similar again. But there is one problem. If the author of the temple is Postnik Yakovlev, then he could not be blinded in any way. Just a few years later, he also worked on the creation of the Kremlin in Kazan.
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Japanese people created a diverse and unusual world of artistic images and forms. The art shows the story of life, way of life, beliefs and beauty of their nation.
For Japanese medieval art greater integrity of the worldview, close connection with religious and moral ideas are characteristic. The poetry of the thinking of Japanese people manifested itself in the multivalence of the content of the art objects, reflecting ideas about nature and the universe. The connections of different arts were largely conditioned by the fact that the measure of all things and the source of inspiration for medieval architects, poets, painters was nature with its natural beauty and eternal variability. The aesthetic norms of Japanese art developed under the influence of historical, social factors, as well as extremely unusual climatic and natural conditions.
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A unique structure, designed and built by one man – a simple rural postman Ferdinand Cheval – is in the south-east of France, in Provence. For thirty-three years, from 1879 to 1912, he collected heavy stones and single-handedly built his dream – the Ideal Palace, a building that had never been seen anywhere else. Cheval worked at night, and continued to deliver mail in the afternoon.
Ferdinand Cheval was born in 1836. At the age of 13, the boy was forced to leave school and get a job in a bakery. Then Cheval became a postman. Every day Ferdinand walked 25 km to the surrounding villages, delivering postcards, letters, newspapers and magazines.
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The Byzantine Empire is known for its art and architecture. In AD 395 the Roman Empire split into two parts. The eastern part became known as the Byzantine Empire and lived on until 1453. Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey) was the capital of the Byzantine Empire, which extended from the Middle East to southern Spain.
The people made colorful mosaics out of broken bits of stone. They built buildings with large domes. The Byzantines also created a new branch of Christianity – Eastern Orthodoxy.
One of the greatest emperors was Justinian I. He ruled from 527 to 565 and expanded the empire and built many monuments.
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