"Simplicity - naturalness - truth", or Why Russian nobles were afraid to order portraits from Serov

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The most famous and fashionable Russian portrait painter late XIX - early XX centuries. was Valentin Serov … His brushes belong to ceremonial portraits of noble nobles, secular beauties, industrialists and generals. Nevertheless, in high society they were afraid to order portraits from Serov, as he was called an "evil" and "merciless" artist. The thing is that he did not try to embellish reality, his main commandments in art were "simplicity - naturalness - truth." Who has the courage to face the truth?

When among the artists debated about how to paint portraits, Serov liked to repeat: "Where it is simple, there are about a hundred angels." Such a desire for simplicity of lines and shapes and the truthfulness of the image sometimes aroused indignation among the nobles, accustomed to the splendor and pomp of ceremonial portraits. "It is necessary that the peasant understands, not the master," Serov asserted, "and we all write for the bar and are terribly greedy for any intricacy and splendor."

Serov began to paint portraits to order in the 1890s in order to improve his strained financial situation, and since then quickly became the most fashionable portrait painter of his time, despite the fact that he did not engage in decoration and did not flatter models. Among his customers were even members of the imperial family.

The artist's customers were afraid of the "caricature" of the author's style of the portraitist. In an effort to get away from the textbook sweetness and slickness of the image of Peter I in Russian painting, Serov creates “his” Peter, explaining: “He was terrible, long, on weak, thin legs, and with such a small head in relation to the body that should have looked like some kind of stuffed animal with a badly attached head. " That is why many perceived the painting "Peter I" as a caricature. And “Portrait of Ida Rubinstein” was called an outrage at beauty, and the model was called “a galvanized corpse,” although Serov sincerely admired the dancer and was pleased with the portrait.

But when Serov was imbued with sincere sympathy for his model, not a trace remained of such caricature. This, for example, was the case with the "Portrait of Princess Z. N. Yusupova": the artist treated the members of this family with incredible warmth and often visited the Yusupov estate near Moscow.

Portraits that were not painted to order can be immediately distinguished from the rest. There is not even a trace of officialdom, artificiality of poses and pretentiousness of the models' outfits. One of his most famous such works is "The Girl in the Sunshine". Serov's cousin Maria Simonovich posed for the portrait. He worked with inspiration, long and hard - the girl obediently posed for three months.

There is so much light and warmth in this portrait that one immediately discerns the artist's favorable attitude towards the model. Serov himself admitted that he had invested a lot in this work: “I wrote this thing, and then all my life, no matter how puffed up, nothing came of it: everything was exhausted here. Then I kind of went crazy."

The portrait of 12-year-old daughter of Savva Morozov Vera - the famous "Girl with Peaches" was painted with special warmth and in one breath. This work, written by a 22-year-old artist, is rightly called the hymn of youth, joy, purity, freshness, thirst for life.

Portrait is one of the most popular genres of painting of the 19th century, to which many artists turned: the history of Russia at that time is captured in the works of the watercolorist-portraitist Sokolov Petr Fedorovich