Four s more than a year Karl Bryullov lived in Italy before reaching Pompeii in 1827. At that time he was looking for a plot for big picture on a historical topic. What he saw amazed the artist. It took him six years to collect material and paint an epic canvas with an area of almost 30 m2. In the picture, people of different genders and ages, occupations and faiths, caught in the disaster, are rushing about. However, in the motley crowd you can notice four identical faces...
In the same year, 1827, Bryullov met the woman of his life - Countess Yulia Samoilova. Having separated from her husband, the young aristocrat, a former maid of honor, who loved a bohemian lifestyle, moved to Italy, where morals are freer. Both the Countess and the artist had a reputation as heartthrobs. Their relationship remained free, but long, and their friendship continued until Bryullov’s death. “Nothing was done according to the rules between me and Karl,” Samoilova later wrote to his brother Alexander.
(Total 19 images)
Karl Bryullov, “Portrait of Countess Yulia Pavlovna Samoilova, leaving the ball with adopted daughter Amazilia Pacini", 1839-1840, fragment.
Julia with her Mediterranean appearance (there were rumors that the woman’s father was the Italian Count Litta, her mother’s stepfather) was an ideal for Bryullov, moreover, as if created for an ancient plot. The artist painted several portraits of the countess and “gave” her face to the four heroines of the painting, which became his most famous creation. In “The Last Day of Pompeii” Bryullov wanted to show the beauty of a person even in a desperate situation, and Yulia Samoilova was for him a perfect example of this beauty in the real world.
Researcher Erich Hollerbach noted that heroines similar to each other “ Last day Pompeii", despite social differences, look like representatives of one big family, as if the disaster had brought all the townspeople closer and equalized.
“I took this scenery from life, without retreating or adding at all, standing with my back to the city gates so as to see part of Vesuvius as main reason"- Bryullov explained in a letter to his brother the choice of location. This is already a suburb, the so-called Road of the Tombs, leading from the Herculaneum Gate of Pompeii to Naples. Here were the tombs of noble citizens and temples. The artist sketched the location of the buildings during excavations.
According to Bryullov, he saw one female and two children’s skeletons, covered in these poses with volcanic ash, at excavations. The artist could associate a mother with two daughters with Yulia Samoilova, who, having no children of her own, took in two girls, relatives of friends, to raise. By the way, the father of the youngest of them, composer Giovanni Pacini, wrote the opera “The Last Day of Pompeii” in 1825, and the fashionable production became one of the sources of inspiration for Bryullov.
Christian priest. In the first century of Christianity, a minister of the new faith could have been in Pompeii; in the picture he can be easily recognized by the cross, liturgical utensils - a censer and a chalice - and a scroll with a sacred text. The wearing of body crosses and pectoral crosses in the 1st century has not been confirmed archaeologically.
Pagan priest. The status of the character is indicated by the cult objects in his hands and the headband - infula. Contemporaries reproached Bryullov for not bringing to the fore the opposition of Christianity to paganism, but the artist did not have such a goal.
Items of pagan cult. The tripod was intended for burning incense to the gods, ritual knives and axes - for slaughtering sacrificial cattle, and the vessel - for washing hands before performing the ritual.
The clothing of a citizen of the Roman Empire consisted of an undershirt, tunic and toga, a large almond-shaped piece of woolen cloth draped around the body. The toga was a sign of Roman citizenship; exiled Romans lost the right to wear it. The priests wore a white toga with a purple stripe along the edge - toga praetexta.
Judging by the number of frescoes on the walls of Pompeii, the profession of painter was in demand in the city. Bryullov portrayed himself as an ancient painter running next to a girl with the appearance of Countess Yulia - this is what the Renaissance masters, whose work he studied in Italy, often did.
According to art critic Galina Leontyeva, the Pompeian woman lying on the pavement who fell from her chariot symbolizes death ancient world, for which the artists of classicism yearned.
The things that fell out of the box, like other objects and decorations in the picture, were copied by Bryullov from bronze and silver mirrors, keys, lamps filled with olive oil, vases, bracelets and necklaces found by archaeologists that belonged to the inhabitants of Pompeii in the 1st century AD.
According to the artist's idea, these are two brothers saving a sick old father.
Pliny the Younger with his mother. An ancient Roman prose writer who witnessed the eruption of Vesuvius described it in detail in two letters to the historian Tacitus. Bryullov placed the scene with Pliny on canvas “as an example of a child’s and mother's love", despite the fact that disaster overtook the writer and his family in another city - Misenach (about 25 km from Vesuvius and about 30 km from Pompeii). Pliny recalled how he and his mother got out of Misenum at the height of the earthquake, and a cloud of volcanic ash was approaching the city. It was difficult for the elderly woman to escape, and she, not wanting to cause the death of her 18-year-old son, tried to persuade him to leave her. “I replied that I would be saved only with her; I take her by the arm and force her to quicken her pace,” said Pliny. Both survived.
Goldfinch. During a volcanic eruption, birds died in flight.
According to ancient Roman tradition, the heads of newlyweds were decorated with wreaths of flowers. The flammei, the traditional veil of the ancient Roman bride made of thin yellow-orange fabric, fell from the girl’s head.
Building from the Road of the Tombs, resting place of Aulus Umbricius Scaurus the Younger. The tombs of the ancient Romans were usually built outside the city limits on both sides of the road. During his lifetime, Scaurus the Younger held the position of duumvir, that is, he stood at the head of the city administration, and for his services he was even awarded a monument in the forum. This citizen was the son of a wealthy merchant of garum fish sauce (Pompeii was famous for it throughout the empire).
Seismologists, based on the nature of the destruction of the buildings depicted in the picture, determined the intensity of the earthquake “according to Bryullov” - eight points.
The eruption, which occurred on August 24–25, 79 AD, destroyed several cities of the Roman Empire located at the foot of the volcano. Of the 20–30 thousand inhabitants of Pompeii, about two thousand were not saved, judging by the remains found.
Self-portrait of Karl Bryullov, 1848.
1799 - Born in St. Petersburg into the family of academician of ornamental sculpture Pavel Brullo.
1809–1821 - Studied at the Academy of Arts.
1822 - With funds from the Society for the Encouragement of Artists, he left for Germany and Italy.
1823 - Created "Italian Morning".
1827 - Painted the paintings “Italian Afternoon” and “Girl Picking Grapes in the Vicinity of Naples.”
1828–1833 - Worked on the canvas “The Last Day of Pompeii.”
1832 - Wrote “The Horsewoman”, “Bathsheba”.
1832–1834 - Worked on “Portrait of Yulia Pavlovna Samoilova with Giovanina Pacini and the Little Arab.”
1835 - Returned to Russia.
1836 - Became a professor at the Academy of Arts.
1839 - Married the daughter of the Riga burgomaster Emilia Timm, but divorced two months later.
1840 - Created “Portrait of Countess Yulia Pavlovna Samoilova leaving the ball...”.
1849–1850 - Went abroad for treatment.
1852 - Died in the village of Manziana near Rome, buried in the Roman cemetery of Testaccio.
Material prepared by Natalya Ovchinnikova for the magazine "Around the world". Published with permission of the journal.
For more than 50 years, art historians were absolutely sure that the portrait by Karl Bryullov depicted a certain Ulyana Smirnova. Moreover, the sketch for the portrait had a corresponding inscription. However, it was never possible to find out who this girl was. And it’s not surprising: no Ulyana Smirnova ever existed.
Portraitist
Undoubtedly, Karl Bryullov was an outstanding painter of his time. And recognition came to him not only thanks to the masterpiece “The Last Day of Pompeii”, but also thanks to his portraits. Many famous personalities XIX century wanted to be the artist's sitters. It was Bryullov who painted the portraits of the architect Ton, the bibliographer and friend of Pushkin Sobolevsky, the geographer Chikhachev, the writer Kukolnik, the poet and prose writer Alexei Tolstoy and others.
Therefore, it seems even more strange that in the late 1830s, in one of his paintings, Bryullov depicted an unknown girl with a dog in her arms. Until the mid-twentieth century, this painting was simply called “Portrait of a Woman.”
At Smirnov's
In the second half of the last century, the girl finally found a name. He was suggested to art historians by a sketch for the portrait, which was signed “At Smirnov’s.” This inscription became the basis for the assumption that a certain Ulyana Smirnova is depicted in the picture. Moreover, Ulyana even had a middle name, designated by just one letter “M”. From that moment on, in all sources the painting began to appear as “Portrait of U. M. Smirnova.”
The established myth about the existence of Ulyana Smirnova was dispelled only in 2018. That is, after at least 170 years, experts were lucky enough to finally unravel the mystery of the portrait of Karl Bryullov.
Punctuation mark and dog
The first to come close to the truth was an employee of the Russian Museum, where the masterpiece is kept to this day, Sergei Alekseev. The art critic doubted that “U” is the initial letter of the heroine’s name, since there was no dot after it. As a result of the research and study of various archival documents Alekseev came to the conclusion that the inscription “At Smirnov’s” should be taken literally, because the painting was in the possession of a collector with a similar surname.
As for the girl depicted on the canvas, thanks comparative analysis It was possible to establish the identity of the mysterious stranger. She turned out to be none other than the daughter of Emperor Nicholas I, Grand Duchess Alexandra Nikolaevna. The girl lived only until she was 19 years old and died after premature birth. She was the emperor's favorite, and many artists managed to capture her image on canvas. This version was confirmed after comparison “ Portrait of a woman” with other works. These include, for example, Christina Robertson, who worked for many years at the court of Nicholas I. In addition, the dog, which Robertson also immortalized, helped “identify” the princess.
Description of Bryullov’s painting “Self-Portrait”
What would I say about myself if I had this opportunity? What if I had guessed that my descendants, and those who like me, and even those who might not like me, could read this? The truth, or what I would like to see as the truth? A self-portrait is very similar to an autobiography.
Both there and there the viewer looks and evaluates.
For someone, I would try to be better than I really am, which means the truth would suffer.
But my pride and vanity would receive consolation.
In front of me is a picture of Bryullov, where he is depicted already at a decent age, when a person has personal goals, some of them have already come true, there are aspirations and passions, because an artist cannot write without emotions.
What is he saying about himself here? How could I see him?
The main attention of everyone who looks at the artist’s self-portrait is drawn to the face and hand of the already middle-aged Karl Pavlovich Bryullov.
His eyes, conveyed with incredible clarity, speak both of the suffering that the creator saw and of something elusively airy, something like a dance of thoughts that hover around.
I can’t even believe that in the eyes of the one who gave the world so much beauty, there will be such unimaginable sadness.
The eyes are filled with silence, calmness and intelligence.
They, passing through the years, penetrate into every soul that looks at them.
They ask questions that everyone can answer if they look within themselves.
Hand! For an artist, it is like a tool that he uses skillfully.
After all, sometimes everyone can see something beautiful that they want to hold in their memory.
But will it be possible to convey all the colors and shapes on the canvas?
This is probably why people invented cameras, because not everyone can even retell what they saw.
A. Bryullov could draw, noticing the details, clearly conveying the qualities of the image he was looking at.
It was the hands of the great artist that were so strong and strong, despite the outward frailty, that they obeyed their master.
They could make the world more beautiful with one move.
Both poets with their words and artists with their paintings enrich souls and hearts!
Bryullov Karl Pavlovich, Russian artist. Bryullov was born into a Russified German family of a sculptor-carver and miniature painter in St. Petersburg on December 12 (23), 1799. In 1809–1821 he studied at the Academy of Arts, in particular with the historical painter Andrei Ivanovich Ivanov. In 1821, Karl Bryullov was awarded the gold medal of the Academy for the painting: The Appearance of Three Angels to Abraham at the Oak of Mamre and the right to continue studying painting in Italy at public expense. In 1823–1835, Bryullov worked in Italy, experiencing the deep influence of ancient as well as Italian Renaissance-Baroque art. Italian paintings Bryullov are imbued with sensual eroticism (Italian noon, 1827, Russian Museum, St. Petersburg; Bathsheba, 1832, Tretyakov Gallery); During this period, his gift as a draftsman was finally formed.
Bryullov also acts as a master secular portrait, transforming their images into worlds of radiant, “heavenly” beauty (Horsewoman or equestrian portrait by G. and A. Paccini, 1832, Tretyakov Gallery). Aiming for big historical topics, in 1830, having visited the excavation site of an ancient Roman city destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius, Bryullov began work on the painting The Last Day of Pompeii. The multi-figure tragic canvas becomes one of the “disaster paintings” characteristic of romanticism.
The painting The Last Day of Pompeii by Bryullov (completed in 1833 and kept in the Russian Museum) creates a sensation both in Russia (where A.S. Pushkin, N.V. Gogol, A.I. Herzen and other writers enthusiastically write about it) and abroad, where this work of the painter is welcomed as the first great international success Russian painting school. The artist returned to his homeland in 1835 as a living classic. Having visited Greece and Turkey along the way, Bryullov creates whole line poetic images Eastern Mediterranean. Turning to Russian history at the suggestion of Emperor Nicholas I, Bryullov painted The Siege of Pskov by Stefan Batory (1836–1843, Tretyakov Gallery), failing, however, to achieve (despite a number of striking pictorial finds in the sketches) the epic integrity of his Italian masterpiece. Upon his return to Russia, an important area of Bryullov’s creativity began to include monumental design projects, where he managed to organically combine the talents of a decorator and a playwright (sketches for paintings at the Pulkovo Observatory, 1839–1845; sketches and sketches of angels and saints for St. Isaac’s Cathedral.
Bryullov appears as a complete master of his images in portraits. Even in commissioned pieces (like the portrait of Countess Yulia Samoilova leaving a ball with Paccini’s adopted daughter, circa 1842, Russian Museum), the enchanting splendor of color and mise-en-scène looks primarily like a triumph of art. The images of people of art are even more relaxed, psychologically soulful in color and chiaroscuro (poet N.V. Kukolnik, 1836; sculptor I.P. Vitali, 1837; fabulist I.A. Krylov, 1839; writer and critic A.N. Strugovshchikov , 1840; all works in the Tretyakov Gallery), including the famous melancholic self-portrait (1848, ibid.). Increasingly weaker from illness, from 1849 Bryullov lived on the island of Madeira, and from 1850 - in Italy. Karl Bryullov died on June 23, 1852 in the town of Mandziana, near Rome.
K. Bryullov
(1794-1881)
Scenes from Italian life-1823-1835
Italian morning
1823, oil on canvas, 62x55
Winter Palace of the Queen of Württemberg, Germany
In 1823, shortly after arriving in Italy, Bryullov wrote “Italian Morning”. The painting is exhibited at an exhibition at the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. "Morning" brought him wide fame. The painting captivated everyone - the Italian and then the Russian public, members of the Society for the Encouragement of Artists and, finally, Alexander I, to whom the painting was presented by the Society as a gift. "Italian Morning" is exhibited at an exhibition at the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. Emperor Nicholas I bestows a diamond ring on Bryullov.
A girl washing herself under the jets of a fountain, penetrated by the sun's rays, airy and light, is perceived as the personification of the morning itself, the morning of a rising new day, the morning human life.
The painting “Morning” served as the beginning of the artist’s genre compositions. She was the first attempt to study real life. While working on the painting, Bryullov wrote to the Society for the Encouragement of Artists:
“I lit the model in the sun, assuming backlighting, so that the face and chest are in shadow and reflected from the fountain backlit by the sun, which makes all the shadows much nicer compared to just window lighting.”
The problem of lighting posed by Bryullov, that is, the study of nature in a natural environment, spoke of the artist’s realistic aspirations.
Bryullov was sincerely interested in working on the painting, devoting many inspired creative minutes to its execution. Sending his first work, written in Italy, to the Society for the Encouragement of Artists for a creative report, he wrote to P. A. Kikin:
". . . I dare to entrust into your protection my child, whom the cruel duty of respect for Society could only snatch from my arms.”
Pilgrims at the door of the Lutheran Basilica
1825g, oil on canvas, 62.5x53.5
State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
Pifferari in front of the Madonna
1825g, oil on canvas, 53.5x42.5
Vespers
(Roman Chapel)
1825g, oil on canvas, 52.5 x 42.5cm.
State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.
Italian noon
1827, oil on canvas, 64 x 55 cm
State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg
“For the most accurate arrangement of shadows and light, I am working this picture under a real vineyard in the garden,” Bryullov wrote about this work, emphasizing that he created it in the open air. The content of the painting is a sensual feeling of nature: midday heat and cool shade, thirst and anticipation of the taste of grapes. This is a one-figure composition in which it is clearly expressed state of mind person. The picture represents highest point achieved by Bryullov in this group of works developing the theme of interaction between man and nature. Work on such works was, of course, associated with a tireless study of nature.
In the thick shadow of the garden, standing on the stairs, an Italian woman takes off a bunch of grapes, unable to tear her admiring gaze away from it.
All of her, with her head thrown back slightly, the sparkle of her moist eyes and a smile on her half-opened lips, is overwhelmed by the joy of being. There is some kind of pristine harmony in the blush of her rounded face, elastic, full neck, shoulders and arms with a ripe bunch of grapes, filled with life-giving juice.
Permeated with a feeling of inexhaustible strength and vigor, the image of the Italian woman is fused with nature, generously squandering its gifts. The sun's rays penetrating through the foliage of the vineyard illuminate the face and figure of a young woman.
The shirt's beautifully painted white fabric takes in the hues of the surrounding greenery. The Italian woman’s left shoulder, immersed in partial shade, is kept in cool colors. The red color of the shawl introduced by Bryullov, which resonates in the blush of her cheeks, is given in a muted sound.
E.Atsarkina
The artistic temperament of K. P. Bryullov, the enormous talent of the painter, the desire to renew the traditions of academic painting - all these and many other qualities of his talent manifested themselves with particular intensity during his retirement in Italy. Already in the early small canvas “Italian Afternoon,” written as a report to the Society for the Encouragement of Artists, the specifics of his creative personality were eloquently revealed.
Bryullov acted as a reformer of the genre-stylistic system of academic painting, and this alerted members of the Society, who saw in the artist’s early genres a decrease in demands on the chosen nature and on high goals art. This was evidenced by the fact that the young master turned not to historical and mythological subjects sanctified by tradition, but to the everyday, unpretentious scene of the grape harvest, to types of Italian women far from the classical canons, to working with nature in the open air.
To reproaches about “ Italian half day“Bryullov replied that he “decided to look for that supposed diversity in those forms of simple nature that we encounter more often and often even like more than the strict beauty of statues.” The artist’s boldness in addressing the surrounding life and nature had a beneficial effect on artistic structure paintings. The depicted scene is natural and authentic, graceful and attractive full of life The image of an Italian woman cannot but be admired by its shining, bright painting and impeccable plastic perfection.
Girl picking grapes in the vicinity of Naples
1827, oil on canvas, 62x 32.5
State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg
In the film, Bryullov developed the theme of the joy of work, outlined in “Afternoon,” which fills a person with a feeling of cheerfulness and optimism. He once again glorifies the cheerful and cheerful character of Italian girls from the people, joyfully accepting life. The dark-haired young Italian woman lying on the steps of the house, carefreely resting her head on a large green watermelon, cheerfully and playfully turned her gaze to the viewer. She holds a tambourine high in her hands, ready to leave her bed to spin in a cheerful dance. Curving her flexible figure, her friend stood up on her fingertips, as if not to pick a ripe bunch of grapes, but to take part in a Bacchic dance.
Bogoroditsky oak
(View in the vicinity of Rome)
1830-1835, oil on canvas
State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.