The female portrait in Russian painting of the 1880–1890s

Abstract

The article contains an attempt of content and stylistic analysis of female portrait in Russian painting of 1880–1900. It focuses on Realism as an artistic movement of the 19th century and aims to demonstrate the various pictorial innovations that were associated with female images during the “golden age” of Russian Realism at the turn of the 20th century. These portraits were situated at the intersection of old traditions and new trends, reflecting not only style and aesthetic features but also the historical and cultural context in which they were created. The article highlights the guiding role of female portrait in embodying aesthetical and ethical ideals of Realism and its adjoining movements of art. The list of artists mentioned in the text includes I.N. Kramskoy, I.E. Repin, V.I. Surikov, N.N. Ge, N.A. Yaroshenko, V.A. Serov, K.A. Korovin. The author reconstructs the depicted circle of female sitters such as relatives, women involved in creative activities, and those from high society, etc. The topic of “portrait with setting” by Ge, Serov, and K. Korovin and mixture of human and landscape image is also treated in the article. The female portrait was closely tied to the social and intellectual climate of the time, rendered both typical social status and unique personality of a sitter. Russian female portrait of the 1880–1890s mostly loyal to Realism was being enriched by elements of Impressionism and Symbolism. These two decades were marked by an extremely wide range of female images in portrait painting and therefore united works of art created by artists of different generations presented there synchronically and in the general context. Finally, female portrait of the time was unexceptionally playing a humanistic role and promoting the progress of society toward moral ideal.