From 16 March to 10 April, an exhibition "The virtuoso of a portrait", devoted to the 230th anniversary from the date of the birth of Russian artist Orest Kiprensky (1782–1836), runs in the in the Visual Materials Reading Room (room 307).
The words of F. Schlegel "the life of any artist must differ even in external manifestations from the lifestyle of other people. They are the Brahmins, representatives of a high life who were ennobled not from their birth, but after selfconsecrtion ..." convey exactly the essence of life and career of painter, portraitist, representative of romanticism O. Kiprensky.
The bastard, who at six-years old was sent to the preparatory class of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, successfully finished it. For 10 years after the graduation he had created an exciting series of graphic portraits of his contemporaries. They were participants of the First World war 1812 such as P. Olenin, A. Tomilov, N. Muravyev, representatives of intelligentsia N. Utkin, A. Varnek, poets K. Batyushkov, A. Pushkin, V. Zhukovsky, and charming contemporaries V. Tomilova, N. Kochubei. The reproductions of these portraits, and many others formed the basis of the exposition.
The exhibits cover the early years of the painter and his persistent search for his own way in art.
The exhibition also presents the Neapolitan period of O. Kiprensky’s creativity. It includes reproductions of famous paintings "Readers of Newspapers in Naples," "The Sibyl of Tibur", "Teller with a Candle", "View of Vesuvius" and many others. The artist wrote about his trip: "I went to Italy with a single purpose to bring Russia into a more mature works of my talent ...".
O. Kiprensky died in Italy, the motherland of arts, and was buried in Rome, where Russian artists established a memorial stele in the church of Sant’Andrea.
Overall, the exhibition presents approximately 80 documents. In addition to the reproductions of paintings there are artist’s correspondence and diaries, a memoir of him, monographs by D.V. Sarabianov and I.N. Bocharov, devoted to the painter, and also the most interesting editions – "Lyudi Alexandrovskoy epokhi na portretakh O. Kiprenskogo" (2004) (People of the era of Alexander in the portraits byO. Kiprensky) by E.N. Perkin, "Russkiy risunok XVIII – nachala XX veka" (1989) (Russian pictures of the 18th and early 20th centuries) by well-known art historian G.G. Pospelov, and others.
The exhibition can be interesting for all categories of readers.
Contact phone number: 293-27-58.
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