The State Russian Museum is the largest collection of Russian fine art in the world. And of course it has favorite paintings that make you linger longer. I have chosen my 7 favorite paintings. Someone else’s list might be completely different. Choosing and limiting the number is not easy, since the Russian Museum has many masterpieces, such as Bryullov's 'The Last Day of Pompeii', Aivazovsky's 'The Wave', Serov's 'The Abduction of Europa', works by Repin, Vereshchagin, Shishkin and many others.
Self-portrait with his sister. Viktor Borisov-Musatov. 1898.
'Self-portrait with his sister', Viktor Borisov-Musatov. 1898.
Viktor Borisov-Musatov's work is imbued with a gentle longing for a bygone era. His 'Self-portrait with his sister' is no exception. Incidentally, the artist's sister Elena often served as his muse and appears in many of his canvases. She can be seen in paintings such as 'Autumn Motif', 'Harmony', 'The Emerald Necklace', 'The Pond', etc. The image of a fragile, modest, touchingly pretty young lady fit very well into Borisov-Musatov's compositions.
The girl in the painting is 14 years old; she sits in the shade of a garden by an ornate table. She wears a mid-19th-century dress; she is serene and pensive, and everything in the painting yields to that mood.
Elena occupies the central place in the painting, while the artist paints himself at the edge, cropping the composition. Impressionists use this device to convey the fleetingness of a moment snatched from life. In 'Self-portrait with his sister' this device is reminiscent of Velázquez's 'Las Meninas', where the author also included his self-portrait in a painting marked by a balanced, almost symmetrical composition.
In Borisov-Musatov's painting the depicted artist does not become part of the composition, since his omission would not violate its unity. He is part of the viewers observing the idyll of the moment, but from within the painting.
Borisov-Musatov himself wrote about his work as follows:
When life frightens me, I retreat into art and it seems to me that I am on an uninhabited island and no reality exists.
The Ninth Wave. Ivan Aivazovsky. 1850.
'The Ninth Wave', Ivan Aivazovsky. 1850.
Ivan Aivazovsky's most famous painting is considered one of the pinnacles of Romantic painting in Russia.
Why is the wave the ninth? From early sailors' observations and later scientists it was known that during a storm waves differ in power and height. The ancient Greeks considered the third wave the most destructive, the Romans — the tenth. It is known that Aivazovsky himself once caught a terrible storm in the Baikal Gulf in 1844. Some newspapers even reported the death of the Russian mariner. On that occasion the artist miraculously survived.
In the era of Romanticism, which heightened the forces of nature to the extreme, the image of the 'ninth wave' (9 — as the largest prime number) appears in 18th–19th century literature by authors such as Pushkin, Derzhavin, Aksakov and Polezhaev, and from there entered common speech. The notion of the 'Ninth Wave' became proverbial and was firmly associated with terrible fate and inevitability. And although Aivazovsky's canvas does not convey a sense of inevitable doom, neither is there any clear victory of man over the raging element.
The artist worked on the painting in his studio in Feodosia. According to some accounts he painted the large 'Ninth Wave' in 3 hours, according to others — in 11 days. Either way, this is a very short time for such a large-scale canvas.
The famous collector and patron Pavel Tretyakov admired Aivazovsky's talent and especially wanted to acquire this particular painting. In one of his letters to the artist he wrote: '...just give me your magical water, such that would fully convey your incomparable talent! I so much want to have your painting in my collection as soon as possible!' But Tretyakov was beaten to it by Emperor Nicholas I, who purchased the canvas for the Hermitage collection. In 1897 it was transferred to the newly established Russian Museum.
Portrait of Meyerhold. Boris Grigoriev. 1916.
'Portrait of V.E. Meyerhold', Boris Grigoriev. 1916.
Boris Dmitrievich Grigoriev long resisted being put into typical art-historical categories. The artist was not influenced by contemporary groups such as 'World of Art' and 'Blue Rose', nor was he a realist or a cubist in the full sense of the word. Later his painting style would be called 'neo-academism with elements of cubist fragmentation of form'.
In any case, Grigoriev's paintings exhibit a sharp psychological insight into the characters of his canvases.
The subject of the portrait is Vsevolod Meyerhold, actor, director, and creator of a system of acting known as 'biomechanics'. A lover of farce and provocation, the vivid and expressive Meyerhold greatly charmed the no less vivid and unique artist Grigoriev. 'People like you belong in a museum!' the artist once exclaimed.
The painter depicts the actor in the role of the main character of 'The Picture of Dorian Gray', the film in which Vsevolod Meyerhold appeared.
Phryne at the Festival of Poseidon. Henryk Siemiradzki. 1885.
'Phryne at the Festival of Poseidon', Henryk Siemiradzki. 1885.
The main heroine of the painting is the hetaera Phryne. 'Phryne' in Ancient Greek translates as pale or fair-skinned.
According to legend, Phryne was a girl of rare beauty, slender and fair-skinned, which was uncharacteristic for that region. Phryne wore clothing that covered her whole body; nobles and the powerful paid vast fortunes for a night with her, or even for an intellectual conversation with this beauty. Artists and sculptors admired her beauty and used her as a model for the image of the goddess Aphrodite.
The painting depicts the scene when Phryne so believed in her own divinity and incomparable beauty that during the festival of Poseidon, having thrown off her clothes before the crowd, she walks to the seashore where Aphrodite was to emerge from the sea foam.
The numerous crowd leaving the temple shows a range of emotions — from condemnation to admiration. The poets in the lower left of the painting are captivated by her boldness and beauty; someone spreads carpets under the girl's feet, someone reaches for flowers.
Siemiradzki's painting, with its charm of antiquity and its striving for harmony and impeccable beauty, is a symbol of late 19th-century art. At its first showing at an exhibition it was purchased by Emperor Alexander III for the collection of the Hermitage. Later it was transferred to the collection of the newly established Russian Museum.
The Last Supper. Nikolai Ge. 1863.
'The Last Supper', Nikolai Ge. 1863.
For 'The Last Supper' Ge received the title of professor, bypassing the rank of academician.
According to the Gospel legend, on the eve of his execution Jesus secretly met with his disciples and revealed that one of them would betray him. The theme of betrayal and Judas's moral turmoil attracted many painters, and each saw and interpreted it in his own way. Thus, Judas in Nikolai Ge's work did not betray Christ secretly out of greed, but did so openly and out of ideological disagreements; here it is more about a clash of worldviews. The artist depicted not just Gospel characters but real people with their personal traits and conflicted inner lives. This perspective on the depicted story is conveyed by the very setting in which the action takes place. A small dark room is lit only by the light from a burning lamp, which divides the space into two parts — light and darkness. In the light — the followers; in the dark — the 'traitor'. The apostles are surprised and indignant, but Jesus understands what is happening in Judas's soul. The Savior is portrayed saddened by the fact that his teaching is not understood by one, and another will soon deny him, yet he is full of sorrow and determined to carry his mission through to the end.
The portrait of one of the apostles was painted from the artist's wife; the apostle Peter is Ge's self-portrait.
'They are used to seeing a traitor in Judas. I wanted to see a man in him. This is a lost man, not evil, but deeply unhappy, like the millions who have momentarily strayed and do much evil, and then either spend their whole lives tormented by their deeds, or deprive themselves of life, as Judas did,' wrote Ge.
Moonlit Night on the Dnieper. Arkhip Kuindzhi. 1880.
'Moonlit Night on the Dnieper', Arkhip Kuindzhi. 1880.
Kuindzhi's 'Moonlit Night on the Dnieper' caused a real sensation when it was shown to the public. It was the first exhibition in the history of Russian painting dedicated to a single painting. The exhibition itself was innovative for the time — the canvas was displayed in a darkened room with an artificial light source directed at the painting. A colossal queue of people wanting to see it formed every day!
'This painting — a power of colors never before seen anywhere. The impression from it is decidedly magical: this is not a painting, but nature itself transferred onto canvas in miniature. The moon is a real moon, it truly shines; the river is a real river, it really glows and glitters; you see this ripple, you almost guess where and in which direction the Dnieper carries its waters; shadows, half-tones, lights, air, a faint mist — all this is conveyed so that one marvels how paints could render it... There is no such painting in the whole world, not in the world of art!..' — critic Alexey Suvorin
Kuindzhi developed his own paint mixture, which remained a secret. Some artists feared the untested formula would not be durable, some exhibition visitors peered behind the frame expecting to find a candle there that lent the moon on the painting such a mystical glow. To this day visitors to the Russian Museum stop in front of 'Moonlit Night on the Dnieper', mesmerized by the stunning effect of this painting. The artist created two copies of 'Moonlit Night on the Dnieper' — one is displayed in the Tretyakov Gallery, the other in the Simferopol Art Museum.
Ancient Terror. Léon Bakst. 1908.
'Ancient Terror', Léon Bakst. 1908.
'Ancient Terror' (Latin: 'Terror Antiquus') is a painting by Léon Bakst depicting the destruction of an ancient civilization in a natural cataclysm.
The artist was passionate about reading ancient philosophers and writers, and in 1907 finally fulfilled his long-standing dream and went on a trip to Greece. There he sailed past legendary Troy and visited Crete, which preserved memories of an ancient civilization — the places where myths about gods and heroes were born and where Homer composed his poems. The image of ancient Greece had long ripened in his imagination, and this trip, with sketches of antique monuments and southern landscapes, allowed him to rethink his ideas about the ancient world, breathe life into it and fill it with color.
The idea for its creation arose back in 1905, during the time of the First Russian Revolution, and embodied the irreversibility of the old life's death and the birth of a new one. For the artist, at that time the theme of the inevitability of fate gained special importance. The painting 'Ancient Terror' itself, on which Bakst worked for almost three years, depicts the destruction of ancient Atlantis, whose inhabitants had achieved unprecedented spiritual and cultural heights but grew so proud that the gods decided to punish them. The artist sought to create a majestic and terrifying spectacle of the destruction of an ancient civilization.
'The statue becomes frightening and the background darker — I am striving for the painting itself to disturb me with its ghastliness,' — from Bakst's letter to his wife.
The ancient world in the painting a moment before was still living its life, but now enormous ocean waves are already crashing down upon it, sweeping away ships, covering whole cities with masses of water and helpless tiny figures of flailing people. Dazzling lightning flashes in the sky, which is shrouded with impenetrable clouds. The world is destroyed and plunges into a dark abyss. As a horrifying contrast to the unfolding catastrophe there is the figure of a statue of a beautiful ancient goddess with a frozen smile. In one interpretation she symbolizes the idea of death as rebirth, and the blue bird in her hand personifies freedom and the reborn soul.
