Russia and the arts

Russia and the Arts.

The National Portrait Gallery is showing an exhibition with the rather unwieldy title of Russia and the Arts, The Age of Tolstoy and Tchaikovsky.

I have been.  I recommend you go.  There are a number of reasons for doing so.  The first is it’s quite cheap at £5 (£2.50 with art pass). Secondly it is showing works on tour from the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.  Unless you go to Moscow this a rare opportunity to see pictures and artists that rarely appear in Britain.  Lastly it is historically interesting.  You will come away knowing what Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Mussorgsky and others look like.

It is quite a small exhibition but this should not deter you because it is high class.  The star of the show is the painter Ilia Repin, (also spelt Ilya Repin, depending on who you ask) whose is also the most displayed artist there and shows great versatility and all of his pieces are alive with personality from the twinkling melancholy of the Mussorgsky portrait (who was in hospital at the time and died shortly afterwards) to the coquettish indifference of Sophie Menter and others besides. Mr Repin was obviously a star of his time. He can do different textures such as fur with a gentle mastery.  His was also the standout portrait of the exhibition.  An imperious depiction of the impressively named Baroness Varvara Ikskul von Hildenbrandt.  Dressed in red and black she looks as you appraisingly, as though she has just walked in and is deciding whether to stay or not.

Another favourites were two portraits, by the fantastically named Olga Dell-Vos-Kardovskaia.  Much more modern in tone and style they show the subjects as having great personality.  One (of the man) was painted in 1909 and the other (of his then wife) was painted after they married.  Obviously commissioned as a counterpart to the first they show what is obviously a couple but still very much individuals, a very effective piece of portraiture.

This is not to say the others are not good.  They are. Previously unfamiliar names such as Nikolai Ge ( very masculine portrait of Tolstoy), Vasily Perov (an unhappy and ill looking Dostoevsky, the only portrait of him done from life apparently) and Valentin Serov are all shown off to great effect.  Anton Chekhov bears a distinct similarity to Dougray Scott

Anyway, as I say go.  It is very good. The paintings have a luminous quality which is lost in the rather dull postcards (and in the images used in this post), not that this stopped me buying them.