BRYULLOV, Karl Pavlovich,Featured Paintings in Detail

BRYULLOV, Karl Pavlovich
Featured Paintings in Detail

Last Day of Pompei
1833
Oil on canvas, 466 x 651 cm
State Russian Museum, St.
Petersburg

Last Day of Pompei (detail)
1833
Petersburg

Bathsheba
1832
State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Bathsheba (detail)
1832

Italian Morning
1823
Oil on canvas
Kunsthalle Kiel

Italian Morning (detail)
1823
Oil on canvas
Kunsthalle Kiel

Italian Midday
1827
Petersburg

Italian Midday (detail)
1827
Petersburg

The Rider
1832

The Rider (detail)
1832

Portrait of M. A. Beck
1840
Oil on canvas
National Gallery of Armenia

Portrait of M. A. Beck (detail)
1840
Oil on canvas
National Gallery of Armenia

Portrait of Countess Samoilova
1832-1834
Oil on canvas, 268.20 x200.00 cm
Hillwood Estate, Museum &
Gardens

(detail)
1832-1834
Oil on canvas, 268.20 x200.00 cm
Hillwood Estate, Museum &
Gardens

Portrait of the Shishmareva Sisters
1839
Oil on canvas, 213,0 x 284,0 cm
The State Russian Museum, St.
Petersburg

(detail)
1839
Oil on canvas, 213,0 x 284,0 cm
The State Russian Museum, St.
Petersburg

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Last Day of Pompei
The Last Day of Pompeii is a large canvas painting by Russian artist Karl Briullov in 1830-33.
Briullov visited the site of Pompeii in 1828, making numerous sketches depicting the 79 CE Vesuvius eruption. The completed canvas was exhibited in Rome to rapturous reviews of
critics and thereafter transported to Paris to be displayed in the Louvre. The first Russian artwork to cause such an interest abroad, it gave birth to an anthologic poem by Alexander
Pushkin, and inspired the hugely successful novel The Last Days of Pompeii by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, who saw it in Rome. Another British author, Sir Walter Scott declared that it
was not an ordinary painting but an epic in colours.
The topic is classical, but Briullov's dramatic treatment and generous use of chiaroscuro render it farther advanced from the neoclassical style. In fact, The Last Day of
Pompeii exemplifies many of the characteristics of Romanticism as it manifests itself in Russian art, including drama, realism tempered with idealism, increased interest in nature,
and a zealous fondness for historical subjects.
The commissioner, Prince Anatole Demidov, donated the painting to Nicholas I of Russia who displayed it at the Imperial Academy of Arts for the instruction of young painters. To
present the painting to a wider audience the canvas was transferred to the Russian Museum for the museum's opening in 1895.
Briullov included a self-portrait in the upper left corner of the painting, under the steeple, one of the several foci in the picture, but not easy to identify.

Bathsheba
The subject is taken from the 2nd Book of Kings in the Old Testament (11: 2–3).
Bathsheba was the wife of the military commander Uriah, who was in the service of King David. David saw Bathsheba when she was bathing and ordered that Uriah be sent to a
near certain death, after which he took Bathsheba into his palace. As punishment for this sin, David’s first-born died on his seventh day.
Bryullov was interested not so much in the subject itself as in ancient oriental culture and its spicy beauty. The motif of a naked body illuminated by the sun allowed the artist to
show off his decorative gift. The face of the heroine remains in the shade, but her silhouette is partly lit, which creates the felling of living flesh. Coloured highlights are placed
here and there on the canvas. The marble-like whiteness of her skin contrasts with the figure of the black servant woman who brings into the painting a light hint of eroticism.

In 1821 Bryullov was sent at the expense of the Society of promoting artists to Rome, where he dived into studying the creative works of Rembrandt and Velázquez, Van Dyck and Titian.
And soon Bryullov is considered “the best painter in Rome.” It was then when his lyrical sensual paintings were born: “Italian genre.”: Italian morning, oil on canvas (1823) and Italian
Midday.
The first one from the series, “Italian Morning” immediately made Bryullov famous. In it Bryullov captures the allegory between the beginning of the day – the morning – and the
beginning of a woman’s life – a girl, clean and fresh in the morning, lit by the morning sun behind her and glare from the water in the front. The piece was written from life.
The second painting from the series, “Italian Midday” shows a bright midday, and the model – already a mature woman. The allegory of the artist continues. In this painting he departs
from the academism while seeking to portray the play of light and shadow in the most realistic way. To do this, he makes strokes right at noon in the vineyard, where the midday
sunlight falls through the grape leaves on his life model.
Mature beauty of the model and a ripe cluster of grapes in her hand. The flower of life in all its glorious manifestations.
It is interesting that at one time the paintings were hung in the private apartments of the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. However, records indicate that artists and other people could
request to see them.
Italian Morning
Italian Midday

The Rider
This is one of the most famous paintings by Karl Bryullov.
Depicts the sisters Giovannina and Amazilia Pacini, the charges of Countess Yu.P. Samoilova, with whom Bryullov had a close friendship. What is important in the painting Horse
Equestrian is not so much a story as the action.
The older of the two sisters is stopping an excited, overheated horse, though she remains absolutely calm throughout. Wild force submits to fragile beauty – one of the favourite
themes of Romanticism. The face of the girl is ideally beautiful.
The Italian look was considered in Bryullov’s day to be perfect and the artist was delighted to use this to advantage. The refined play of colours, the sparkling fabrics – every detail
literally speaks of the grandeur of this «best of all worlds».

Portrait of M. A. Beck
In a series of portraits by Bryullov this portrait of a secular beauty stands out. The matter is in the beauty of the model itself. Almost perfect face, but the main thing – it’s her
eyes. Thinking, sensual, alive.

Karl Briullov’s portrait of his intimate friend Countess Julia Samoilova is perhaps the artist’s most important work in a museum outside Russia.
Painted shortly after his monumental Last Day of Pompeii, the portrait marked the pinnacle of Briullov’s long sojourn in Italy and endured as one of the many tributes he painted to
the beauty and friendship of the countess.
Samoilova became a longtime resident of Italy after she incurred the displeasure of Nicholas I with her extravagant social life. The wealthy countess entertained the intellectual elite
of her day, including the Russian writers Turgenev and Zhukovskii and the Italian composers Donizetti, Verdi, and Giovanni Pacini. To Briullov, she epitomized femininity and
beauty, and he portrayed her in a scene of joyful welcome and fashionable elegance.

The Shishmareva sisters were the granddaughters of Savva Yakovlev, one of the wealthiest merchants in St Petersburg. This is one of Karl Brullov’s finest works of official
portraiture. The painting demonstrates the artist’s talent for masterly compositions and his rich and refined palette.

Russian painter, aquarellist and graphic artist. Master of historical painting, portraitist, landscape and genre painter. He is
regarded as a key figure in transition from the Russian neoclassicism to romanticism.
Despite his education at the Imperial Academy of Arts, Bryullov never fully embraced the classical style taught by his
mentors and promoted by his brother, Alexander Bryullov. After distinguishing himself as a promising and imaginative
student and finishing his education, he left Russia for Rome where he worked until 1835 as a portraitist and genre painter,
though his fame as an artist came when he began doing historical painting.
His best-known work, The Last Day of Pompeii, is a vast composition compared by Pushkin and Gogol to the best works
of Rubens and Van Dyck. It created a sensation in Italy and established Bryullov as one of the finest European painters of
his day. After completing this work, he triumphantly returned to the Russian capital, where he made many friends among
the aristocracy and intellectual elite and obtained a high post in the Imperial Academy of Arts.
While teaching at the academy he developed a portrait style which combined a neoclassical simplicity with a romantic
tendency that fused well, and his penchant for realism was satisfied with an intriguing level of psychological penetration.
While he was working on the plafond of St Isaac's Cathedral, his health suddenly deteriorated. Following advice of his
doctors, Bryullov left Russia for Madeira in 1849 and spent the last three years of his life in Italy. He died in the village of
Manziana near Rome and is buried at the Cimitero Acattolico there.

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