RUSSIAN ART (Part 2)

Unfortunately, Kiprenski, like Losenko before him, was diverted from his true course by two visits to Rome. At that time academic painting reigned supreme there, and Kipren-ski’s emotional temperament was so impressed by the grandeur of its subjects that he forsook portraiture for more pretentious themes, and his experiments in colour yielded before his interest in heroic compositions. As a result his later works fail to do justice to the promise of his earlier years.
Basil Tropinin (1776-1857) is usually coupled with Kiprenski, both because of his humble origin—he was by birth a serf and was enfranchised only late in life—and also because he, too, excelled in portraiture. His preference for rather sentimental girls’ heads has been ascribed to the Romantic spirit, but it would be nearer the truth to admit that they represent Tropinin’s conception of perfect feminine beauty. In painting them he found forgetfulness of the misery of his own life. His genre-scenes show greater vigour, and their intimacy and kindliness give them the force and conviction which are lacking in the portraits.
Boris Orlovski (1796-1832) is a more vital figure, but he again was side-tracked by a demand for paintings in the style of the Dutch painter Wouverman. Instead of developing his own individuality, he concentrated on turning out the type of picture for which there was a market, and as a result it is owing to his sketches and drawings that he can be assigned a place among the great figures of Russian art. These drawings, done to please himself, are not only delicate and amusing, but also technically very brilliant. His skill compares with Bryulov’s, but whereas Bryulov was an accomplished craftsman with a sterile mind, Orlovski was an erratic painter with the temperament of an artist.
(Talbot Rice T.)