The artist is Bryullov
Alexey Konstantinovich Tolstoy (1817-1875) – count, ranger, famous poet and playwright. The son of Count K.P. Tolstoy (1779-1870) and Anna Alekseevna, nee Perovskaya. Brought up by uncle, brother’s brother, and.AND. Perovsky, in the Moscow house of which this portrait was written.
The Russian Museum. From the icon to the present. 2005. With. 136.
In the portrait, the future outstanding poet, playwright, one of the creators of the legendary Kozma Prutkov, was only 19 years old. He had just graduated from Moscow University and began service in the Moscow Foreign Archive. Bryullov portrayed Tolstoy for his favorite pastime – on the hunt. His tread is light, movements and elastic. On it is a hunting camisole, a bag for trophies is thrown over his shoulder, a gun in his hands. The highlighted face and hands of Tolstoy are easily outlined and mildly simulated. Beautiful elongated oval of the face and the shape of the hands emphasize the aristocracy of the model.
The softness of the picturesque manner and color in writing the fabrics framing them, as well as a dreamy look directed into the distance, hair transmitted by quick short strokes, and, finally, a landscape performed widely and emotionally, brings a romantic note to the characterization of the character. Accompanies the young man, who is being devoted to the owner, who is written by the artist with the exact knowledge of the habits of the animal. Joy is visible on the hunter’s face. She was born of an enthusiastic sense of life of nature, its beauty. The only time that in this portrait of Bryullov reproduced the signs of the Russian landscape: Christmas trees, marshy editoris, damp hanging in the air.
As Tolstoy himself later said, interest in art and, above all, in literary classes, was combined with him with a passion for hunting, which he considered himself an obligated optimistic orientation of his poetry.
