Vladimir Rossinsky was a prominent painter of the turn of the 20th century, a graphic artist, a portraitist, and a book illustrator. He had a successful career as a scenic painter and designed commercial and industrial advertising. His sketches and drawings are distinguished by clarity, liveliness, and a most accurate portrayal. The artist achieved the same level of authenticity while portraying both the writers and the characters from their works.
Vladimir Rossinsky was a permanent member of Nikolay Teleshov’s “Sreda” (Wednesday) — the Moscow literary circle, which existed for about 20 years and united the best representatives of the city’s intelligentsia. Rossinsky created a portrait gallery of his famous contemporaries: Ivan Bunin, Leo Tolstoy, Leonid Andreyev, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Konstantin Stanislavsky, and Vasily Kachalov.
Rossinsky was an adherent of realism, and the portrait of Feodor Chaliapin was painted in accordance with its traditions. The artist’s main objective was to convey the psychology of the singer, as well as his disposition and state of mind. The portrait depicts the moment after a concert — Chaliapin looks tired yet radiates pride and confidence at the same time. The talented performer and soloist of the Imperial Theaters is portrayed at the time when his career was on the rise.
The manner of painting and the color palette are simple and restrained, and the background and details of the painting are not fully outlined. Despite all that, this work is considered one of the most distinctive and accurate portraits of Chaliapin. The singer was known to hold artists in high regard, and this can be evidenced by this quote from his book “Man and Mask”:
