Valentin Aleksandrovich Serov is an outstanding Russian painter, academician of the Imperial Academy of Arts, an unsurpassed master of the portrait genre. His works are distinguished by a deep truth to nature and a subtle penetration into the psychology of the depicted person. It is difficult to name another master of his era, whose heritage and creative achievements would have such a great influence on the further development of Russian art.
One of the best paintings in the collection of the Yekaterinburg Museum is a portrait of Pyotr Petrovich Konchalovsky, created in 1891. During this period, Konchalovsky prepared the publication of M.Yu. Lermontov’s complete works, to illustrate which he invited many famous artists, including V. A. Serov and M. A. Vrubel. According to the memoirs, each of them performed a portrait of P.P. Konchalovsky in oil, and for a long time they were in the publisher’s family. Currently, a portrait of Vrubel’s is in the Tretyakov Gallery and portrait by Serov — in the Yekaterinburg Museum of Fine Arts.
In the 1890s, which include the time of painting, a new period begins in Serov’s oeuvre. Impressionistic color gives way to a limited, rather stingy colorful range. The artist is attracted by bright creative personalities whose talent power stimulates his artistic energy and allows creating outstanding portrait images. Pyotr Petrovich Konchalovsky was such a person. In his image, Serov uses a minimum of expressive means, but these dynamic, free, wide strokes and restrained gray-black color scheme embody the stunningly convincing and accurate image of a literati-libertine, a strong, noble, keen and passionate nature. Here is how one of Konchalovsky’s sons recalled, “father”s influence on people, especially youth, was enormous. Moreover, everything that he did, he did with a great, hot temperament and never pursued narrow, practical goals”. Under the influence of the writer’s personality, Valentin Serov managed to create one of the best portraits of Russian culture luminary of in his work.
