The scene of Anna visiting her son in Leo Tolstoy’s novel “Anna Karenina” is one of the most emotional and touching. By this moment in the story, she is torn between two feelings — love for her son Seryozha and passion for Alexei Vronsky. She cannot completely sever her ties with her family, forsake her duties and leave her child. Moral and legal conventions entangle Anna, force her to adapt to hostile circumstances and look for opportunities to secretly see her beloved son.

The artist Orest Vereisky created illustrations for the first part of Leo Tolstoy’s novel “Anna Karenina”. He wanted his drawings to help immerse the reader into the historic period, present the artifacts of the era and at the same time make the reader emotionally invested. Vereisky’s confident, exquisite drawings bring to life the interiors of a bygone century with all the details of everyday life.

The reader is biased toward the main characters of “Anna Karenina” and as with characters from any other story, the reader interprets these characters in their own way. Not wanting to impose his vision of the appearances of Anna, Vronsky and Karenin, the artist tried showing them in particular lighting and perspective to preserve the expressiveness of these characters but also leave room for the reader’s imagination.

Orest Georgievich Vereisky was a painter, graphic artist, People’s Artist of the USSR, winner of the State Prize. He worked in Leningrad until 1940 when he moved to Moscow. During the war, he worked in the editorial office of the “Krasnoarmeyskaya Pravda” newspaper. He made illustrations for the works of Russian, Soviet and foreign writers: Alexander Tvardovsky, Ivan Bunin, Mikhail Sholokhov, Konstantin Paustovsky and Ernest Hemingway.