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Portrait of Pyotr Kapitsa and Nikolay Semyonov

Boris Kustodiev • Painting, 1921, 71×71 cm
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About the artwork
Art form: Painting
Subject and objects: Portrait
Style of art: Realism
Technique: Oil
Materials: Canvas
Date of creation: 1921
Size: 71×71 cm
Artwork in collection: Smart and Beautiful Natalya Kandaurova
Artwork in selections: 20 selections
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Description of the artwork «Portrait of Pyotr Kapitsa and Nikolay Semyonov»

Once Fedor Chaliapin posing Kustodievsaw in his Studio double portrait. Two rosy-cheeked young men dressed conservatively and at the same time elusive dapper. And tie tubes (one Smoking, the other x-ray). In the eyes – inquisitive mind and a quiet confidence. The face of one of them seemed familiar to Chaliapin: "like I saw somewhere, and God knows".

Heroes of the portrait at the door said that they are not yet famous, but will certainly become so. They wanted Kustodiev – one of the most outstanding portraitists of Russia – I wrote to them here and now.

"And they are brovastom, red-faced (hunger uneasy), are cocky and funny was that I had to agree, – told the Kustodiev house. – They brought the x-ray tube, which worked in his Institute, and it went. Then the fee is brought in, you know what? A rooster and a bag of millet. Just earned then somewhere near St. Petersburg, after making some proprietor of the mill".

Young people are not deceived Kustodiev: years later, the two became Nobel laureates. One – Pyotr Kapitsa (on the left with a Smoking pipe) in physics. The other – Nikolai Semenov – chemistry. Science does not know the answer to the question, what in this story are more obvious or incredible. Whether young scientists was so confident that he decided to get a bit of glory in advance. Whether easy kustodievskie brush became a blessing to them and brought good luck.

By the way, Kapitsa and Semenov are on the old pals – appeared in another Kustodiev painting: "A celebration in honor of the II Congress of Comintern on the Uritsky square". Here they are, in the center of the composition, see national jubilation with purely scientific interest. And I think you see where this is going, even without the x-ray tube.

Author: Andrew Zimoglyadov
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