Portrait Of Anna Zakrevskaya

Taras Grigorievich Shevchenko • Painting, 1843, 39.6×51 cm
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About the artwork
Art form: Painting
Subject and objects: Portrait
Technique: Oil
Materials: Canvas
Date of creation: 1843
Size: 39.6×51 cm
Region: Kiev
Location: Kiev
Artwork in selections: 1 selection

Description of the artwork «Portrait Of Anna Zakrevskaya»

In 1843, the year student of the Saint Petersburg Imperial Academy of arts, Taras Shevchenko takes a sabbatical and travels to Ukraine. Already famous at home and incredibly popular because not so many pictures, how many verses, he leads an active social life. On June 29 at the ball of the landowner Volkhov to Poltava he is introduced to a married landlord couple Zakrevsky – Anna and Plato. A little later, Shevchenko painted portraits husband and wife.

A couples portrait is a traditional time for his interior genre: two equal-volume oval, two polurazvernutogo-polyclonally to each other close person. But all serious art historians see Shevchenko in portraits Zakrevsky strange dissonance.

Plato written energetic brushwork, contrasting with the expressive modelling of volumes and... with obvious antipathy. Shevchenko draws its power, a cool look and some feminine pout. The portrait of his wife Anna does not look fresh either in color or in mood: here Shevchenko, on the contrary, avoids the contrast, softening the transition of color gives the face almost ekonomickou flatness. Huge "black, as much Golub" the woman's eyes, it seems, is about to fill with tears.

This lack of consistency and "nearest" paired portraits of Zakrevsky explained: at the first ball Shevchenko falls passionately in love with Anna. Pressed flower pinned in the day for her dress, the poet will be for many years to keep as a relic. Of all his many novels this was the most passion and depth.

Until now, researchers of the biography of Shevchenko wonder why Anna he loved? What was it about this married woman that her Taras chose, chose many other admirers (and they have a young, talented, famous and charismatic Shevchenko, of course, was to recall the meek and ardently in love with his Princess Barbara Repnin).

Marriage of Anna was hardly happy about it. She is two decades younger than her husband, Plato, to the moment of meeting with Shevchenko at Zakrevsky already had two children. Their misalliance was not only age, but also property. Anna was from a wealthy kind and, judging by the memories, her husband not once reproached her with that.

Feelings Shevchenko remained unanswered: loving-open view of Anna on the portrait leaves no doubt. Its sad and serious eyes, the artist wrote, so that which side we would be looking at the portrait, the look of a woman haunts us, doesn't mean to look away.

Soon Shevchenko returned from Ukraine to Saint Petersburg to complete a course of training at the Academy. With a wide circle of friends, he feels lonely and lost, longing: "Chogo meni so hard chogo meni tedious?.." And suddenly in the autumn of 1844 there comes to solve any business or legal questions Plato zakrevskogo. Spouse accompanies it. Here begins the story of their relationship with Shevchenko. Lovers caught moments, looking to see for a while.

In July 1845, Anna Zakrevsky gave birth to a daughter Sofia. Newborn baptized brother and sister of Platon. However, it is noteworthy that Plato himself even refused to go to the christening. The mystery of the birthday girl surrounded by legends and rumors. Shevchenko never been officially married and, like, did not leave heirs. But in 2014, the year of the 200th anniversary of Shevchenko, the Ukrainian journalists managed to find in Luxembourg, heiress Zakrevsky Colette Hartwig, the fourth generation of their kind. She claimed that her grandmother, who emigrated from Ukraine and married American millionaire, could be the daughter of Shevchenko.

Anna Zakrevsky died when Shevchenko was languishing in exile on the Peninsula of Mangyshlak. Not knowing about this, he wrote, referring to her several pronzitelnaya poems, the rarest specimens of Shevchenko's love poetry.

Author: Anna Yesterday
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