Portrait of M.I.Lopukhina 1797

Vladimir Borovikovsky painted this portrait of M.I. Lopukhina in oil on canvas. It is currently housed in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. It seems to me that we cannot view this painting without taking note of Russia’s Westernizing project of the 18th and 19th centuries. Borovikovsky’s classicizing style was very much in line with the European aesthetic preferences of the Russian Imperial court at the time. In this painting, Lopukhina is presented as both a classical beauty and as a sensitive soul, posed in front of a picturesque landscape. This idealization of nature and human emotions reflects the influence of the Enlightenment on Russian culture. The light colors, soft brushwork, and emphasis on the sitter’s inner life are stylistic elements of Sentimentalism, a cultural movement that privileged feeling above reason. The portrait can be understood as an attempt to create a specifically Russian variant of European artistic ideals. To understand this work better, a historian would research the political and cultural history of the Russian Empire. This portrait can tell us much about the ideals of beauty and femininity in late 18th-century Russia.