A Portrait of Lev Lagorio 1900

Curator: This is Apollinary Goravsky’s, "A Portrait of Lev Lagorio," painted around 1900, residing here at the Belarusian National Museum of Fine Arts. Editor: What a character! I feel like he's judging my life choices from across the room. There's something very commanding and observant about his gaze. Is he about to share some profound wisdom or simply scold me for slouching? Curator: It is very perceptive. Apollinary’s brushstrokes are smooth and calculated, but still lend that touch of soft realism and romanticism. Oil paint provides a lustrous and subtle sense of dimension. The details in his white beard are particularly striking. Editor: Yes, look closer at the canvas work, that's exactly what makes this piece so powerful, isn't it? How those individual bristles load and push paint across linen primed on gesso creates the illusion of a gentleman. Curator: That's beautiful. I think Lagorio's piercing eyes are speaking volumes here about a life richly lived and observed. His gaze seems almost penetrating. There’s an essence of melancholy but mixed with intellectualism. Editor: Right? A good linen can hold secrets as well as oil and ground pigments, binding it all together through each historical moment, so in its making that canvas would likely reflect society's value of men during this period of romantic portraiture, an accessible commodity but valuable expression. Curator: The way the light catches the bow tie and glistens slightly off that dangling gold chain leading to a pocket watch certainly tells the tale of an elegant man with means. His somewhat world-weary but subtly bemused glance makes me feel as though he could impart infinite wisdom, or just tell the best stories. Editor: Indeed, if only those fibers of the woven flax could speak, or if this portrait could lead a workshop about canvas weave and layering—imagine all we might discover about Apollinary's and Lagorio's labor and life experience through this one painting. Curator: So here is to the layers of observation, literal brushstrokes and implied insights into Russian aristocracy at the turn of the century. Editor: Here here! Each brushstroke laden with value in materials and methods; Apollinary and Lev, romantic and realistically expressed through oil and toil.