Portrait of the Girl 1880

Konstantin Makovsky created this portrait with oil paints, likely sometime in the late 19th or early 20th century. Look closely, and you’ll see how the artist has built up layers of pigment to model the child's face and hair. While oil painting has a long history, by Makovsky's time, the manufacture of paints had become increasingly industrialized. Pigments were now produced on a massive scale, and pre-mixed colors in tubes made it easier than ever for artists to capture fleeting impressions. The light brushwork and focus on capturing the texture of the child's hair, and the soft glow of her skin, speak to this embrace of immediacy. Makovsky himself was a master of fashionable portraiture, catering to the Russian elite. Paintings like this reflect a growing consumer culture, where even intimate family moments could become commodities. By understanding the materials and the social context, we can see how even a seemingly simple portrait is embedded in a complex web of production, labor, and class.