Russian beauties on famous paintings

The beauty of Russian women has inspired many great artists whose canvases have forever preserved their images for us to admire. Their lovely faces have been enchanting us for many years. Each woman has her own mystery, each has her own truth of life, but every one of them is irresistibly charming. The portraits of Russian women from the best painters display the spiritual beauty and a mysterious fairy tale that lives in every Russian woman.

Today, we’d like you to enjoy the gallery of Russian beauties from old and modern masters in hope that you’ll love the portraits as much as we do.

Artist Konstantin Makovsky

A bright representative of Academic art, Konstantin Makovsky (1839 – 1915) showed an idealized view of Russian life and beauties of prior centuries. One of the most favorite topics of the artist was Russian women. In his series of portraits of boyars and Russian beauties, the artist could beautifully convey the admiration for female beauty and the luxury of folk costumes. All these works are united by one more feature – they reflect the artist’s incredible respect for the modesty and fragility of youth. Makovsky created more than 60 paintings on this topic, and on each of them the woman has her own special world, her own dreams; on each of them, Russian fairy tales seem to come to life.

Actually, Konstantin Makovsky was a womanizer. There were constant rumors about his numerous romantic adventures, which really had a basis – by the time of his marriage, he already had an illegitimate daughter, and in total he was married three times.

At the World’s Fair of 1889 in Paris, he received the Large Gold Medal for his paintings Death of Ivan the Terrible, The Judgement of Paris, and Demon and Tamara. By the end of the century, Makovsky was one of the most respected and highly-paid Russian artists, regarded by some critics as the forerunner of Russian impressionism. He died in 1915 when his crew crashed into a tram on the streets of St. Petersburg.

Boris Kustodiev

Boris Kustodiev (1878 – 1927) was a Russian and Soviet painter. In 1906, Kustodiev appeared with works of a new concept – a series of canvases on brightly festive peasant and provincial philistine-merchant life, in which features of Art Nouveau are visible. Spectacular, bright in colors and joyfully decorative, these paintings reveal the Russian character through the everyday life. On a deeply realistic basis, Kustodiev created a poetic dream, a fairy tale about provincial Russian life.

Chained to a wheelchair, Kustodiev created his most striking works, filled with endless love to life and a whirlwind of emotions. Kustodiev was very ill. He could only sit in a special wheelchair for no more than two or three hours a day, overcoming a terrible pain. Sometimes he couldn’t pick up even a brush. One of his most famous works – Russian Venus – was created in that dreadful time as a triumph to life. The painting became the result of his life – a year later, Kustodiev died.

Artist Vladislav Nagornov

Talented artist realist, Vladislav Nagornov was born in 1974 in the old Russian town of Penza and started painting at the age of six. Then was an art school and then, at his sixteen, he entered the Academy of Fine Arts named after Ilya Glazunov in Penza and got his diploma in historical genre in 2001. Since then, Vladislav Nagornov has been a member of the Union of Russian Artists.

Female historical portrait is the genre that requires not only the talent of the artist, but also deep knowledge in the history of country and costume, understanding the era and people of that time. There must be a perfect combination of a costume and personality appropriate to the time; otherwise, it won’t be a historical portrait, but a masquerade with dressing up. Russian beauties of Vladislav Nagornov are not so much the beauty of the national costume; to a much greater extent, it’s the spiritual beauty and a mysterious fairy tale that lives in every Russian woman.

Artist Konstantin Razumov

Konstantin Razumov (born in 1974) is a Russian painter known for his impressionistic portraits. Highly detailed, Razumov often focuses on young women in lavish clothing, though he also paints nudes and landscapes with attention to light and atmosphere. On his canvases, Russian women are filled with poetry and mystery; sometimes alluring, sometimes mysteriously detached, but always full of inexplicable charm.