Description of the picture:
Actress Pelageya Strepetova – Ilya Efimovich Repin. One thousand eight hundred eighty two year. Canvas, oil. Fifty nine x forty eight cm
This picture immediately resembles Rembrandt’s paintings, not in the style of execution, but in its color scheme. In it, Repin took advantage of a special effect in which the actress’s face against the background of dark colors seems very expressive and voluminous, as if protruding from the canvas.
The picture was painted with large, energetic strokes, which makes the image very lively, moving. The background of the canvas does not have clear outlines, contours, it is vague and shapeless, it is distinguished only by color – saturated black and red on one side, and like a luminous grayish-blue and greenish, on which sparkles sparkle with golden and red reflections from the other.
The actress is dressed in very dark clothes, the shape and shape of which is impossible to consider. Only a tall white ruffled collar stands out, as if highlighting the actress’s face. His color focuses his eyes on the spectacular large and memorable facial features of a woman, with deep dark eyes and sufferingly broken eyebrows.
This very beautiful and bright woman, from whom it is impossible to look away, will forever remain young thanks to the extraordinary talent of the portraitist."