Description of the picture:
Portrait of Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov – Ilya Efimovich Repin. 1883. Oil on canvas. 98×75.8
The portrait of Tretyakov is strikingly simple and deep. Before us is the founder of the gallery of Russian painting, a successful entrepreneur, philanthropist, and a wonderful person. Repin perfectly managed to convey the deep and complex nature of his hero. A high forehead, sad dark eyes, a perfectly straight nose, a well-groomed beard … Before us is more a philosopher-thinker than an entrepreneur. The picture is completed by a thin, nervous хэнд with a wedding ring on the ring finger, a detail that can tell more about a person than an extensive monograph. The same can be said about the pose in which Tretyakov is depicted. A humble man trying to occupy as little space as possible, giving way to his paintings.
Tretyakov is depicted among the paintings of his gallery. Without his collection of Russian painting, he himself does not seem to exist. It is known that the last words of Tretyakov before his death were words about the need to protect the collection. The work of his whole life became a part of himself, the meaning of the life of the great Russian philanthropist."