Kiprenskiy Orest Adamovich (March 13, 1782 - October 5, 1836)

Prominent Russian portrait painter.
was the illegitimate son of a peasant serf, spent his childhood in the family land. Received his freedom and was identified in educational school at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. At the Academy he studied K. 15 years and at the end (in 1803) was 6 years old when her pensioner.
Already in the years K. showed brilliant talent draftsman, achieving in their natural and composite drawings great freedom of expression and emotional expressiveness.

In 1805, K. was executed painting "Dmitry Donskoy in the Kulikovo field", which reflected the patriotic sentiments of good aristocratic intelligentsia. For this painting the artist received a gold medal 1st degree.

But the true vocation K. said in his first as a portrait painter AK Schwalbe (1804), highlights the expressive, energetic characteristics and high artistic skills. In 1804, executed portraits AR Tomilova, EP Korsakov, IV Kusova in which, at a certain ostentation manifested itself characteristic of humanity K. image.

From 1809 K. worked in Moscow and Tver. By this time the escarpment portraits EB. Davydov, KP Rostopchina, FV Rostopchina (1809), a boy Chelischeva, self-portrait, portraits, NS Mosolov and I. Gagarin (1811). Truthfully passing individual features of the models, K. was able to realize his best portraits of great social content, to show the depth of human dignity and spiritual culture of the people depicted: their outward calm always felt living human feelings.

When he returned to St. Petersburg in 1812, he proceeded to create a series of pencil portraits of members of the Patriotic War: among them were the hero of the Berezina KI Chaplitsa, Brothers AP and MP Lansky militia AR Tomilov and P. A . Olenin (1813), poet Batyushkov (1815), etc.
In 1814-16 executed portraits DN tail, VS The tail, the poet Vasily Zhukovsky, and others belonging to the wonderful creatures an artist who has acquired already widely known.

In 1816, K. went to Italy to study the old masters. His fame has spread far beyond Russia. In 1819 the Florentine Academy of Fine Arts commissioned a self-portrait for K. Uffizi Gallery.
Continuing to work in these years on portraits (K. M. Golitsyn, ca. 1819, ES Avdulinoy, 1822), the artist turned to the allegorical and ancient themes (sketches and cardboard "Apollo, striking Python," painting "Anakrenoova tomb", 1820). Features and conventions of abstraction manifested in pictures "Young Gardener" (1817) and "The Girl in the poppy wreath" (1819).
Returning to his homeland in 1823, building created a vivid lifelike portraits Decembrist IA Annenkov (1823), N. Trubetskoy (1826), EA Teleshova, self-portrait (1828), and others. Of particular importance is the portrait of Alexander Pushkin (1827), inspired transmitting look great poet, his "thoughts highest aspiration."

Came after the defeat of the Decembrists Nicholas's reaction forced the artist to leave again in 1828 to Italy, where he died.
last years of his life are full of creative throwing he sang a sentimental picture of the surface "Boy - ladzarone" (1831), a lush and looks spectacular portrait MA Potocki and C. A Shuvalov. The most significant works of recent years - the painting "The readers of newspapers in Naples" (1831), inspired by the national liberation movement in Poland, and a portrait of the sculptor Thorvaldsen B. (1833).
K. Major works are kept in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow and in the Russian Museum St. Petersburg.