Painting by Bryullov “Portrait of Sisters Shishmarev”


Karl Bryullov is a true master of the portrait genre, who was very attentive to the choice of the heroes of his paintings. In his paintings, he tried to portray exactly those people who differed expressive appearance or bright, extraordinary features of character, causing the audience a variety of emotions.

Most of all I liked his painting “Portrait of Sisters Shishmarevs”, where two sisters of Alexander and Olga Afanasyeva were drawn. In this picture I see two girls who went out for a walk and now go down the stairs. They go slowly, completely giving themselves to enjoying the walk. Next to the girls runs a merry shaggy dog. She also likes this trip and she always looks back at her companions, wanting to play with them.

By the fact that these two girls are dressed in beautiful velvet dark blue dresses, I can imagine that they are from a very rich family. And their straight posture and unhurried movements emphasize their aristocracy and the correct manners to which they have been trained since childhood. Both girls squeeze lace white handkerchiefs in their hands, their heads are slightly inclined to the side, and black hair like a black wing is laid in a neat hairstyle under charming hats. They do not look directly in front of them, but slightly cover their eyes, which gives their dreaminess and romance.

But when I looked at the picture a little better, I saw that the girls were coming down to the quick white horse. The horse is standing, curving his neck, and one can imagine that she is now beating her hoof impatiently, wanting an experienced horse rider to climb up to it and start galloping. So we understand that these two girls are not only dreamers, but they also have a fighting nature, because now they will jump on a horse and will be carried away, freed from all secular conventions.


1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

Painting by Bryullov “Portrait of Sisters Shishmarev”