The Painting by Tropinin “Portrait of a Son”


When the father looks at his son, he sees someone who will fulfill all his dreams and aspirations. But in the portrait of my son VA Tropinin, I noticed a completely different view of the child. As if, the author has already achieved the desired, what is planned. And this picture is like an ode, a laudatory song to the fact that life was successful in this way, as it was wanted, or as it was dreamed of.

Children do not really like posing, long hours sitting in front of an artist who is so keen on his work that he will not be able to talk with him, he only requires that the model does not change its position. This occupation exhausts the guys, because they want to run on the street with friends. But the son of Tropinin clearly does not hurry anywhere. He enjoys both the process and the opportunity to be with his father. He even looks away, but the look reads the warmth and sincerity peculiar to his beloved children. The boy is in no hurry, there is no anxiety and anxiety in the

eyes that comrades without him play all the games and will not leave anything to him, neither in gestures, nor in mimicry. The child seemed to have just sat down before the master. As if there were no long hours of posing.

Funny light curls adorn this childish pretty face. On some of them the sun has stopped and it shines with a mirror. Correct oval of the face, eyebrows with curiosity and childish spontaneity have risen, huge brown eyes through which the mind and savvy of the boy, his plump lips, which do not try to joke now, are read. He is calm. Only in the portrait itself is the dynamics transmitted through a gaze fixed somewhere, a soft glow on the cheeks, and the wide-open collar of the shirt. It is immediately clear that here only a small part of the child’s life is depicted, to which he takes very seriously. But his main occupations are just as interesting and informative.

I liked that the painter uses warm colors and shades. This makes the portrait closer to the one who looks at it, and shows the attitude of the father to his son. The softening effect of sunlight, which a free wave pours through the window, highlights the child’s face. So the author achieves from the viewer sympathy for the image he wrote.


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The Painting by Tropinin “Portrait of a Son”