Valentin Aleksandrovich Serov (1865-1911)

The wonderful Russian artist Valentin Serov was lucky enough to be born into a prosperous and talented family. The painter's parents were talented and versatile people. Alexander Nikolaevich Serov, the father of the future artist, was a composer, the author of the operas Enemy Force, Judith and Rogneda. He was considered the best music critic of his time and was also a great original artist. In his youth, he was going to dedicate himself to painting, but then he became interested in music and gave himself completely to it.

It was from his father that Valentine inherited his extraordinary gift, the ability of incredibly accurate perception of shape and color, as well as his great love of animals, which Serov Sr. most often depicted on his canvases. Alexander Nikolayevich married only at the age of forty-four, he was already an accomplished composer and a mature man. His chosen one was a young and talented pianist Valentina Semenovna Bergman, a former student of the musician.

The only son of the Serovs was born on January 7, 1865. Since childhood, Valentin was surrounded by creative and extraordinary personalities from various social backgrounds, regularly meeting in the house of the composer and his young wife. They included all the talented people of the time, musicians, scientists, writers, artists, and actors.

Among the close friends of Alexander Nikolayevich, who often visited his house, were the sculptor Mark Antokolsky, the writer Ivan Turgenev, with whom Serov was closest, and the artist Nikolai Ge, the first to instill little Valentine, who remained with him for life, love for horses

Like many talented residents of Moscow, Valentin Serov's mother was familiar with Savva Mamontov, who was a great success for the future artist. This philanthropist and industrialist was at the center of the spiritual and intellectual life of Moscow in the second half of the 19th century.

Gathering all the color of the Russian artistic intelligentsia around him, Mamontov gave the guests of his estate in Abramtsevo a unique opportunity to be inspired, to be free, not burdened by anyone, including financial problems and the life of creativity. For more than twenty years, the Mamontov estate near Moscow was an important center of Russian culture, where artists, sometimes throughout the summer, came to communicate, share experiences and combine work with leisure.

Serov is often called the first Russian Impressionist, comparing his work to Renoir's paintings. Although, some art historians believe that the Russian artist was even ahead of his predecessor in vividness of colors, elegance of light transmission and nobility of shades.

If Renoir often used vague and nebulous transitions in his work, creating a certain understatement, then Serov, on the contrary, by all means available to him, demonstrated transparency and depth of background and a brilliant triumph of life in him. In the artist's works you can often see a strange change of light and shadow, an inimitable overflow of light shades and a game with reflections.

Serov was accused of subjectivity to Orlova and that he did not use the most advantageous qualities of the heroine - her elegance and high growth. However, this image once again demonstrated the sensitivity and vision of the artist. The client unrepentantly presented the portrait to the Museum of Alexander III (St. Petersburg State Russian Museum), expressing the only condition that it not be exhibited in the same room as the portrait of the nude Ida Rubinstein.

A friend of the artist Vladimir Dmitrievich von Derviz wrote in his memoirs about him: "Valentin Alexandrovich was distinguished by his absolutely exceptional frankness and simplicity, despite his seemingly rather mild character, he knew how to defend the views of him and never compromised his convictions.

He great painter died unexpectedly, on the morning of November 22, 1911, on the way to the Shcherbatovs’ house, where a portrait session was scheduled for him. The cause of Serov’s early death was an angina attack.

Having lived only forty-six years, as many as thirty of them, Valentin Serov confidently and enthusiastically weaved the golden strokes of his stunning solar masterpieces into the canvas of the Russian Silver Age.

Being in the prime of life, the artist worked a lot. Worshiping the talent of the painter, the poet Valery Bryusov wrote: “Serov was a realist in the best sense of the word. He accurately saw the secret truth of life, his works revealed the very essence of those phenomena that other eyes could not even see. ”