№ 1165-1166. 225th birth anniversary of O.A. Kiprensky (1782-1836), the painter

Orest Adamovich Kiprensky (1782-1836), a Russian painter and a graphic, one of the best Russian portrait-painters. The painter found the most appropriate means of assertion in art of a new view on a human being, meeting the romantic inspirations of the ?poque when a human being was looked at as at an inwardly independent personality. This view was evoked by picturesque works of Rembrandt and other old painters and became apparent in the genre of portrait in particular. Foreigners called Kiprensky "Russian Van Deik", his works are kept in many world museums. Alexander Ivanov said about Kiprensky: "He was the first to make a Russian name famous in Europe…". A self-portrait of the painter is depicted on the stamp (1828 , the State Tretiakov Gallery).

One of the most charming works of Orest Kiprensky is, undoubtedly, "Poor Eliza" (1827, The State Tretiakov Gallery) – an illustration to the famous tale by N.M.Karamzin named just as the picture: "Oh, Eliza, Eliza! What have happened to you? Before now you, awakening with little birds, enjoyed yourself together with them in the morning and a clean, happy soul shone in your eyes like sun shines in the heavenly dew drops; but now you are thoughtful and the common joy of the nature is alien to your soul."