Society and Culture: Exhibition of portraits "Method and Image" presented in Moscow

The Museum of Vasily Tropinin and Moscow Artists of His Time opened an exhibition "Method and Image". The exposition includes paintings from both museum and private collections of Tatiana and Sergei Podstanitsky. The core exhibits are two old photo albums, which entered the museum collection in 1973 and 2020. They preserved images of Fyodor Tyutchev, Pyotr Vyazemsky and his wife, actress Sarah Bernhardt, and others.

A special place in the exhibition is occupied by watercolour portraits of the aristocracy of Pushkin's time. They were the common decoration of living rooms, offices and boudoirs. The miniatures were kept in albums. The owners often took them in their travels. The artists Pyotr Sokolov, Vladimir Gau and Alexander Bryullov are prominent masters of watercolour portrait painting in Russia.

The demand for copies of popular artworks was satisfied by issuing prints (engraving and lithography). The exhibition features painted engravings from the "Parisian Fashion" magazine.

With the development of new technology, artists began to make portraits using a new method. "I caught the light. I stopped its flight", - this is how Louis Daguerre announced his discovery. A sheet of silver-plated copper was placed on the camera in a light-tight plate holder. Removing a cap from the camera lens began the exposure, creating an invisible latent image on the plate. The ready positive image was called a daguerreotype. The exhibition presents one.

"In 2021, we mark the 50th anniversary of the museum, founded by the Moscow collector F. E. Vishnevsky. It is important to say that some of the works presented at the exhibition "Method and Image" are showcased for the first time. I mean both portraits made with pastels and watercolours and photographs. Considering the entire museum collection, we tried to show the different ways of the image representation - from a watercolour portrait to painted photography", explained Olga Zhuravleva, Director of the Vasily Tropinin Museum.

The exhibition will run until July 1, 2021.