Self-Portrait on a Background of a Window with View of the Kremlin

Russian romanticism emerged in the early nineteenth century and was influenced by European Romanticism's emphasis on emotion, individualism and nature. A leading representative of Russian Romanticism, Vasily Tropinin was also one of the most important portrait painters of the nineteenth century. Born as a serf, Tropinin wasn't a freeman until his forties. Despite the circumstances, his artistic talent was recognized early and he was allowed to study as an un-enrolled student at the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg under the portrait painter Stepan Shchukin. Thus while working as a servant for the Morkov family he kept producing portraits for them along with copying European paintings, painting religious works for local churches, and studying the people and landscapes of rural Ukraine. Eventually Tropinin developed a distinct intimate and psychological character in his work unlike the formal, aristocratic portrait style associated with St. Petersburg. By 1844 when he was almost seventy years old, the Moscow Art Society commissioned the self-portrait to commemorate Tropinin's election as an Honorary Member of the society. One sees in the painting, Tropinin himself, standing at the centre with a maulstick in his right hand while the other hand holds a palette and brushes. Behind him, serene but majestic lies the city of Kremlin. The composition seems to be a dailogue between the artist and his surrounding.The work therefore functions not simply as a likeness but as a retrospective statement on his artistic life and achievements.