"The Groom" is a domestic marriage proposal scene painted by Lukian Popov. The artist was no stranger to creating genre paintings such as these as he too was born in a peasant family and he enjoyed depicting events in daily life through his paintings. The man on the right is the groom in the title. The woman in the red blouse next to him is turned away from us but the stark red contrast draws the eye to her amongst all the figures in the painting. There are two other women in the room, one is in the centre near the window and the other is at the piano listening to the couple. The woman at the window is rumoured to be modelled after Popov's wife, Vera Popova. The composition is circular, one's eyes are drawn to the young woman in the red blouse first, then they move anti-clockwise: to the groom to her right, the woman at the window and finally to the woman listening in and half turned away, at the piano. Popov employs the use of red in his paintings to highlight the focus of the painting and to draw the viewer's eye. The colours are soft greys and yellows, a neutral palette that creates a gentle warmth and light throughout the scene. The figures are painted with great attention to their forms and expressions. The atmosphere in the painting is of anticipation from the groom and glee from the two women. The young soon-to-be bride is turned away, making us unaware of her answer or her feelings.
The artwork above depicts a scene of a groom trying to persuade a potential bride and the painter wants our focus to go anti-clockwise from the potential bride wearing a bright red blouse to the very interested groom towards the other ladies in the room. Lukian Papov used oil paints for this particular artwork. Coming from a Russian background he might have been trying to reflect the marriage mart of that time and how pre-marriage or how the process of accepting a particular groom went through. The artist painted what he saw in his modest home settings.
