Valentin Serov was one of the greatest masters of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In Serov’s works the characteristic and concrete merged with the timeless and the general. His work is distinguished by truthfulness, a deep understanding of human nature and on the motives behind human actions. To Serov the aesthetic programme of the Peredvizhniki seemed rather narrow and their purposes limited. Though a member of the Society for Circulating Art Exhibitions from 1894, Serov had sought from the very beginning of his artistic career much broader, philosophical generalizations.
Whereas in his early portraits Serov was attracted by the transient mood of his sitter, conveyed by means close to Impressionist painting, the portraits of his mature period indicate that he seeks in his models their essential psychological make-up. Thus, in his images of Russian cultural figures of the early 20th century, Serov was moved above all by the civic verve of these personalities, and his portraits assumed monumentality. Such, in particular, is Portrait of the Actress Maria Yermolova (1905), whose noble and proud silhouette reveals the spiritual strength of the great Russian actress. Looking up at Yermolova from a somewhat lower level, as seen from the audience, the painter removed the image of the great actress of the humdrum of everyday life. The face glows with an inner light, her folded arms betray emotions controlled by will. The figure in the severe black dress stands out sharply against the grey background. Meanwhile, the lower part of her dress, falling in heavy folds is more on a level with the spectator and thus imparts to the figure the stability of a bronze monument. Serov’s palette is limited here to the reserved and noble harmony of black and grayish-ochre tones.
