The painting “Guitarist” by Vasily Andreevich Tropinin: a portrait of a virtuoso and the glorification of the famous Russian seven-string

“Guitarist” – a painting by Vasily Andreevich Tropinin, painted by him in 1823. In front of the viewer is a handsome young man with a soft, rounded face, curly chestnut hair and an attentive gaze of large gray eyes. There is a romantic casualness in his appearance. Simple home clothing consists of a gray silk robe and an unbuttoned white shirt. It doesn’t matter what he looks like. The main thing is that the musician is ready to demonstrate his art.

The artist’s work is dedicated to the famous “gypsy” seven-string. By the beginning of the 19th century, she was present in any house, regardless of the wealth of the owners. We see a medium-sized grater, with a simple rosette without decorations – this is how most of the tools that have survived to our time look like. From the copper pegs on the fingerboard, the ends of the strings stick out, wriggling. The whole palette is matched to the reddish tones of the metal: the warm shade of the walls, the musician’s hair, even the highlights on the sleeves of the clothes.

Name of the painting: “Guitarist”.
Author: Vasily Andreevich Tropinin (1776-1857).
Year of writing: 1823.
Size: 65 x 83.3 cm.
Style: Realism.
Genre: Portrait.
Technique: Oil painting.
Material: Canvas. Location: State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

Vasily Andreevich Tropinin – Russian portrait painter of the 18th – 19th centuries.

The characters, the prototype of which was the famous musician, liked the public. The audience appreciated the simple plot, the lack of pretentiousness and frills. The very first version, called “Guitarist in a blouse” is considered the most accurate image of the famous virtuoso.

A distinctive feature is the location of the fingers of the left hand. They take a chord that is different from all subsequent options. The portrait is kept in the Glinka Museum of Musical Culture in Moscow. In the collection of the Tretyakov Gallery you can see another example dated 1832. Here, behind the hero, the viewer notices sheet music scribbled on the table.

The image of 1839, which is kept in the National Gallery of Armenia in Yerevan, is distinguished by a more complex neck, made in the form of a lyre.

In the same year, Tropinin presented a creation called “Guitarist. Portrait of the virtuoso V. I. Morkov. Until the 1870s, it was kept in the collection of Vasily Kokorev, in 1897 it was transferred to the Alexander Palace (Tsarskoye Selo), from where it later moved to the collection of the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg.

The painting “Guitarist” by Vasily Andreevich Tropinin, painted by him in 1823, remains one of the best examples of the collection of the Tretyakov Gallery.