Portrait Works by Olga Della-Vos-Kardovskaya in the Context of the Russian Art of the 1900s-1930s

The article focuses on portrait works by Olga Della‐Vos‐Kardovskaya — from her first significant paintings in this genre (e.g. Portrait of Nikolay Gumilev, 1908, State Tretyakov Gallery) to the last ones dating back to the late 1930s. This aspect of the master’s activity has not yet been the subject of a comprehensive research. Meanwhile, there has been a growing interest in the creative work of Olga Della‐Vos‐Kardovskaya, which is evidenced by the fact that her paintings are presented at many major exhibitions in Russia. First of all, these include her portraits, which reflect various trends in the Russian fine art of the early 20th century and the Soviet art of the 1920s‐1930s. The author of this article suggests dividing Olga DellaVos‐Kardovskaya’s portraits into three main types: representative, chamber, and typified portraits. The last group includes a subtype — children’s portraits. The artist created portraits of the three types throughout her entire creative biography. This division allows defining the features of the master’s portraiture and considering her paintings and drawings in the context of art development in the first three decades of the 20th century. As a result, it is possible to draw a conclusion that despite radical changes in the country and in the artist’s life, her portraiture remained almost unchanged during the 1900s‐1930s. In comparison with the pre‐revolutionary period, in her later works there appeared new character types, but the representation principles and artistic techniques remain the same. The most striking differences are found in her children’s portraits, which in the pre‐revolutionary work of Della‐Vos‐Kardovskaya were associated with idealistic retrospective tasks (children were depicted in 19th‐century interiors, wearing old‐fashioned costumes) and became ideologically loaded in Soviet times.