2.07.1839 – 30.09.1915

“I did not bury my God of this talent in the land, but I did not use it to the extent that I could. I loved life too much, and it prevented me completely from surrendering to art. ” Talented, rich, successful, a favorite of women, Konstantin Makovsky lived a long, rich and rather long life. He was born in the family of the hereditary nobleman Yegor Makovsky, in the house of the Makovsky there were many people of art: AN Ostrovsky, VA Tropinin, Karl and Alexander Bryullov.

In 1858, Makovsky entered the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg, which he did not manage to finish, however. In 1863, the artist joined the number of participants in the “revolt of fourteen” who opposed the conservative system of teaching. In the same year he became an active member of the famous St. Petersburg Artel of Artists, headed by IN Kramskoy, and in 1870 – one of the founders of the “Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions”. Pictures of Makovsky during this period are of a genre character and are distinguished by a special lyricism, which enhances the tragic sound of his works – “Poor children”, “Herringbone”, “Not in the power of burden”, “Family portrait”.

In the 1870s Konstantin Makovsky made a great trip to Egypt. Household exotics, brightness of types, ethnographic accuracy, sonority of oriental color capture the artist, sharply social direction gives way to exclusively pictorial tasks – Makovsky brilliantly conveys the situation, clothes, expensive fabrics and furs. During this period, he wrote mostly portraits and paintings on historical themes.

In the collection of the Museum. I. Kramskoy has a beautiful portrait of Konstantin Makovsky’s brush, it shows the artist’s favorite model – his second wife, Julia Pavlovna. This portrait attracts the viewer not only with the beauty and perfection of the model, but also with the beauty of painting, with the skill of execution.

The life of Konstantin Makovsky was tragically interrupted in 1915 as a result of an accident: a tram crashed into the Makovsky stroller at the corner of Sadovaya and Nevsky. At the age of 76, Konstantin Egorovich Makovsky was no more.