Vladimir Makovsky is rightfully considered one of the best masters of describing everyday scenes, conveying mood and characters. Realism plays a big role in his works, sometimes it seems to the viewer that he directly becomes a participant in the events depicted. The artist’s accurate rendering of all the little things in clothing, decoration, decoration takes us to the past, forcing, together with the characters in the paintings, to experience the situations conceived by Vladimir Yegorovich.
One of these paintings is “The First Tailcoat”. On it, the artist depicted a young man dressed in a brand new tailcoat. It takes place in a small room – all the household gathered near the newly-made dandy. The clumsy figure of the young man shows that he put on a tailcoat for the first time in his life: he slouches, for some reason he spread his elbows to the sides. You can see from his face that he can’t wait to hear the opinion of his new costume from his relatives, who are looking at the new thing with all their eyes.
Next to the main character of the picture is his grandmother. Raising her glasses, she, with the air of an expert, examines the thin fabric of the jacket, apparently assessing its quality. On the left is a young woman who looks at the young man with affection, her smile reads approval and delight, it is clear that she likes the new costume. Even a young maid is interested in looking at the handsome young master, trying not to betray her emotions, she covered herself with her hand.
But the young master’s gaze is turned to a woman dressed in a black dress. Probably, this is his mother and her opinion is really important for the young man. But on her face there is no delight and joy, only a kind of tired pensiveness. What inner doubts torment her?
Carefully, to the smallest detail, Makovsky depicted the room in which the action takes place – this is a typical room of a noble house of that time. Most likely, the main character of the canvas lives in this room. In the room you can see a large wardrobe, an ottoman, a solid writing desk for work. There are many paintings on the walls, apparently the young man is a fan of art, or maybe this is just a tribute to fashion.
The white tiled stove against the central wall is a striking element of the picture. It reflects a lot of sunlight, because of this, the canvas becomes not so dark. An interesting technique used by the artist when painting the canvas – the viewer observes the scene as if through a window, this makes it possible to immerse himself as much as possible in the atmosphere of Vladimir Makovsky’s painting “First Tailcoat”.
Year of painting: 1892.
Painting dimensions: no data.
Material: canvas.
Writing technique: oil.
Genre: genre painting.
Style: realism.
Gallery: State Museum Association “Artistic Culture of the Russian North”, Arkhangelsk, Russia.