The artist is Surikov
The greatest historical painter, the creator of grandiose epic paintings, Surikov also worked in the field of the portrait genre, which attracted it especially in the late period of creativity. The artist vividly reveals the individual originality of the models, and at the same time, each image created by him reflects his ideal. Surikova was usually interested in such female images in which, he himself says, there was "Special beauty: ancient, Russian". In the portrait "Siberians" appears the image of an attractive stately woman admiring her reflection in the mirror. The portrait written in the harmonious gamut of the flickering brown and deep blue color, as one of the researchers notes, is close in the plot decision of Zinaida Serebryakova’s works "Portrait about. To. Lancer" and "Behind the toilet", but goes back to the image of the Titianovskaya "Venus in front of the mirror" And to the Hermitage "Female portrait" Francesco Meltsi.
The Russian Museum. From the icon to the present. 2005. With. 198.
In Surikov’s work, this is a new portrait image in its concept, as if anticipating the gallery of “Russian beauties”, created in the 1910s Boris Kustodiev. The whimsily combining features of intimacy and representativeness, the picture seems unexpected in the neighborhood with the glorified typed portraits of the artist – “Siberian beauty” (1891) and “Citizen” (1902), with their models in close historical clothes, scarves and piles. The picture was affected by the simplicity of the simplicity and immediacy of vision – he poetizes his model, not trying to imagine it more sophisticated and pretty. The truthfulness of the image makes us admire the burly, full of youth and the health of the Siberian. She calmly considers herself in the mirror, combs beautiful long silky hair, inspiring the audience of the association with the red -haired Venetians of Titian and the “veners” of Velazquez, whose work was loved by the artist so much. (AT. Prince., AT. To.).
Russian portrait. XX century: St. Petersburg, 2001. With. 80.
