Portrait of Fedor Dostoyevsky

Perov's 1872 portrait of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, held at the Tretyakov Gallery, is widely considered one of the greatest portrait paintings in Russian art and one of the most penetrating likenesses of one of world literature's most important figures. Dostoyevsky was fifty when the portrait was painted, between "The Devils" (1872) and the work that would become "The Brothers Karamazov" (1879-80) — at the height of his literary powers and in the grip of the physical and psychological suffering that marked his later years. Perov had already established himself as a penetrating portraitist with his series of Russian intellectuals painted for Pavel Tretyakov, and Dostoyevsky's portrait was commissioned as part of this project. The writer is shown in three-quarter view, his hands clasped, his gaze directed not at the viewer but inward — a man absorbed in thought, the external world receding before the intensity of his internal life. Contemporaries testified to the portrait's accuracy, and it has become the definitive visual image of the novelist.

Perov places Dostoyevsky in three-quarter pose against a plain, dark background, allowing the face and hands to carry the entire psychological content. The handling is controlled and specific in the face, with careful attention to the quality of the skin and the particular modelling of the eye sockets and brow. The clasped hands introduce a note of tension. The tonal range is narrow and dark, the light focused on the face.