Background
Fyodor Rokotov was born in 1736 in a small village near Moscow into a family of peasant serfs of Prince Repnin. It is not known much about his childhood and youth.
Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg
Фёдор Ро́котов
Fyodor Rokotov was born in 1736 in a small village near Moscow into a family of peasant serfs of Prince Repnin. It is not known much about his childhood and youth.
Beginning in 1760, Fedor Rokotov studied art in the Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg.
Though Fedor Rokotov was a serf or freed serf by birth, his art showed no trace of his humble origins. Rather, the faces in his paintings were marked by a refinement not found in other portraits of the time. Although he experienced dizzying successes that secured for him imperial orders, the title of academician, and ennoblement, he never forgot his origins.
Rokotov’s rapid rise began under the patronage of Count Ivan Shuvalov, the founder of Russia’s first university in Moscow in 1755 and of the Academy of the Arts in Saint Petersburg in 1757, who was a favorite of Empress Elizabeth. It was thanks to Count Shuvalov that the 20-year-old Rokotov was afforded the opportunity to paint the portrait of the heir to the throne, Grand Duke Pyotr Fyodorovich (later Peter III), and in 1760, at the count’s order, Rokotov was accepted into the academy.
In 1762, at the presentation of his portrait of Peter III, who had just ascended the throne, Rokotov was made a court painter. A year later he painted the portrait of the new empress, Catherine II in 1763, which was to become a model for later portraits and was much copied. Rokotov began to find it difficult to handle the mounting number of orders, at times having to work simultaneously on some 50 portraits. Finally, in 1765, he was accorded the title of academician. But, at the height of his fame, Rokotov unexpectedly left Saint Petersburg for the more provincial Moscow, using his newly gained rank to distance himself from the encroachments of the imperial court on his artistic freedom.
In Moscow, Fedor Rokotov avoided, to the extent he could, all official requests for paintings but readily painted members of Moscow society in small intimate portraits. They were shoulder-length or waist-length portraits, their hues founded on delicate faded shades, lit so softly that outlines were blurred, the canvas showing through the fragile colors. In those portraits the forms lost their objective character, their brittleness becoming a reflection of the delicacy of the subject’s spiritual life. That precious essence within the images does not change from portrait to portrait: the soul that governed Rokotov’s imagination was ideal and ingrained in the most varying features.
At times his portraits were marked with the stamp of social rank, in accordance to the wishes of the patron — as can be seen, for instance, in the portrait of Countess Yekaterina Orlova, one of Catherine II’s young ladies-in-waiting, depicted in befitting attire and with an impenetrable haughty, yet civil, facial expression, created in 1779. More rarely, when the fragile ideal happened to coincide with reality, it received an open penetrating embodiment, as in the portrait of the 18-year-old Aleksandra Struyskaya, with whose family Rokotov was friendly, and the young Prince Ivan Baryatinsky, created in the 1780s.
The particularity of Rokotov’s painting — refined hues, delicate lighting, the music of elusive lines and curves — showed to a large extent the influence of the Italian painter Pietro Rotari, who introduced Rococo painting to Saint Petersburg, where he lived from 1756 to 1762. Rokotov took seriously the refined language that expressed Rococo’s elegant play of feeling and endeavoured to use it as a living expression of his times. In his final years Rokotov painted portraits of women almost exclusively. The artist’s last works date to the 1790’s. He died on December 24, 1808.
Fedor Rokotov was highly famous as one of the first Russian painters advancing a psychological portrait with attention to optical and atmospheric effects. Among his best-known portrait is Portrait of Alexandra Struyskaya, created in 1772, sometimes called the Russian Mona Lisa and admittedly the most celebrated piece of the 18th-century Russian painting.
Portrait of Count Ivan Shuvalov
Portrait of Alexandra Struiskaya
Portrait of Prince Ivan Bariatinsky as a Youth
Portrait of N.E.Struisky
Portrait of an Unknown Man
Portrait of the Poet Vasily Maykov
Portrait of Catherine II. Repeat version of a portrait (after 1768)
Portrait of A.M.Rimskiy-Korsakov
Portrait of an Unknown man in a Green Caftan
Portrait of Praskovya Nikolayevna Lanskaya
Portrait of an Unknown Woman in a Red Dress
Portrait of Anna Yuryevna Kvashnina-Samarina
Portrait of an Unknown Woman in a Blue Dress with Yellow Trimmings
Portrait of Count I.G.Orlov
Portrait of Great Duke Peter Fedorovich, Later Emperor Peter III
Portrait of an Unknown Man
Portrait of Varvara Nikolaevna Surovceva
Portrait of Peter III of Russia
Portrait of Count Illarion Ivanovich Vorontsov
Portrait of Varvara Ermolayevna-Novosiltseva
Portrait of Princess A.A.Dolgorukaya
Portrait of an Unknown Lady in a Pink Dress
Portrait of V.A.Obreskova
Portrait of V.N.Surovtseva
Portrait of P.I.Vyrubov
Portrait of Countess Elizaveta Santi
Portrait of Unknown Man in a Blue Caftan
Portrait of an Unknown Man in a Cocked Hat
Portrait of Catherine II of Russia
Portrait of Count Alexey Bobrinsky as a Child
Portrait of an Unknown Lady in a White Cap
Portrait of Count Artemiy Ivanovich Vorontsov
Portrait of Emperor Paul I as a Child
Portrait of Countess Ekaterina Orlova
Portrait of Count G.G.Orlov
Portrait of A.M.Obreskov
Portrait of N.A.Demidov
Fyodor Rokotov adhered to the artistic traditions of Rococo.
