N. A. Nekrasov in the Period of "The Last Songs"

N. A. Nekrasov in the Period of "The Last Songs" was painted in 1877 and captures one of the most significant figures in Russian literature during the final months of his life. Nikolai Nekrasov, whose poetry of peasant suffering and social protest had made him a hero of the radical intelligentsia, was dying of rectal cancer when Kramskoi came to paint him. The title's reference to "The Last Songs" is Nekrasov's own — a cycle of poems he was writing in full awareness of approaching death. Kramskoi depicts him in bed, propped against pillows, his expression combining intellectual alertness with physical exhaustion. The work is a document of moral courage as well as artistic achievement: Nekrasov, in terrible pain, continuing to write; Kramskoi recording the fact without sentimentality. The painting stands in the Tretyakov Gallery as one of the great portraits of the Russian literary tradition.

The bedside setting creates a confined, intimate space that concentrates attention on the subject's face and the quality of his consciousness. Kramskoi renders Nekrasov's physical deterioration honestly while preserving the animating intelligence behind it. The colour scheme is dominated by the whites and greys of the sickroom, against which the poet's face glows with feverish concentration.