Portrait of Vladimir Dal

Vladimir Dal was one of the nineteenth century's most significant figures in Russian cultural life — lexicographer, folklorist, writer, and compiler of the monumental "Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language," which took him over fifty years to complete and remained the standard reference work for decades. Perov painted him in 1872, the same year as his famous portrait of Dostoyevsky, as part of his series of portraits of Russian cultural figures for Pavel Tretyakov's gallery of distinguished Russians. Dal was seventy at the time of the portrait and died the following year, making this one of his last likenesses. Like the Dostoyevsky portrait, this work shows an elderly intellectual at the end of a life of sustained creative effort, and Perov captures the quality of accumulated experience in the face. The Tretyakov Gallery holds both portraits in a testament to Tretyakov's systematic effort to document the faces of Russian civilization.

Perov's approach follows the formula established in his series of intellectual portraits: plain dark background, controlled directional lighting, three-quarter pose, concentrated attention on the face and its expression of inner life. The handling in the face is precise and observational, with particular care given to the ageing skin and the eyes' quality of contained experience.