Porträt des Leo Tolstoy

Ge's portrait of Leo Tolstoy, undated and in the Tretyakov Gallery, is one of the most significant artist-subject relationships in Russian culture. Ge and Tolstoy met in 1882 and became close friends, bound by shared commitments to spiritual and moral reform, simple living, and rejection of official institutions. Tolstoy championed Ge's late religious paintings when they were refused by censors and official exhibitions, and Ge adopted Tolstoyan ideals — working his farm, rejecting property, attempting to live in accordance with the Sermon on the Mount. Ge painted Tolstoy several times, capturing him in the act of writing at his desk, in conversation, and in contemplation. The Tretyakov holds the most famous version, showing the author at work — an image of concentrated intellectual labour that has become canonical in Russian visual culture.

Oil on canvas, the portrait of Tolstoy at work is likely composed around the writer's desk and the act of writing — the bowed head, the moving hand, the unself-conscious absorption in the task. Ge's portrait of his friend would carry none of the social performance of formal portraiture: it is a private observation of a man the painter knew intimately. The handling is likely direct and warm without being academic — the same honesty that characterises Ge's late self-portrait.