Portrait of V. S. Solovyov

Ivan Kramskoi's Portrait of Vladimir Solovyov (1885) depicts the greatest Russian philosopher of the nineteenth century — Solovyov, whose mystical and theological system influenced everyone from Dostoevsky to the Russian Symbolists and whose concept of Sophia (Divine Wisdom) shaped Russian religious and artistic thought for generations. Kramskoi was the leading Russian portrait painter of his era — his portraits of Tolstoy, Turgenev, Nekrasov, and many other Russian cultural figures constitute the essential gallery of late Imperial Russian intellectual life. His portrait of Solovyov captures one of the era's most distinctive minds.

Kramskoi renders Solovyov with the psychological penetration that distinguishes his best portraiture. The philosopher's distinctive appearance — his striking, somewhat otherworldly quality — would be captured through careful attention to the face's specific physiognomy and the quality of focused intellectual concentration in the expression. His dark, chiaroscuro approach is warm and direct, the face emerging from shadowed surrounds with the Rembrandtesque concentration of light that he associated with serious intellectual portraiture.