The Russian School of Painting
consider it strange that we rank Bryullov among the romanticists. They would rather classify him with Ingres or even Delaroche, Cogniet and Gallet. In fact, our "genius" Bryullov had too much in common with these masters of "Juste Milieu," in his subject-matter, as well as in the ensemble of his far too external technique.
Karl Bryullov (1799–1852), the son of a skilled carver of Catherine's times, was a sickly and pitiable child, but very early he manifested a remarkable gift for drawing. His father developed this gift. Without taking pity on the boy, he forced little Karl to an unremitting study of nature, and punished him severely for laziness or blunders. Small wonder that, having passed through so severe a preparatory school, Bryullov outstripped his schoolmates at the Academy, and caused the whole Academic Areopagus to go into transports of delight. His immediate instructor, Andrey Ivanov, went so far as to buy with his own, hard-earned money, Bryullov's painting "Narcissus," an allegorical work of a purely academic character, not entirely devoid of eighteenth century affectation. A wholly mature master, but not a fully developed personality, Bryullov came to Italy, on a scholarship given by the recently established Society for the Encouragement of
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