Alexander Yakovlev painted Violinist in Italy in 1915. In a letter to Dmitry Kardovsky, the artist writes that he portrayed a professional musician suffering from progressive paralysis — “very interesting in appearance, though with an old man’s face, despite his thirty-seven years.” Yakovlev pays great attention to the subject’s personal features, simultaneously transforming life.
The artistic interpretation of the musician’s figure clearly employs the compositional principles of the official portraiture of the past. There are several figures in the loggia, also neither people nor puppets.

Yakovlev Alexander

Yakovlev, Alexander Yevgenyevich
1887, St Petersburg - 1938, Paris
Painter, graphic artist, teacher. Studied under Dmitry Kardovsky at the Imperial Academy of Arts (1905-13). Fellow of the Imperial Academy of Arts in Italy and Spain (1914-15) and China, Mongolia and Japan (1917-18). Member of the World of Art (1915) and founding member of the Guild of St Luke (1917). Contributed to exhibitions (from 1907). Contributed to the Exhibition of Drawings of the Satiricon Magazine (1909, 1910) and the exhibitions of the Union of Russian Artists (1909), Sergei Makovsky Salon (1909), Vladimir Izdebsky Salon (1909-10), World of Art (1912-21), Exhibition of Drawings of the New Satiricon Magazine (1913), Exhibition of Modern Russian Painting (1916), Russian Landscapes (1918-19), Exhibition of Russian Artists in Pskov (1920), International Exhibitions in Malmo (1914) and Rome (1914), Exhibitions of Russian Art in Paris (1921, 1927), New York (1923, 1924, 1927), Pittsburgh (1927), Brussels (1928) and Birmingham (1928). Taught at the New Studio of Art in Petrograd (1916-17) and the Boston School of Fine Arts (1934-37). Emigrated to Paris (1919). Awarded the Legion d''honneur (1926).