Focus on The Last Day of Pompeii and explore the Subject and composition.
The subject is the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79 that enveloped the city of Pompeii in volcanic ash killing most of its inhabitants. As a scene from the ancient world it was an appropriate subject for a history painting, then regarded as the highest genre of painting, and the magnitude of the event also made it suitable for a large canvas that would allow Bryullov to showcase all his skills.Bryullov said that he could only have completed the work with the example of Raphael's large and complex work The School of Athens (1509–1511) as his model, and he used classical forms recognisable as those used by the Renaissance masters, but combined them with features found in Romantic painting, such as dramatic colouring, the use of chiaroscuro, and a high emotional content. Other works thought to have influenced Bryullov are Raphael's The Fire in the Borgo (1514–17) and Nicolas Poussin's The Plague at Ashdod (1630).He eschewed the coolness and flatness of the then-prevalent Neoclassicism in favour of excitement and vibrant colour, combined with a deep recession as a horse bolts into the depths of the painting, unseating its master. Nikolai Gogol commented: "His colouring is possibly brighter than it has ever been; his paints burn and hit you in the eye", but he was not the only one to note that the perfection of the classical figures contrasted with the wretchedness of their predicament.Bryullov filled the canvas with authentic detail from Pompeii that he had seen at the site and in the museum at Naples such as the artefacts carried by the figures and the authentic paving and kerb stones. Statues toppling from their pedestals bring additional drama and demonstrate the sublime power of nature over man, a common trope in Romantic painting. The figures provide small vignettes of individual experience that reference stories from classical mythology, renaissance painting or ancient literature such as Pliny the Younger's account given to Tacitus, but most of the characters preserve their dignity in the face of death indicating Bryullov's great debt to the principals of Classicism. Poses and figures are drawn from classical painting or from people the artist knew such as Yuliya Samoylova and her daughters. The soldier and boy rescuing an older man may derive from the story of Aeneas's rescue of his father from the destruction of Troy in mythology. To the scene is added an image of the artist himself as a Pompeian artist with his equipment balanced on his head.
The School of Athens Nicolas Poussin Romantic painting Raphael Naples classicism Yuliya Samoylova Pompeii Troy Classicism history painting classical Romantic The Fire in the Borgo Nikolai Gogol ru Neoclassicism chiaroscuro The Plague at Ashdod Mount Vesuvius Aeneas eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79 Pliny the Younger Tacitus sublime