Alexander Ivanov
The Appearance of Christ Before the People
1857
Alexander Ivanov's 'The Appearance of Christ before the People' (1837–1857), some 5.4 × 7.5 metres in size, occupied its painter for twenty years and defines the monumental ambition of 19th-century Russian academic history painting. John the Baptist on the bank of the Jordan points the crowd toward the distant figure of Christ, each of the dozens of onlookers given an individualised portrait study. Ivanov worked on the single canvas almost exclusively in Rome; the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow built a dedicated hall to house it alone, where it remains one of the most celebrated objects of Russian national art.
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Image source: Wikimedia Commons