The Last Day of Pompeii

The painting is a masterclass in academic technique. Bryullov had studied the actual excavations at Pompeii and he places the scene on a real street, the Street of the Tombs. Notice how the light comes from two sources at once: cold white lightning from the left and hot red volcanic glow from the right, so that flesh, marble and bronze are modelled twice over. The figures are arranged in pyramids, each group a small sculpture. Look for the painter himself, holding a box of brushes on his head near the left edge, and for his lover, Countess Samoilova, who appears several times among the crowd.

Bryullov painted the picture in Rome, and when it was shown in Italy in eighteen thirty three it made him a European celebrity almost overnight. Sir Walter Scott is said to have sat in front of it for an hour and called it an epic rather than a painting. It travelled to Paris, then to Saint Petersburg, where it was presented to Tsar Nicholas the First and later passed to the newly founded Russian Museum in eighteen ninety five. For the poet Pushkin and a generation of Russians it proved that a Russian painter could rival anyone in Europe. The final detail worth finding is the small, calm figure of a Christian priest at the left, contrasted with the fleeing pagan priest on the right.

Did You Know? Bryullov spent six years on the picture but reportedly laid in the whole enormous composition in just two weeks of feverish work after years of studies.