Russian wedding costume

Before us is a testimony of cultural memory embodied in a living person, in an authentic object of everyday life, and in a carefully reconstructed historical scene. The woman portrayed is Marina Savchenko, a collector and connoisseur of Russian culture, lecturer at St. Petersburg State University, researcher, and custodian of folklore traditions. She poses in an authentic wedding costume for the second day of the ceremony, a genuine piece more than a hundred years old, brought from one of the former provinces of the Russian Empire.

The portrait grew out of the idea of a contemporary remake, a painterly dialogue with the works of Repin and Serov, in particular their interpretations of the portrait of Dragomirova. The scene revives the same spirit: dense painterly volume, a refined color palette, and an expressive face that brings together both personal history and a broader cultural tradition.

The artist created this work within the framework of pedagogical practice, showing students how painting is born on canvas. It was not an abstract lesson in theory but a genuine struggle for form, color, and space. The painting emerged in parallel with teaching, amid critiques, discussions, and advice. It was reworked many times: the placement of the hands, ornamental details, and background all underwent numerous changes. What we see is not so much a single portrait as the result of a long process of artistic selection and refinement.

Color becomes the central protagonist of this work. Unlike the artist’s customary tonal model, where form is governed by light and shade, here the focus lies on the relationships of color. It is an inner work of self-exploration, a personal challenge, an attempt to approach the chromatic culture of Abram Arkhipov while also drawing inspiration from the techniques of Repin and Serov. Color is inseparably linked to emotion, to light, to the rhythm of fabric and to the features of the face. It becomes a narrative medium in its own right, as essential as composition or drawing.