The Last Day of Pompeii

The Last Day of Pompeii is a large history painting by Karl Bryullov produced in 1830–1833 on the subject of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. It is notable for its positioning between Neoclassicism, the predominant style in Russia at the time, and Romanticism as increasingly practised in France. The painting was received to near universal acclaim and made Bryullov the first Russian painter to have an international reputation. In Russia it was seen as proving that Russian art was as good as art practised in the rest of Europe. Critics in France and Russia both noted, however, that the perfection of the classically modelled bodies seemed to be out of keeping with their desperate plight and the overall theme of the painting, which was a Romantic one of the sublime power of nature to destroy man's creations.

The Roman city of Pompeii, south of Naples, was under active excavation in the early 19th century, work having begun on the city and its neighbour Herculaneum in the middle of the previous century. Artists were well aware of its potential as a subject. John Martin had painted The Destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum in 1822 and others had sketched and produced engravings of the site.

In 1823, Bryullov arrived in Rome with his brother Aleksandr via Venice and Florence. Aleksandr was a participant in a scientific study and restoration of the Pompeii baths in 1825–26, which led to the publication of his book Thermes de Pompéi in Paris in 1829, and Karl may have visited Pompeii in 1824. He saw Alessandro Sanquirico's set designs for Giovanni Pacini's opera L'ultimo giorno di Pompei (1825), which was performed at Naples and at La Scala, Milan, and visited the Naples museum to study artefacts recovered from Pompeii. He certainly visited Pompeii in 1827 and according to Rosalind Blakesley, was so affected by the remains of the Via dei Sepolcri (Street of the Tombs) that he decided to set his painting in that street. Contemporary letters indicate that he studied Pliny the Younger's eye-witness description of the disaster, in which Pliny's uncle died, and Pliny's observations in his letters to Tacitus were referenced in the picture. Also in literature, Bryullov read Alessandro Manzoni's novel I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed) (1827) with its historically based account of a disastrous plague and the reactions to it of individuals.

These sources coalesced into the work known as The Last Day of Pompeii for which Bryullov painted a compositional sketch in 1828 at the request of Countess Maria Razumovskaya. The main canvas was commissioned by Count Anatoly Demidov, whom Bryullov had met in Naples, and for whom he painted an equestrian portrait the same year. It was to be completed by 1830 for the sum of 40,000 francs, but by the end of that year Bryullov had only got as far as outlining the figures on the canvas in two colours and had given little attention to colour choices. A trip to Bologna and Venice to see work by Tintoretto and Titian gave him the answers he needed.