The Last Day of Pompeii by Karl Briullov

The Last Day of Pompeii by the Russian painter Karl Briullov was painted in 1830-1833. It is located in the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. However, the painting had not been located there originally. Prince Anatole Demidov, who had commissioned the piece of art, donated it to Nicholas I of Russia. The Russian Emperor had the painting displayed at the Imperial Academy of Art, so that students could view the picture and learn from it. When the Russian Museum opened in 1895, the painting was moved there, so that more people would be able to view it. Also, the painting had been exhibited in Rome and in the Louvre in Paris.

The painting is very large - 15 1/4 feet by 21 1/3 feet - no wonder the artist took three years to complete the painting.

An interesting fact is that the artist portrayed himself as one of the characters of the painting. Can you find him??? You probably don't think so - unless you kow exactly what he looks like. Here's a hint - look for a dude with art supplies. Give up? In the left part of the painting there is a man with a box on his head. In the box are paintbrushes and other supplies. He seems to be the only person not panicing. But then again, why? He's not actually experiencing the terror, unlike the other people he drew.

The painting must have been awfully difficult to draw, since he had to have pictured all of the people and how they react to what's going on around them. The artist did visit the remains of Pompeii, and made many sketches, but I don't think that there was as much left of Pompeii as you can see in the picture. And you cannot fully recreate everything that is happening; I doubt somebody would agree to stand for several hours in the same pose holding another person. And I especially doubt that the artist found a dead bird lying around and decided to take it with him to add to the painting. (The bird is at the bottom of the stairs, to the right of the three people huddled together. It's hard to see in this image... so you should come to Russia to look at the dead bird.)