“Crossed-out psychologism” of female salon portrait of the Art Nouveau: portraits of Elena Olive by the artist Konstantin Somov and Marina Makovskaya by Alexander Golovin

In view of female portrait of the turn of the XIX – XX centuries, which stylistically belongs to “salon” painting of the Russian Art Nouveau, the authors analyzes the two works by the artists of “The World of Art” association – the portrait of Elena Olive by Konstantin Somov (1914) and the portrait of Marina Makovskaya by Alexander Golovin (1912). Both portraits are attributed to the series of female portraits created by Konstantin Somov and Alexander Golovin in the early 1910s. The general circle of  the artists’ clients, similar formats of works, compositional and stylistic techniques allow drawing parallels between the selected portraits and finding certain conceptual similarity. The determination of stylistic, formal and conceptual patterns of both works against the background of the series of similar portraits created by the artists indicates that the generally accepted criterion of “psychologism” of the images in assessing these works is inapplicable. The female portrait of the Art Nouveau appease to be representative, creating “stylish” images of the contemporaries, meeting the tastes of the clients and the moods of Belle Epoque, but virtually not oriented towards personal characteristics and psychologism of the image in traditional sense. However, in the considered portraits, the researchers reveal generalizations and characteristics that describe the psychology of the depicted models in a different way, as well as form a three-dimensional female image of the turn of centuries: the phenomenon of “hidden psychologism”, the prospects for studying which are outlined in this work.