Portrait of the academic physiologist I. P. Pavlov by Mikhail Nesterov

Portrait of the academic physiologist I. P. Pavlov by Mikhail Nesterov

“The genius old man” I. Pavlov – physiologist, academician, thinker. Prompt, temperamental, he infected everyone with his energy, internal pressure. Young enthusiasm, a whirlwind of words and gestures – this was the first time Nesterov saw him and managed to show his soul youth, the boiling of life in him, the passion of the experimenter, scientist, fighter.

On the glassed-in terrace, at the table, this “wondrous old man” sits, firmly clenching his fists stretched forward and laying them on a piece of paper with a chart, as if proving something to an invisible interlocutor. Outside the window are the standard houses of Koltushi, a scientific town created by a great scientist, and behind them are autumn fields, a strip of forest on the horizon and a sky covered with clouds.

Everything in this portrait, starting from the most important thing – the head, the face – and ending with the background, details of the situation, was written by Nesterov with true inspiration and real spiritual youth. It is hard to believe that the one portrayed is eighty-five years old, and the portrait painter is seventy-three.

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