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| | The State Hermitage Museum: Collection Highlights |
 | | During Paul's reign, Russian portraiture took great strides: this was the highpoint of Vasily Borovikovsky's career; Dmitry Levitsky was still hard at work; Stepan Shchukin, the head of the portraiture class at the Academy and teacher of a number of notable early 19th-century artists, was just starting out. |
 | | The early 19th century coincided with a new era in the history of Russian art and particularly portraiture, as the ideas of humanism and Romanticism, and the accompanying interest in the inner world of subjects, exerted increasing influence. |
 | | Patriotism, given renewed energy by the Napoleonic Wars and the occupation of Moscow in 1812, was the new impetus for history painting, which became the most important genre in Russian art from 1820 to 1830. |
| www.hermitagemuseum.org /html_En/03/hm3_6_5.html (1177 words) |
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