The Night Before the Exam

by Leonid Pasternak (1895)

This marvelous painting by Leonid Pasternak depicts four young men studying together the day before an exam. They are focused on their texts, but also seem to be enjoying each other’s company. The painting won the gold medal when it was first shown in Munich in 1895.

Six years earlier, Leonid Pasternak traveled to Paris, where he was inspired by the emergent french impressionistic movement. Upon returning to Russia he began employing similar techniques, and in so doing became one of the first Russian masters to employ the characteristically soft and muted brushstrokes to genre paintings. This is sometimes referred to as ‘moderate’ impressionism.

In 1893 he had a fortunate meeting with Tolstoy, who had become an admirer of his work. Tolstoy was so impressed that he invited Pasternak to illustrate his next novel, “Resurrection” (see below). The two shared a similar interest, and they began a succesful partnership, with Pasternak’s drawings becoming some of the most copied pre-revolutionary depictions of life in Russia.

When Tolstoy invited Pasternak to collaborate, the young artist couldn’t believe his good luck. He wrote to a friend, “I hardly dared to believe this good fortune. It can’t be! Terrifying! It took my breath away. God help me!” And even though Pasternak was nervous, he created the first sketches in a matter of hours, including the one below.

Pasternak and Tolstoy became good friends, and he painted several memorable paintings of the Russian master, including the magnificent “Tolstoy reading a manuscript” in 1894. As his work became increasingly popular he also painted such well-known luminaries as Einstein and Rilke (below).

Like his contemporary Ilya Repin, Pasternak’s work became indelibly associated with Tolstoy (which is why it’s somewhat ironic that the “the night before the exam” is currently used as the cover art for the Penguin classics edition of Dostoevsky’s “Brothers Karamazov”.

Pasternak was many things, but he was above all an educator. He taught art and painting throughout his life, and even opened his own school in Moscow. His belief was that art could serve as a bridge between nations, and to that end he worked collaboratively with artists in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Munich, and Paris. Today, his works come to us as a reminder of a time when such international exchanges were possible, and indeed commonplace. They are also very beautiful in their own right,

I will leave you with one of his later works, a portrait of Einstein (1924).

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