Grushenka’s maid
"Grushenka’s maid", acrylic on canvas, 2022, Bishop Maxim
Grushenka had two maids: one very old, a cook, from her parents’ house, and her granddaughter, a young, living girl in her twenties, a maid. The painter conveys maid’s world not only with her clothes and characteristic scarf and simple work clothes but also with her eyes, mouth, and eyebrows. To understand a person’s character, it is important to consider the eyes, together with the eyebrows and mouth. The painter managed to crystallize in her eyes the expression of a girl who works, listens, works, and suffers in calm. The lips also contribute to that, as if asking the question: why am I enduring all this? The maid has a lay expression, but also a blessed expressive activity of the anatomical elements of the character. This picture is so convincing that we think that the girl seemed to have just finished cleaning with rags, put her hands on her hips, and walked toward us. The way in which the painter painted this girl serves as a halo that crowns her character.