The Last Day of Pompeii

The Last Day of Pompeii is a large history painting by Karl Bryullov produced in 1830–1833 on the subject of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. It is notable for its positioning between Neoclassicism, the predominant style in Russia at the time, and Romanticism as increasingly practised in France. The painting was received to near universal acclaim and made Bryullov the first Russian painter to have an international reputation. In Russia, it was seen as proving that Russian art was as good as art practised in the rest of Europe. It inspired Edward Bulwer-Lytton's world-famous novel The Last Days of Pompeii. Critics in France and Russia both noted, however, that the perfection of the classically modelled bodies seemed to be out of keeping with their desperate plight and the overall theme of the painting, which was a Romantic one of the sublime power of nature to destroy man's creations.