Briullov, Aleksandr Pavlovich

Born Nov. 29 (Dec. 10), 1798, in St. Petersburg; died there Jan. 9 (21), 1877. Russian architect, graphic artist, and watercolor painter. Representative of late classicism. Brother of K. P. Briullov.

Briullov studied first with his father, who was a master of decorative carving, and then in the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts (1810-21) with A. A. Mikhailov II. Briullov studied architecture in Italy from 1822 to 1826 and in France until 1830. He taught in the Academy of Arts from 1831 to 1871; in 1831 he became an academician and professor. He designed the Mikhailov Theater (1831-33) and the guards corps headquarters building (1837-43) in St. Petersburg and the Pulkovo Observatory near St. Petersburg (1834-39), using the traditional forms of Russian classicism. In a number of works Briullov moved away from classicism toward Gothic and other styles (the church in Pargolovo, 1831; the Lutheran church on Nevskii Prospekt in St. Petersburg, 1833-38). He painted a number of watercolors that were refined but somewhat dry in their execution—portraits of E. P. Bakunina (1830-32, Tret’iakov Gallery) and A. A. Perovskii (1834, A. S. Pushkin All-Union Museum in the city of Pushkin).