Girl student

"Just look at her: men's hat, men's waistcoat, dirty skirts, ragged dress, bronze or greenish complexion, chin jerked up and bleary eyes full of aimlessness and tiredness and malice and hate…"

That was one of the numerous outraged reviews of this scandalous picture, the first painting of a female student from Bestuzhev Courses (the first women's university in the Russian Empire). So, look at the picture!

The girl come out of the St. Petersburg fog carefully hiding her book from the rainy weather.  Her wet hair is unsuitably short and she wears no corset, no bustle, and no flowers on her hat. More so, her wide leather belt is a man's belt for sure. Everything speaks of practicality and saving time. The only bright white spot, her collar, echoes the white pages of her notes.

The confidence of her walk is emphasized by movement of her free hand. It must be evening in the picture because classes started at 7 p.m. and finished at 9 p.m. Daytime was for making a living! (Scholarships did not exist and funding for courses came from unreliable donations.)  The subject, Anna Diterikhs (a real student), married a close friend of Lev Tolstoy.  The painter wanted to portray her not as a real person but as a generalized type of young woman who decided to seek an education.

- Tatyana Adamenko

P.S. Anna's clothing seems very advanced for the 19th century, isn't it? When it goes to fashion we love the 1920s!