The boy depicted in the painting[Notes 1][3] is the third child in the family of the great industrialist, collector and patron of the arts Mikhail Abramovich and his wife — the mistress of the famous literary and musical salon of the time Margarita Kirillovna Morozova, the future Soviet literary scholar (specialist in the works of William Shakespeare), theatrical historian, teacher, translator Mikhail Mikhailovich Morozov (1897-1952).

[5] The Soviet and Russian art historian Dmitry Sarabianov claimed that the boy's gesture and pose in the painting were so successfully chosen by the artist that "the character's emotions can be read like an open book.

[8][4][9] Russian and Soviet artist Nina Simonovich-Yefimova claimed that the portrait was painted in Valentin Serov's rented apartment on Bolshoi Znamensky Lane in Moscow.

[12] Mika Morozova's mother in her memoirs about the events connected with the creation of the portrait, comparing the author of the picture with Konstantin Korovin, noted Valentin Serov's lack of imagination and considered him "a true realist".

[4] Doctor of philology Natalia Ivanova quoted the testimony of Elizaveta Chernyak that in the apartment of the poet and writer Boris Pasternak at Volkhonka, 14 on the wall hung Valentin Serov's sketches for the painting Mika Morozov.

Although the portrait was painted in 1901, the biographer saw its similarity to the artist's earlier works, created in the era of "the search for color, en plein air, light".

She did not expect to find in Professor Mikhail Morozov a resemblance to Mika in Serov's painting, although she knew that it was the same person, but during her acquaintance with him she saw that in front of her "stood a tall, slightly heavy man, in whose eyes there was something strikingly reminiscent of the boy, rushing forward with impetuous energy".

[5] Knebel's words were confirmed by the Soviet children's poet Samuil Marshak: "In spite of his large stature, we always recognized in him that greedy and intense look into the surrounding world of the child, 'Mikhail Morozov,' which was once so wonderfully depicted by the great Russian artist Valentin Serov".

[21] The doctor of art history, the leading researcher of the Tretyakov Gallery, Ida Gofman, analyzing the painting Girl with Porcelain [ru] by Alexander Golovin, wrote about the vital simplicity and authenticity of the heroine's image.

[22][23] The Soviet art historian Svyatoslav Belza wrote that visitors to the State Tretyakov Gallery usually linger for a while by Valentin Serov's portrait of Mika Morozov.

[24] The honored artist of the RSFSR Igor Dolgopolov wrote in his book Masters and Masterpieces (1987): "The curly-haired, disheveled, black-eyed child in a white nightgown with thin eyebrows saw something and froze, slightly raised on the chair.

[26] For Viktor Rosenwasser, a senior researcher at the State Tretyakov Gallery of the All-Union Museum Association, Mika Morozov is "the embodiment of a living child's joy".

The art historian pointed out the diagonal construction of the composition and the contrast of the boy's white shirt with the dark foreground and background of the picture, as well as the subtlety of the depiction of Mika's emotional state: the details convey his excitement: the speed of his hands' movements, the burning look of his brown eyes, the open lips.

It is close to the literary images of children created by Russian writers of the 19th and early 20th centuries: Sergei Aksakov, Vladimir Odoevsky, Antoni Pogorelsky, Leo Tolstoy, Nikolai Garin-Mikhailovsky, and Anton Chekhov.

[4] Elena Racheyeva, an employee of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, emphasizes the boy's "fragile figure, disheveled head and burning eyes" in the painting.

[31] Volkova quoted an episode from some memoirs, without naming their author, in which an unnamed woman attends a lecture by Mikhail Morozov on the works of William Shakespeare.

The art historian described the character of the painting as "restless, impetuous, embraced by all the stigmas of a man's life, endlessly continuous, charged with a special kind of excitement of understanding, with an inner spiritual focus".

The author of the article concluded: "Mika is happy in his ignorance of the essence of life..."[37] Ganina compared Serov's approach to the child with that of the Mir Iskussta artists.

Analyzing the portrait of Mika Morozov, she writes about the image of a "curly-haired boy with surprisingly open, naive eyes and touching thin fingers, frozen on the armrests of an antique armchair".

[40] Yaroshenko called the portrait of Mika Morozov "a standard of perfection" and "a masterpiece of child portraiture", but noted that Serov himself, when it came to talking about this painting of his, was brief: "Nothing special, something came out".

When the picture was presented at the exhibition of the Mir Iskusstva Art Society, among its assessments were: "A scarecrow, a boar, jumped at the hunter and stopped with a run" and "Cast-iron man, a monument to big capital".

Yaroshenko claimed that the factory worker began to suspect his wife in a special relationship with Serov, so the artist was able to write her portrait only in 1911 (8 years after the death of her husband).

The documentary was directed by Vladimir Venediktov, the winner of the State Prize of the Russian Federation in the field of art and literature, and the author of the script was Olga Sarnova.

"In the image of Mika he wanted to convey that very "joyful" that happens in childhood almost everyone and that then blurred, broken, to finally disappear without a trace in a boring adult", — explained Smith.

Four-year-old Mika Morozov, barefoot in a fluttering nightgown and with a book under his arm, runs into a room where Anton, an artist unknown to the boy (named Valentin Serov in the story), is talking to his mother.

[51] Mika Morozov's painting, together with other children's portraits, has been repeatedly used as didactic material in Russian language and fine arts classes at various levels of education in Russia and Belarus.

Candidate of pedagogical sciences Lubov Voroshnina suggests using the paintings Mika Morozov and Girl with peaches for language teaching among preschoolers, analyzing colors, poses and settings, accompanied by the music of Tchaikovsky.

[53][54] Irina Yatsenko and Tatyana Sitnikova in the handbook for the 4th grade offer a method of composing on the painting Mika Morozov, which is included in the school textbook.

[55][56] Doctor of philology Maria Kalenchuk and her colleagues use the painting Mika Morozov for an oral essay, asking students questions about the boy's age and appearance.

Evgeny Krasnushkin advises teachers to compare Mika Morozov with Kramskoi's painting Beekeeper, noting the naturalness of the movements and paying attention to the technique of Serov's brushstrokes.