There is also the only sketch of the portrait by Serov that is known to art historians, and it shows that the artist determined the composition, chose the perspective, gave the picture a monumental appearance and decided to emphasise the silhouette of the actress even before beginning the actual work.

Serov's work aroused mixed reactions among the artist's contemporaries, with opinions ranging from complete rejection of the picture to the assertion that the portrait was "the best reflection of the actress's creative personality".

[1] Then her friends —members of the Moscow Literary and Art Circle, founded on the initiative of the artist Alexander Yuzhin and the poet Valery Bryusov— decided to give Maria Nicolayevna a present: they asked Valentin Serov to paint a portrait of the actress.

Their inner kinship manifested itself in the fact that in the circle of their loved ones they were considered 'the great silence': and the artist and the actress were characterised by little speech and a tendency, even at crowded parties, to be immersed in their own thoughts and worries.

In order to give Yermolova's figure a monumental appearance, the artist sat on a low bench; the actress, whose height was slightly above average, towered over the portraitist as if on a pedestal.

Nemirovich-Danchenko, Stanislavsky, Yermolova's colleagues from the Maly Theatre, artists from St. Petersburg and Moscow theaters, other personalities of literature, art and science —in total about three hundred people— were present.

In the darkened hall where the guests had gathered, Yermolova led under the arm of Professor Bazhenov: "... the white curtain fell and the portrait appeared before the audience on the lighted stage.

The "clues" in this case are the proud posture, the inner passion, the "subtle shadow of tragedy" and the spiritual content of the picture — qualities that are usually characteristic of people who are able to influence a large audience.

The Maly Theatre artist Mikhail Lenin said they were "swimming in the endlessly raging sea, it was such a surge of powerful temperament that I trembled in every nerve",[8][26] Serov meticulously studied the smallest nuances in the actress's mood and captured the "dominant" shade of her gaze, according to art historian Natalia Radzimovskaya, "it consists of extraordinary enlightenment".

The director of the Russian Museum, Vladimir Lenyashin, speaking of the general spirituality of Yermolova's portrait, compared the awe raging in the actress to "the fire flickering in the vessel".

The artist reflected her creative state offstage — the actress, who does not try to play any role, looks like a person in whom peace and tension, temperament and the ability to control her feelings are combined.

[8] Maria Nicolayevna's character is revealed not only in her gaze, but also in the position of her hands, their plastic interlocking, giving dignity and implacability, similar to the dramatic gesture of one of the figures in Rodin's sculpture The Burghers of Calais.

[25] If some of Serov's other portraits of women can be compared stylistically to subtle, lyrical short stories, the painter Igor Grabar remarked of the picture of Yermolova that 'before you stands the real drama, even tragedy".

This truth of the picture, created not by narrative but by purely pictorial means, corresponded to the very personality of Yermolova, whose restrained but deeply penetrating play captivated the youth in the turbulent years of the early 20th century.

[31]The black velvet dress that Yermolova wore to pose for Serov was made in the workshop of Nadezhda Lamanova, a trendsetter who became famous as a high-society dressmaker and then as a theatre artist.

Nadezhda Petrovna, despite the requests of her clients, never sewed herself, considering her main task to be the creation of an image, ideas invented by Lamanova and brought to life by the employees of her salon.

[33] For Serov, painting the dress Yermolova wore was a special and very difficult task: in order not to tire and distract the actress, the artist periodically worked without her as a model — during some sessions her outfit was put on a similarly proportioned mannequin.

An important role was also played by the train: thanks to the hem flowing along the floor and its reflection, there was an effect of "artificial lengthening" — the image of Yermolova was visually enlarged and the silhouette of the actress acquired monumentality.

The artist did not emphasise the texture of the pearls, believing that their shimmering colours corresponded naturally with the lighting on the walls, and the shape of the necklace matched the curved lines of the White Room.

According to Tatiana Shchepkina-Kupernik's recollections, she had the opportunity to meet Yermolova in concert halls: "She would leave in a black velvet dress with a string of pearls around her neck, just as Serov portrayed her in his portrait".

The colouristic palette is based on subtle violet tones, designed for the keen eye of the observer, which appear with varying intensity in the background, in the parquet of the floor, in the colour of the dress.

[48] Art historian Vladimir Lenyashin found the work's cinematic classification controversial:[49]Agreeing with Eisenstein in many of his specific considerations, I would like to point out that the montage view of this portrait is quite appropriate at some stage of its analysis, not to give the impression of something cinematographic rather than the painterly nature of the canvas.

And when we logically find out what role the dynamic organisation of the "frames" plays in it, we immediately feel how simply, freely and flawlessly the figure is placed in space, how precisely its relationship to the canvas is found, how deep and rich the general tone is, how laconic and at the same time subtly developed the colour palette is, how the colour within large spots moves without sluggishness, freely, combining into a convincing colouristic system, that is, we experience a complex of emotions that can only be caused by the subject matter of painting.In the portrait of Yermolova, painted by the mature master, researchers find echoes of the artist's earlier creative endeavours.

If one painting conveys the impression of "social courtesy", the other shows the inner intensity of feelings; if the heroine of one portrait is included —"almost on an equal footing"— in the world of surrounding things, the other is clearly detached from the domestic space.

[51] A significant part of Serov's creative heritage are portraits of theatre personalities: not only those of Yermolova, but also of Vasily Kachalov, Ida Rubinstein, Konstantin Stanislavsky, Angelo Masini and many others".

This group of works, as well as the portrait of the novelist Leonid Andreev painted two years later, are united by the presence of dark, almost mournful silhouettes — the art historian Gleb Pospelov called them "figures in black".

If in his early works (e.g. in Girl with Peaches) art historians find an important world view of the author, positively related to the "flourishing manorial way of life", then the canvases painted by the artist during the First Russian Revolution bear the stamp of "Russia darkened".

All the "figures in black" in Serov's art are lonely: the pictures of Chaliapin and Gorky are painted against a completely deserted background; Leonid Andreev seems to be immersed in darkness; the graphically precise lines of the wall and mirrors in the portrait of Yermolova are designed to focus attention on the powerful face and silhouette of the actress.

[67][68] The son of Savva Mamontov's patron, Sergei Savvich, noted that even an ignorant spectator who does not know who is depicted in the picture will immediately guess that it is "an amazingly brilliant dramatic actress".

Among the artist's paintings, which opened the exhibition and were placed on the main exposition line, on the initiative of the organisers were presented portraits that "created his fame" as one of the leading portraitists of Russia.