’ The drawing and watercolors lay somewhere in storage for many years, until we found them and decided: we should make them into a painting. We have seen a lot of similar scenes on the Msta river, but they can be seen on any river. The children are standing, dreaming and looking into the distance. We worked on the painting in different ways: it depended on the light, the backlighting and the number of people around. Little by little, we removed anything superfluous. As a result, the painting’s composition is stricter and clearer. As always, many studies were completed for this. The psychology is not in the children’s expressions (where you are able to see them in the against the sunlight), but in the whole image. We wanted to show the happy and peaceful world inhabited by children. The rhythm of the figures, the positioning of the legs, the movement of the hands, the turns of heads, and finally, the color should all have an emotional effect on the viewer. This is a bright and clear day, the light breeze is causing the dresses and scarves to flutter: this is the whole point of the painting.’

“The spontaneous dancing of the light seems to be ordered, becoming meaningful, and does not submit to wild imagination. This imbues the image with a natural sense, a logic in the composition, a color scheme which is not only justified, but also guards the beauty of relationships and a harmony.”