In front of us is a seascape with architectural elements. It was created in 1947, when Andrei Ilyich Kurnakov had only the Oryol Art School and four years of war behind him, when there was no time for painting. But the seascape doesn’t look like a student’s work. Compositionally, it is built competently, all the details are thought out, you can feel the mood in it.

The day is rainy and gloomy. In the foreground is a gently sloping sea shore with gray and greenish pebbles. Waves roll over it, leaving a white foam. The sea is gray, greenish, with white choppy water. The artist paints grayish-yellowish spots where the shore shines through the water.

The sky in the background above is also gray, low, completely covered with dirty yellow clouds. Only a piece of blue sky breaks through the forest and mountains on the left. There is a ridge of hills overgrown with bushes between the sky and the sea on the horizon. The artist smothers them in a bluish haze.

In the middle on the left is a building with a tower. This is the House of Artists. The two-storey house was built at the beginning of the 20th century as a castle in the tradition of romanticism. A magnificent cast-iron terrace overlooked the sea, and a flagpole was attached to the top of the crenellated tower. Like other Sochi “castles”, the dacha was faced with stone. In 1911, the castle overlooking the Black Sea was acquired by the artist Nikolai Dubovskoy, who painted many of his canvases in Sochi. Professor of the landscape workshop of the Academy of Arts, Nikolai Nikanorovich liked to invite his pupils to his dacha, he held art lessons, teaching them how to work from nature. Over the years, this house turned into a creative workshop for artists. After the revolution, the building of the dacha housed the Rest House of the North Caucasus Military District. During the Great Patriotic War, hospitals were located here, and after the war - the Don sanatorium of the Don Military District. At present, Bazarov’s dacha belongs to the Aurora sanatorium of the Russian Defense Ministry.

Andrei Ilyich does not paint the fine details of the house; it is indicated by a light silhouette in the middle ground. But the tower of the castle attracts the artist’s attention with its romanticism, and he leaves it on the canvas. Behind the house, some small buildings with red roofs are highlighted in light spots. The artist also conventionally designates a pier that goes from the house into the sea and draws figures of people on it with small strokes. The red flag on the flagpole and red roofs are the only bright spots on the canvas.

In the urban landscape, the city itself becomes close to the surrounding nature. Somewhere it is inscribed in this nature, somewhere it displaces it, fights with it and even wins. There are corners in Oryol, which are filled with a special charm, where a person, being within the city limits, feels his unity with nature. Among such places is the workshop of the artist A.I. Kurnakov, which became a museum in 2014. Andrei Ilyich had a special attitude to this place: “This is not just a workshop for me, but… Everything. That”s what it is for me. Every day at five in the morning I jump up - and hurry here. And when I leave - as if I was parting with a loved one. Even with longing, for God”s sake! Although I know that tomorrow I will come running here again before dawn”.

The painting depicts one of the Indian summer days, the most beloved season of the artist, which he painted a lot. The sun shines brightly. The day is joyful, pleasant and warm. In the foreground the dark shadows of trunks and branches criss-cross under foot with a fanciful pattern - a favorite technique of Andrei Ilyich. This transition from shadow to light, going not along a straight line, but along a broken line, sometimes passing along the diagonal of the canvas, adds dynamism and vividness to the painting. Shadows underline the power of the shining sun.

A piece of the path, still green grass, shadows, picturesquely intertwined in a fabulous pattern, invite us into the house. The building depicted by the artist was built in 1903 according to the project of the architect A. Vishnevsky on the territory of the estate of the merchant Pavel Bakin. In the picture, it appears in the form of a traditional Russian house, with the exterior not yet changed by the artist. Elongated and painted pink, with five windows and a white porch, this house adds a joyful sense of something durable, timeless. Here the city has not yet won over nature, hiding all living things in the asphalt. The roof of the house in violet-blue shades is a wonderful background for the larches growing nearby and another tree, which is no longer there.

The foliage is yellow, but has recently thinned noticeably, so the crowns are translucent. Tall tree trunks rest against the azure sky. The combination of golden yellow and blue enhances the feeling of a sunny day. The artist uses colors typical for Indian summer: all shades of yellow, orange, brown and adds pinkish, blue, light green, ultramarine, achieving a joyful sound of colorway.

He depicts autumn very poetically, with love, inviting the viewer not only to investigate this corner, but also to admire it.