Friends called Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin ‘woodsman, ’ and magazines and newspapers wrote about him as ‘the king of the forest.’ His work is characterized by epic themes of breadth and expanse, the greatness and power of Russian nature. The artist portrayed nature without embellishment, spoke about it truthfully and clearly, with endless admiration and worship for its beauty.
Aspen Forest
Creation period
1896
Dimensions
119x84 cm
119×84 cm
119×84 cm
Technique
oil on canvas
Exhibition
7
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Ivan Shishkin
Aspen Forest
#10
#5
He was a wonderful person, seemingly harsh, actually kind, in appearance a district elder, in fact the finest artist. His appearance was typically Great Russian, Vyatka’s. A tall, slender, handsome strong man, with a keen look, a thick beard and thick hair.
Dmitry Uspensky, journalist
#6
Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoy (1837–1887). Portrait of the artist I.I. Shishkin. 1873. Oil on canvas. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.
Ivan Ivanovich’s efficiency was phenomenal, every year he wrote giant paintings for traveling exhibitions, every summer he went sketching to different places in Russia. Everywhere he worked with great interest, studying nature with constant inspiration and amazing gluttony. The basis of the creative method of Ivan Shishkin was working from nature. He himself said, ‘one can never put an end to the study of nature, one cannot say that it is thoroughly thorough, and that one does not need to learn more’.
#11
Shishkin’s “Aspen Forest” from the collection of the Penza Gallery in 1896 was exhibited at the XXVI traveling exhibition in Penza under the name “Brook in the Forest”, and then was donated by the artist to the museum two weeks before his death. Its plot is traditionally simple: with almost photographic accuracy, the artist reproduces the slender silvery trunks of aspen, between which a stream runs along colorful pebbles. The tree crowns are tightly closed, but the forest seems to glow from the inside. The rays of the sun invisible to the viewer, breaking through the lace of foliage, sparkle in droplets of water and tear the twilight of a forest corner.
#12
He was the first to treat the forest with such sincere and deep love and the first to reproduce the Russian forest with such brilliant, exemplary perfection… He is in love with the originality of every tree, every bush, every grass, and, like a loving son, cherishing every wrinkle on his mother’s face, with sonly devotion, with all the severity of deep sincere love, conveys everything, to the last detail, with a true classic in this dear element of the forests.
Adrian Prahov, art historian and critic
#13
Penza Regional Picture Gallery named after K.A. Savitsky
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Aspen Forest
Creation period
1896
Dimensions
119x84 cm
119×84 cm
119×84 cm
Technique
oil on canvas
Exhibition
7
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