Julius Woldemar Fedders was a landscape painter and portraitist. Throughout his career, the artist went from the traditions of academic Romanticism to the realistic interpretation.
He studied at the Academy of Arts under Sokrat Mikhailovich Vorobyov. This determined the artist’s poetic and romantic perception of nature. Fedders’ vision was greatly influenced by his fellow student and colleague Ivan Shishkin, who explored nature in great detail. The main feature of Julius Fedders’ paintings is the combination of traits of Romanticism and Realism.
“Summer Landscape”, painted in 1886, belongs to one of the two most productive periods in the artist’s career that happened in Belgorod. The work depicts a small fishpond. It is one of the views of the Monastyrsky Ravine near Belgorod — the forest park at the monastery, with stone-paved paths and a garden, chosen by the artist for making studies.
In 1886, the first Belgorod period of the artist, who grew up surrounded by the nature of the North, was coming to an end. He conveyed his admiration for a warm sunny summer day in this small landscape. The composition and mood of the landscape resemble photo postcards that were popular at that time. As a former owner of a photo studio and a photographer, Fedders had a deep understanding of how to arrange a composition in a way that would most advantageously represent even the most unassuming corner of nature.
The space of the painting is deepened by a diagonal path running along the pond. The opening between the trees “invades” the privacy of a couple sitting quietly on the grassy shore of the pond. The couple is painted with a small yet very noticeable spot of cinnabar, making it the brightest element of the composition. The trees with dense green crowns in the foreground and the forest area behind the pond create a feeling of secretiveness and isolation, typical of romantic landscapes of the first half of the 19th century.
The artist meticulously worked out the play of light and color in the green foliage of trees. The contrasting effects of light and shadow and subtle color transitions instill a feeling of harmony on a warm sunny day in summer.
