The painter Pyotr Ossovsky mostly preferred serial imagery, so he created a few large series of paintings aiming to further explore his subjects. The landscape called ‘The Floating Chain of Clouds’ painted in 1989 is a part of the ‘Clouds Above Pskovskoye Lake’ cycle.

Ossovsky’s life revolved around the Pskov region, which influenced his artwork as well: he frequented Izborsk, Pushkin Hills, the Talab Islands, and lived in Pskov for long periods of time. Ossovsky dedicated a lot of his paintings to Pskov — its landscapes, architecture and people. Those lands held a special place in his heart.

Ossovsky used to say that his “Clouds Above Pskovskoye Lake” cycle was the poem of art because of its special lyrical mood. “The Floating Chain of Clouds” derived its name from the first line of Alexander Pushkin’s poem written in 1820:

Pyotr Ossovsky lived from 1925 to 2015. He was primarily known as one of the founders of the austere style. This movement first appeared in the late 1950s and gained popularity in the 1960s. The painters depicted the atmosphere of the daily grind in the severe northern lands with its arctic stations and chose polar explorers, geologists and hikers as their characters. The austere style paintings had their characteristic features — simplified modeling of forms and harsh edges of the composition. Its color scheme usually consisted of contrasting large smears of paint with no transitional hues in between.

In the late 1980s, young artists started to explore new art styles, and they were especially fond of symbolism and theatrics. Little by little, their paintings eclipsed the once so popular austere aesthetics, which encouraged Pyotr Ossovsky to make some changes to his own painting style.

He chose a light and poetic landscape for this painting. Despite the lyricism of the scene, there are still echoes of Ossovsky’s austere past — the minimalistic color scheme, as well as simplified forms and clear lines instead of a high degree of detail.