Ivan Shishkin played a huge role in the development of the Russian national landscape. Being an outstanding painter, graphic artist, virtuoso printmaker, he has always been an inspired glorifier of landscape motifs. The artist was admired by the diversity and beauty of nature. Endless fields, majestic forests with giant spruce and pines are Shishkin’s favorite motifs. Contemporaries called him “Ruler of the forest, ” “True poet of nature”, “Wooden hero knight artist”.
In “Forest in Mordvinovo”, Shishkin creates a harmonious image of a dense Russian forest. The artist painted the canvas from nature in the spring of 1891 in the Mordvinovo Park in Oranienbaum, near St. Petersburg. The estate of Mordvinovka belonged to Anna Alexandrovna, née Countess Mordvinova, who married Prince Alexander Imeretinsky.
Anna Alexandrovna was an amateur artist, was fond of photography, and invited Shishkin for sketching on that spring. The artist was the first Russian landscape painter of the second half of the 19th century, who gave great importance to sketching from nature. Constant work in En Plein air developed an understanding of nature in him, understanding its rich content, finding new themes and nuances. Shishkin also taught his students to these constant “studies” of natural motives.
“The Forest in Mordvinov” is a real hallmark of Shishkin, which reflects all the main features of his work: visual rhythm, the balance of the composition as a whole, fine work with tone. Here the author used one of his favorite techniques — “cut” the tops of the giant trees with the edge of the canvas to make them even slimmer and higher.
All the freshness of perception is in the coloring of the work. There is not a single indifferently painted area; you can see the development of many shades of the same color. “The tone was sensed, ” another master, Ivan Kramskoy, once said of the painter. As a beautiful painter, Shishkin did not miss the slightest detail depicting nature. And on this canvas, it is clearly seen how he worked with a small brush in the image of fir needles, twigs, mossy surface of the bark. The artist knew the “anatomy” of trees so well that he always noticed the wrong drawing: “There is no such birch” or “These pines are props”.
In “Forest in Mordvinovo”, Shishkin creates a harmonious image of a dense Russian forest. The artist painted the canvas from nature in the spring of 1891 in the Mordvinovo Park in Oranienbaum, near St. Petersburg. The estate of Mordvinovka belonged to Anna Alexandrovna, née Countess Mordvinova, who married Prince Alexander Imeretinsky.
Anna Alexandrovna was an amateur artist, was fond of photography, and invited Shishkin for sketching on that spring. The artist was the first Russian landscape painter of the second half of the 19th century, who gave great importance to sketching from nature. Constant work in En Plein air developed an understanding of nature in him, understanding its rich content, finding new themes and nuances. Shishkin also taught his students to these constant “studies” of natural motives.
“The Forest in Mordvinov” is a real hallmark of Shishkin, which reflects all the main features of his work: visual rhythm, the balance of the composition as a whole, fine work with tone. Here the author used one of his favorite techniques — “cut” the tops of the giant trees with the edge of the canvas to make them even slimmer and higher.
All the freshness of perception is in the coloring of the work. There is not a single indifferently painted area; you can see the development of many shades of the same color. “The tone was sensed, ” another master, Ivan Kramskoy, once said of the painter. As a beautiful painter, Shishkin did not miss the slightest detail depicting nature. And on this canvas, it is clearly seen how he worked with a small brush in the image of fir needles, twigs, mossy surface of the bark. The artist knew the “anatomy” of trees so well that he always noticed the wrong drawing: “There is no such birch” or “These pines are props”.
