The artist preferred to work in the wilderness, where nothing reminded him of humans, especially in the months at the peak of summer, hot and sunny. This is exactly how he portrayed a forest thicket in the picture In the Fir Forest — he made it to look wild and impenetrable. 

Shishkin “cut off” the tops of the trees and left them outside of the canvas. The painter often resorted to that technique in order to create the impression of a “boundless forest” that has no beginning or end. 

A fallen trunk forms the center of the composition. This is a characteristic feature of many of Shishkin’s landscapes: He liked to insert expressive details that attracted the attention of the viewer.

The State Russian Museum keeps an 1878 drawing by Shishkin, which has similarities to the picture In the Fir Forest. Apparently, the artist liked that picturesque scene, and he explored it more than once. 

Nineteenth-century artists recognized Ivan Shishkin as a great master, unrivalled ‘among Russian painters of vegetation in nature.’ For example, Ilya Repin said about him: ‘The loudest voice came from Shishkin, the epic warrior hero. The audience, as it was, would gasp behind his back when with his mighty paws of a wagon driver and with his gnarled fingers crippled by work, he would begin to mutilate and wipe out his brilliant drawing, and the drawing, as though by some magic, would come out even more elegant and more brilliant from that rough treatment.’