A Spring Day painting represents the signs of life returning to the snowy stillness of early spring – bare trees warmed up by sunrays, melting snow and clouds drifting along the sky.

Disregarding the painting tradition of the XIX century, in the foreground Savrasov depicted some elements of peasants’ life that were far from attractive – dirty puddles, a crooked fence and a dirt road leading to a semi-sunken wooden peasant house. At the same time these ordinary and familiar details make the painting look lively and realistic rather than exquisitely perfect.

For a long time Aleksey Savrasov used to paint landscapes from memory. However, Karl Rabus, his main tutor, encouraged the students to work with nature and kept saying, Nature can’t lie. In a way, those words became Savrasov’s motto. The artist started travelling around the southern provinces of Russia, painted some pictures in Moscow and Saint Petersburg and discovered the true Russian landscape, recognizable and traditional.