“Spring”, painted by Pyotr Petrovichev while he was still a student, revealed the great lyrical talent of the future artist. The landscape is distinguished by a simple and intimate atmosphere, with the motif of a spring forest revealing the muted beauty of nature.

Pyotr Petrovichev was a son of a peasant and developed a penchant for drawing and painting when he was still a young boy. He recalled,“even while writing a dictation in our village school, I would scribble some ugly face between the lines.”His fate was determined by meeting the artist Vasily Vereshchagin who not only advised him to study art but helped him get enrolled in the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. Being passionate about painting, the young artist left Rostov and went to Moscow, but his first years at the school were hard: for poor performance, he was even threatened with expulsion.

Pyotr Petrovichev met his true mentor Isaac Levitan in 1898 when the famous artist taught landscape painting at the school. Petrovichev was able to study under Levitan only for two years, but the teacher closely observed his work and took an interest in his life. Having noticed that Petrovichev was using wall paints because of financial troubles, Levitan helped him buy high-quality paints. He also cared for his student’s performance at exhibitions in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

The artist was still at the very beginning of his creative journey when he developed his own world of images. Usually, Pyotr Petrovichev took a long time to paint a landscape, until the canvas showed “something alive, resembling reality.” However, such prolonged work did not erase the freshness of the first impression. The artist enjoyed using natural paints with earth and mineral pigments which he would find and powder to obtain the pigment himself. He also preferred elongated and square canvases. Petrovichev believed that the most convincing method of work was painting studies from nature. For him, a study was not an “auxiliary material” for his future compositions, but a thought-through, detailed, and completed work. Painting from nature a lot, Petrovichev did not limit himself only to first impressions. By copying the study, he did not repeat it mechanically but completed it, introduced new experiences, and turned it into a piece of art. From the very beginning, Pyotr Petrovichev emerged as an innovator who used a distinctive color palette which he turned into one of the main components of creating an artistic image. His main objective in painting was to depict nature as it is and on its own.