The title of the work takes us back to the history of the creation and formation of the ‘Academic Dacha’ - the so-called ‘Russian Barbizon’. It was a place full of silence and tranquility, where a person could escape from the daily and exhausting bustle, cast cares aside and think of perennial.
Artists of different painting schools advocated a realistic landscape of their homeland with everyday motives. A characteristic technique was the creation of a study in the open air, followed by the completion of the work in the workshop. It is interesting that this work was preceded by another one with a similar plot, with the name ‘Dawn on the Msta River’ from 1961. It is now kept in the Memorial workshop of A.I. Kurnakov.
The landscape is painted in a realistic manner, in cold dark blue color. In the foreground, chunks of ice floes lie on the disheveled, frozen, dirty gray snow with sticking out reeds. The magpies, Andrey Ilyich’s beloved birds, perched on the remains of the fence. The overflowing stormy river with cold blue-black-purple water is painted with small strokes that convey movement and ripples. It seems that quite recently, spinning, clinging and colliding with each other, the ice floes passed here, breaking off sharp corners and crumbling. The flood of spring waters will gradually quieten, and the river will return to its former banks.
Further, in the background, lies the shore with remnants of snow and last year’s grasses sticking out here and there. Thin white-trunk birches kept some of last year’s yellow foliage. The trees darkening against the sky are shown in solid mass. A violet-lilac haze envelops the edge of the forest. Drifting clouds covered the sky with a misty silvery-purple shroud. But at the very edge of the horizon, a bright strip of sky, illuminated by the rays of the sun, breaks through. Warm pink reflections flare up more and more, illuminating the clouds, lie on the surface of the water, gleam on the stems of drooping and brown sedge. The feeling of a rainy day disappears. The sunrise in the picture sounds like a symbol of awakening nature.
Artists of different painting schools advocated a realistic landscape of their homeland with everyday motives. A characteristic technique was the creation of a study in the open air, followed by the completion of the work in the workshop. It is interesting that this work was preceded by another one with a similar plot, with the name ‘Dawn on the Msta River’ from 1961. It is now kept in the Memorial workshop of A.I. Kurnakov.
The landscape is painted in a realistic manner, in cold dark blue color. In the foreground, chunks of ice floes lie on the disheveled, frozen, dirty gray snow with sticking out reeds. The magpies, Andrey Ilyich’s beloved birds, perched on the remains of the fence. The overflowing stormy river with cold blue-black-purple water is painted with small strokes that convey movement and ripples. It seems that quite recently, spinning, clinging and colliding with each other, the ice floes passed here, breaking off sharp corners and crumbling. The flood of spring waters will gradually quieten, and the river will return to its former banks.
Further, in the background, lies the shore with remnants of snow and last year’s grasses sticking out here and there. Thin white-trunk birches kept some of last year’s yellow foliage. The trees darkening against the sky are shown in solid mass. A violet-lilac haze envelops the edge of the forest. Drifting clouds covered the sky with a misty silvery-purple shroud. But at the very edge of the horizon, a bright strip of sky, illuminated by the rays of the sun, breaks through. Warm pink reflections flare up more and more, illuminating the clouds, lie on the surface of the water, gleam on the stems of drooping and brown sedge. The feeling of a rainy day disappears. The sunrise in the picture sounds like a symbol of awakening nature.
