Vasilyev's painting "Thaw": the poetry of change

Among the Russian samples of landscape painting, astounding foreigners with dynamics and penetration, the exclusive place belongs to the canvases of the young and undoubtedly the brilliant painter Fedor Vasilyev. If not for an early death from tuberculosis (at age 23), he, according to Kramskoy, would have revolutionized the landscape genre. Yes, he was close to that. Once you see these canvases, they can not be forgotten. And the hand of the master can not be confused with the creative manner of other famous landscape painters. This is the picture "Thaw". Vasiliev wrote it in the winter of 1871, after a summer trip along the Volga, during which the artist reveled in the splendor of nature. He absorbed the impressions in order to synthesize them in works filled with the finest shades of colors and moods.

A distinct landscape

Vasiliev's painting "The Thaw" was singled out as the first prize from among others presented by the great masters of painting at the exhibition of the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of Artists. Maecenas Pavel Tretyakov bought a landscape for his collection long before the exhibition. Grand Duke Alexander, who in ten years was to enter the Russian throne, was so impressed with the painting that he ordered a copy for the imperial house. In the author's repetition, the canvas acquired a softer, touching sound than his "firstborn twin." It was decided to send it to an international exhibition held in the UK. From abroad, the landscape returned, too, with the first prize and enthusiastic reviews of reviewers. Today, the first painting by Vasiliev "The Thaw" is exhibited in the Tretyakov Gallery, and its "double" has taken its place in the State Russian Museum of St. Petersburg. What was so in this canvas that fascinated the famous public?

The Mystery of Attraction

Let's take a look at this unusually wide in format and deep in content canvas. In the middle of the cold Russian winter, there was a thaw. Nature is still in deep sleep, frozen and frosted. A sudden "unplanned" awakening takes her by surprise. Dark thawed patches, a raw mash of snow on the road, immediately attacked by birds, a weak golden spot of light somewhere in the sky - these spring changes are still deceptive, but already inevitable.

Philosophical sounding

Vasiliev's painting The Thaw was created during the period of great reforms in the country, which in their own way will remind Khrushchev's thaw in the twentieth century. The splash in the political life of Russia at the time was based on liberal trends that directly related to the position of a huge part of the people. As you know, the reforms disappointed, but prompted people to self-determination, choosing their own future path.

The thaw in the middle of the winter, the flooded streams of melted snow, under which the road barely shows up, was forced to stop in the indecisiveness of the peasant and the tiny girl. Where to go? How? Probably, they will move, but it will not be easy for them.

Undoubtedly, the idea of the picture is not exhausted, as is commonly believed, by the maxim of "painful peasant life". There is a thought about the progressive movement of nature and history, which pushes time ahead through stops and obstacles. Is it not because Vasiliev's painting "The Thaw" has acquired world-wide significance?

Artistic solution

Impressionist techniques of the same "painting of mood", which is necessarily mentioned when speaking of Vasilyev's canvases, is also used by the author in this work. The author depicts not so much objects as the enveloping light and air. Due to this, the outlines are extremely realistic, mobile, expressive. The space of the canvas is divided into two parts - the earth and the sky. In the center there is a tall tree on which the coppice, lost in the deep blue of the depths, breaks off, and a stream that has poured out of a thawed brook visually creates a cross that absorbs the vertical and horizontal. Gently changing into each other, the tones unite the blatant beauty of the landscape, the croaking sounds of crows, the soft murmur of melted snow into one mighty symphony of grandeur and defenselessness, which F. Vasiliev so perceptibly understood and skillfully portrayed. The "thaw" was highly appreciated by the friend and teacher of the artist Ivan Kramskoy, calling it a strong, daring, full of great poetic content and a decidedly new work.