Seashore 2 Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin (1832-1898)

Description of Ivan Shishkin’s painting "Sea Coast".

In Shishkin’s later works, as in this version, the master achieves increasing softness in conveying not only the emotional state, but also the image itself, as the integrity of the painting its forms. As can be seen on this canvas, the master creates more and more softness along with various gradations of tone and more and more colorful pictoriality. One of the best works, by right, is "The seashore".

Despite the fact that by historical reference it is known that this landscape is a landscape of the northern region, the master was able to perform the work very warmly. Despite the absolutely deserted shore, which evokes some loneliness and, to some extent, sadness. The master also accentuates the sea surface, which goes into the distance. One can observe how bare branches follow it all, as if approvingly shaking their heads in gusts of wind.

The artist’s use of excellent contrast of white and black colors creates a unique freehand stroke which seems to have been further shaded by the artist, making the viewer feel as if the sand is gaining movement from the same gusts of wind. Thanks to this masterful rendering of the naturalness and vitality of the depicted landscape, the entire painting acquires inner dynamics, brightened by the artist’s emotional state.

Particularly spectacular is achieved thanks to the thickening of the clouds, which form a dense scarf that envelops the piece of sky visible in the painting. All in all it conveys a certain agitation of nature, ready to explode at any moment. Or it will be a sharp gust of wind, which with its force will tear the leaves from the trees. Maybe it will be a heavy rain, which will instantly turn everything around into a homogeneous wet picture, which will be poorly visible because of the dense wall of rain.