art 535 Russian Painting - from The Tretyakov Gallery

Description of Ivan Kramskoi’s painting Christ in the Desert

The artist has depicted Jesus Christ of Nazareth in the center of the painting. Christ sits amidst petrified sandy ruins. Jesus’ gaze is directed inward to himself, he is pensive...

His feet are barefoot, the fingers of both hands are bound in a hard lock. The figure of the Master shows us a deep spiritual concentration, in which His whole being is centered. Jesus has dark brown hair and a small beard, all of which blends into His vestments. He is clothed in a loosely-colored matte-purple robe, covered with a black cloak closer to the body.

The figure of humanity’s greatest Spiritual Master is depicted somewhat bent, telling us of the heavy burden the Mission took upon itself. The beige sands surrounding Jesus remind us of mountains and canyons, where Christ, seated above them, appears to us as a kind of giant. The play of scale is masterfully executed by the artist. Behind God-man stretches the immense sky.

Above, the tones are whitish-blue, closer to the surface of the desert, pink and lilac. Jesus sits in an illuminated spot, apparently the surrounding landscape shows us the onset of dusk, i.e. dusk time.

Behind Christ, a shadow descends over the desert. Only along the horizon do we see two lines of blue-purple, translucent cloud bands, with the color of the sea wave, extending against a pinkish background, mainly on the left side of the painting. Also an important detail of the portrait is the fact that the left, brownish-purple leg of Jesus (relative to the beholder) is not covered by a black robe, unlike the right.

In addition to the purely external representationalism of the painting, it also carries with it an inner impulse that makes us think about something very important and, perhaps, central to our lives...