Ship grove 1898 165h252 Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin (1832-1898)

Description of Ivan Shishkin’s painting The Shipyard Grove

This painting shows the viewer a true deep Russian landscape of densely and lushly pine needles. The edge of the forest, illuminated by the rays of the warm summer sun, rejoices in this endless warmth and light. The golden light of the sun touched the crowns, and, slowly taking the rays away, penetrated deep into the darkness of the forest.

When you look at the canvas, you want to take a deep breath, to feel the fragrance of pine forest with your whole chest. A little distracted from the forest, you can consider the creek, flowing out from behind the trees. The water in it is clear and warm to the bottom. This all-consuming warmth pervades every grain of sand in the stream, every living soul in the forest.

Everything in the picture is conveyed with maximum accuracy, so that there are not even any bright images or spots, or a place to which the author would like to draw the attention of the viewer. This is not a whim of the artist, this is his reality. He believes that nature must be portrayed in its true colors and tones, because nature does not tolerate lies and falsehoods. Why embellish something that from the beginning was already perfect?

The author did not paint over anything, inventing nothing, he simply transmitted what he saw, so that everyone could complement or "complete" the picture in their mind. One gets the feeling that the painting is incomplete. There is no variety of vegetation, because it’s not really present in the pine forest.

But at the same time the painting attracts its viewer by the peculiarities of the national Russian landscape. Its unconquerable power and grandeur, its boundless pursuit of height and spaciousness. The gigantic size of a real Russian coniferous forest by its size swallows up everything that is smaller or lower.

Looking at the picture, one feels imperturbable tranquility and silence. However, it is a little reminiscent of his earlier works - "Pine Forest" for example. Only in this work he was not distracted by contrasts and detail, he brought to the viewer the power and steadfastness of the Russian landscape, by putting the trunks of the pines in the foreground.