Study for the painting The Appearance of Christ Before the People (The Apparition of the Messiah) (1837–1857, State Tretyakov Gallery).The tree was a favourite motif of Romantic landscapes as it helped to solve the problem of object-space correlation. The depicted tree absorbs the energy of earth and passes it along to its branches and foliage that literally dissolve into the air. The panorama of hills below embodies nature’s forces in cosmic dimension. But these forces can also reveal themselves in single elements of the universe, such as a lonely branch. According to Ivanov, the divine spring of life reveals itself both in the great and in the small. This painting is part of the extensive series of sketches and studies that the artist created while working on the famous canvas The Apparition of Christ Before the People (The Apparition of the Messiah).
State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow