The painting is based on N.V. Gogol’s novella May Night. Kramskoi was finishing it in the village of Khoten of the Chernihiv Governorate during the summer of 1871, and in 1872 he made some changes in it twice: “With my painting May Night I ... went through something and it seems I didn’t spoil it”. The artist does not illustrate the narrative. In his appeal to the poetic quality of Gogol’s literature, there is a desire to convey the mysterious beauty of a moonlit night, to embody the harmony of man and nature. The appearance of such a work in I.N. Kramskoi’s art was not accidental. At the time Russian culture had an increasing interest in the positive aspects of life, in the ideal.
State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow