The image of Russian nature, with its lack of bright colours and contrasts, is endowed in this landscape with heroic features. The artist is contemplating the world as if from a bird's eye view. A nature panorama is unfolding majestically before his eyes. The theme of the mysterious incomprehensibility of the world has in this landscape a solemn and stern ring to it. The space opened sideways and upwards is presented as generalised planes: those of the water and the sky, painted using same colour values, which boosts the picture's monumental character. A certain struggle, collision, seems to be surging in the lofty sky open sideways and upwards. The celestial drama is not reflected in the steel scales of the water. The sky and the land – parts of the faceless cosmos – are made alien to each other. It is only the protruding cliff with a wooden church on top that testifies to the presence of the human soul, fragile but full of faith. The confrontation between the human spirit and the infinity of the universe acquires in this painting an epic, cosmic scale.
State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow