The painting is a special type of landscape – depiction of a dismal, inhospitable, wind-swept space imbued with cold. The artist greatly stretches the view broadwise making it nearly a panorama, so that the feeling of a difficult, aimless journey, “path full of suffering”, becomes physically tangible. The sense of hopelessness is emphasised in the details of the background – the ice-covered trees and the peasant hut that seems abandoned. Two figures – a traveller and a child, possibly symbolising the circule of life, are in the centre of the crossing that is formed by the road and the slightly melted stream. What we see is an “impasse” in the direct sense of the word.
State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow