Pond in the Old Park is a famous painting by Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin in 1897. In the center of the composition there is a mirror water surface with the crowns of adjoining trees reflected in it.
Painting Pond in the Old Park by Ivan Shishkin – a frozen moment of native nature
The gently sloping shore in the foreground on the left slopes gently towards the water. Covered with withered grass, it attracts almost no attention. But emphasizes the beauty of a small island of reeds and a narrow strip of duckweed straying to the edge of the pond. On the opposite bank, near the water, there are two white-trunk birches. Between them, as if sensing the surrounding space, a lush, spreading bush comfortably settled down.
On the right, on the sunlit lawn, the grass has almost lost its natural green color. Under the scorching rays of the sun, it took on a golden hue. The majestic trees behind the pond in the background create the pleasant coolness of a dense old park on a sultry day. The work conveys the atmosphere of calmness and tranquility to the audience, and also admires the author’s skill, who managed to realistically recreate the beauty of his native nature.
Title of the painting: “Pond in the Old Park”.
Author: Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin (1832-1898).
Year of writing: 1897
Size approx.43.3 x 67.1 cm.
Style: Realism.
Genre: Landscape.
Technique: Oil painting.
Material: Canvas.
Location: State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.
Ivan Shishkin is an outstanding Russian artist of the 19th century, who opened boundless ways for the development of landscape painting for his contemporaries.
All his life he tirelessly traveled across the northern expanses of Russia, inquisitively studied the flora, wrote from nature with scientific reliability. His works reflect the beauty of virgin forests, the harsh jungle of spruce forest, century-old oaks, dense shrubs and grasses – everything that is popularly called impassable wilderness, where little man has walked.
The work, written in the last year of his life, fully corresponds to the spirit of the master. In it, the artist embodied his favorite motif of juxtaposing giant trees with delicate small shoots of grasses and shrubs, the contrast of the old, decrepit world and the young life that is coming to replace it.
The painting Pond in the Old Park by Ivan Shishkin was exhibited in 1898 at the 26th exhibition of the Itinerants. The artist did not live several days before its closure. But his work was bought by Pavel Tretyakov for his personal collection. The work continues to delight contemporaries to this day with sincerity and purity of color.
