The artist is Kuindzhi
Kuindzhi repeatedly varyed the motives that had not previously found in Russian art, which attracted him, first of all, a colorful originality of nature. The story related to the picture testifies to the meaning of his picturesque finds „Ladoga lake”. This work subtly captures the moment of Stilev’s silence in front of a thunderstorm hanging over a majestic lake, when motionless water is so transparent that every stone is visible at the bottom.
The picture of p. G. Sudkovsky „Quiet at sea “, where the same Kuinji opened effect of transparent water was repeated, was evaluated in one of the articles as a new word in art. This made Kuindzhi insist on the publications of the refutation. For clarity, the artist found the owner of the picture and brought the publisher of the newspaper to him „New time “A. With. Suvorin, which placed a note on the same day, confirming that „the championship in the processing of motive really belongs to g. Kuinji he said, ”Suvorin writes further,“ that borrowing in painting is easier, the first step is difficult to work a lot and for a long time before you find the proper colors before you can express what is essential in nature . Thus, one really creates art, the other is following ” .
In these words, Kuindzhi, who was deeply and seriously working on each of his work, achieved due to exceptional observation and accurate vision of gradations of the color of maximum approximation to the real existing colors of nature, the artist has become aware of his innovative possibilities for the years.
Kuindzhi loved „Lake Ladoga, which he bought from the owner, and it adorned his apartment. The work distinguishes intensity and saturation of color that determines the emotional and semantic content of the image. Written in a brutal gamut, tightened by the horizon with solid dark clouds, the sky blushing at the top is harmoniously connected with the dark blue water reflecting it, developed by the shore in a thin gamut of a gray-green. Convincingly transmitted state of tense silence enhances the poetry of the image. In this regard, the remark of Kramsky in a letter to Suvorin is interesting: “I ask you to mentally throw this out of Sudkovsky’s picture: „Ah, stones in water!“, And you will see that the picture has disappeared because what remains is more than ordinary. Throw away the same charming itself in itself a detail from the picture of Kuindzhi-and you will still feel some kind of majestic motive. Exactly music “.
The general lyric-romantic system of the work, the interpretation of the sky with the clouds swirling in the high, written in thin tones-all this makes us recall the landscapes f. AND. Vasilieva. This is a rare case of the proximity of two outstanding masters of a romantic landscape, each of whom went on its own way. If Vasiliev was characterized by excited lyrical intonations, then Kuindzhi turned out to be more organic epic notes. The image of stones translucent through the water near the sand rocky shore is also found in the late studies of the master, where it reaches more color generalization.
Irina Shuvalova. Kuindzhi in the Russian Museum // Arkhip Kuindzhi. SPb, 2010. With. 8-9.