“Fog Morning”, Shishkin, 1885 – overview of the painting 
- Posted by Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin
- Museum: Nizhny Novgorod Art Museum
- Year: 1885
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Overview of the painting :
Foggy morning – Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin. 1885. Oil on canvas, 108 x 144.5 cm
Picture I. AND. Shishkina “Fog Morning”, like many works of the great master of landscape, conveys an amazingly calm and peaceful atmosphere.
The artist’s focus is on a quiet, foggy morning on the river bank. The gentle shore in the foreground, the water surface of the river, in which traffic is only barely guessed, the hilly opposite shore in the haze of morning fog.
Dawn seemed to wake the river, and, sleepy, lazy, it only gains strength to run deep into the picture… Three elements – heaven, earth and water – harmoniously complement each other, revealing, it seems, the very essence of each of them. They cannot exist without each other. The pale blue sky, saturated with color, passes into the tops of the hills covered with a hat of fog, then passes into the greens of trees and grass. Water, reflecting all this splendor, without any distortion, emphasizes and refreshes the morning.
The presence of a person is barely guessed in the picture: a narrow path in the grass sticking out a column for tying a boat – that’s all the signs of a human presence. The artist thereby only emphasizes the greatness of nature and the great harmony of God’s world.
The light source in the picture is located directly opposite the viewer. Another second and sunlight will cover this whole corner of Russian nature… The morning will fully enter its rights, the fog will dissipate… Therefore, it is so attractive this moment before dawn.