Overview of the painting Savrasov “Zima” 
- Posted by Alexey Kondratievich Savrasov
- Museum: Russian Museum
- Year: The end of the 1870s is the beginning of the 1880s
Overview of the painting :
Winter – Alexey Kondratyevich Savrasov. The end of the 1870s is the beginning of the 1880s. Oil on canvas. 53.5×71.5
The painting was written in a difficult period for the artist. He survived the collapse of family life and found peace only in drunkenness. Only occasionally did the master delight the audience with truly successful work.
The narrow winter road divided the landscape into two unequal parts. On the left was the forest, several young birch birch trees and bushes. On the right is emptiness, except for two lifeless trunks and a young pine tree. Snow looks loose and is devoid of frosty freshness in a color solution. Before us is a thaw. In the future, the runaway road merges into one shallow track and disappears without reaching the horizon. Somewhere in the distance is a river covered with ice. She rather guesses in the landscape, “splows” into the composition.
Most of the canvases in this work are given to the sky. Dozens of shades of blue, crushed by greenish notes, create an amazing effect of heaviness, oppression. Another minute and snow will pour on the ground, and maybe rain, which will begin to destroy the unstable winter order. Like an old blanket, uneven, patchwork, covered the sky and forest, and birches on the sidelines, and an insecure road track. The color transition from light to thunder blue and again to white creates the illusion of a dark strip that crossed out work along. Dark clouds create a sense of tension in the picture.
Over the years of storage in storerooms, the picture has changed its original color. But the author’s idea is guessing. The viewer feels an atmosphere of bad premonition, unclear anxiety, excitement. Birch becomes like human figures separated by the road. The drama of the landscape is complemented by a fragile young pine near dead trunks, unnaturally parallel, devoid of branches.
It is worth recalling the difficult fate of the artist, the death of three children, so that the allegory becomes completely understandable. The author in the corner of the winter Russian nature saw his own life. The work is structured so that the artist looks at the depicted landscape on the left, “dead” side. Thus making it clear that he himself loses the meaning and purpose of his existence.
Work completely devoid of any kind of “beauty.”. The master of tenderness does not feel, looking at the winter road. Amazed harmony with his inner mood, he is trying to share his discovery with the viewer.
This is the uniqueness of the work, its undeniable value, which allows us to consider it one of the most talented Russian landscapes.
In the picture you can see an undoubtedly successful compositional structure, the texture of the flooded snow is perfectly transmitted, the palette is skillfully selected. Despite this, a feeling of some unfinished, incomplete, and the effectiveness of the canvas is created.
The time of writing the picture is definitely unknown. It is also not known how long the author worked on it, whether he returned to it after completion. On the other hand, it is this incompleteness that, perhaps, gives the work all the drama and an amazingly saturated atmosphere.