Shishkin’s painting “Oak Grove” 
- Posted by Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin
- Museum: Kiev Museum of Russian Art
- Year: 1887
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Overview of the painting :
Oak Grove – Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin. Oil on canvas. 125 x 193 cm
The picture “Oak Grove” depicts a bright sunny day in the oak forest. Powerful, omnipotent, dumb witnesses of the change of centuries and generations amaze with their splendor. Carefully drawn details bring the picture so close to naturalness that sometimes you forget that this forest is oiled and cannot be entered.
The mischievous sunspots on the grass, illuminated crowns and trunks of centuries-old oaks seem to radiate heat, awakening memories of the cheerful summer in the soul. Despite the fact that the oaks depicted in the picture have already acquired dried branches, their trunks are curved, and the bark has peeled off in some places, their crowns are still green and magnificent. And you involuntarily think that these oaks will be able to survive for more than one hundred years.
It is noteworthy that Shishkin’s path from the idea of writing Oak Grove to the first brush strokes in the landscape was three decades! It took so long for the artist to have a vision of this monumental canvas, and this time was not wasted. The picture of oak grove is often called the best work of a brilliant artist.