The name of the painting is taken from the poem “Loneliness” by AF Merzlyakov. The picture “Among the valley is flat…”, created based on the same poem by Alexei Merzlyakov. In it, the removal of romanticism seems unusual, but solemn and monumental. The landscape is clearly composed, and not reproduced, as usual with the artist.
A lone growing oak is rather a symbol. The plain is, as it were, international. In it are seen and Russian spaces and, probably, European. It is enough to compare a powerful lone tree with oaks painted by an artist abroad, with Russian oaks, in order to understand that long-standing Swiss impressions have been taken as a model.
A glance at the vast panorama in the picture opens with a slight elevation. The visual monotony of the flat plane is broken up by compositional techniques. The close-up with juicy written grasses and flowers gives the image a physical convincing and tangible sense of the breath of real nature.
The middle plane, where the powerful oak stands – the king of nature, is partially illuminated by the sun. Intermittent illuminated and shaded stripes of the plain create a dynamic impression of the play of light, which breaks the monotony of the plane.
