Polenov – a born landscape painter, his achievements in the development of this genre can not be overestimated. He changed the genre and changed himself – so the artist’s landscape painting can be divided into two stages: before and after the mid-1880s.
For the first time really carried away by the landscape Polenov in France – this happened during his trip to Normandy. In the landscape works of that time, its main pictorial principles – the plein air of color, the natural motif, the adjusted composition and clear drawing – were fully manifested.
Subsequently, a certain task of execution disappeared, Polenov refused the standard opposition of the two plans, and did not follow the open-air requirements so strictly, trying to create purely poetic works full of direct love for nature – a vivid illustration of this approach is the popular masterpiece of the artist “Autumn in Abramtsevo.”