Shishkin’s painting shows a meadow surrounded by a grove. Striking distance and breadth of the landscape, which bribes painfully familiar motive. Figures of peasants and grazing cows do not occupy the main place, but they organically grow into the landscape, making it more vital and authentic.
With a pronounced picture in the landscape, there are no elements of composing: a compositionally expressive place is found in nature. The remarkable quality of the landscape is its saturation with light and air.
The viewer’s view easily slides through a wet meadow with marsh hummocks, along the smooth surface of the lake and goes far into the interior of the picture. The paint lies on the canvas with a thick and juicy test, which is obediently organized into mossy hummocks, into sunlit luminous clouds, into the finest ornaments of branches.