Forest in winter by Ivan Shishkin

The winter forest in I. Shishkin’s drawing is special, asleep. Life seemed to stop there: the river almost completely froze, the trees froze, sprinkled with snow. The color scheme is simple: black, white, brown.

Successfully chosen base, perfectly conveys the colors and mood of an overcast winter evening. Lifeless landscapes are broken only by small thawed patches in the ice rug, reflecting the winter forest.

The thawed patches seem to give hope for an early spring, to awaken from hibernation. Snow-covered trees, reflected in the emerging water, seem to be preparing for the onset of a new stage of life, to awaken. Compositional landscape divided by the river into two equal parts.

The river connects the two halves of the forest, as if keeping the surrounding nature on the verge of life and death, does not let it fall too tightly.