The presented picture is one of the last in the work of Fedor Vasiliev. Crimea at first did not attract the young artist, which he did not fail to notice in one of the letters to Kramskoy. Vasilyev was desperately bored in Russia. In the Crimea, he was urgently sent by doctors – the boy was “eaten” by consumption, and the main treatment in those days was a warm dry Crimean climate, which the doctors “prescribed”.
As a painter – a landscape painter, Vasiliev was little inspired by mountain reliefs, forest-steppe lands caused more excitement, but the master managed to leave some fine paintings with Crimean views. “In the Crimean Mountains” is the best mountain landscape. This was immediately recognized by the audience at the first demonstration.
The main merit of the artist when writing this canvas is the freshness of the look. He does not look for exotic notes, does not use bright colors, does not experiment with new means of expressiveness, rather, on the contrary, Vasiliev seeks familiar and favorite “Russian features.”
The dusty road, tall, slender pine trees, more like northern trees than on the Crimean southern, clouded sky in the background – the plot chosen for the canvas is simple enough and ordinary. However, the artist managed to convey some quiet majesty and solemnity of an unattractive motive. It is not for nothing that all the same Kramskoy called the painting “a symphony of the greatness of nature.”
In the mountain scenery Vasiliev “settled” a man – we see oxen pulling the cart uphill, while the old man got off the cart and goes alongside, thereby facilitating the work of animals.
In the same year, the young genius was no more, as Vasiliev hoped to walk with Repin along the Volga, taking the sketchbook with him, the disease was stronger. Immediately after the death of the painter, his friends the Wanderers organized an exhibition, which immediately went down in history – absolutely all the pictures of the early departed painter were sold out before the opening of the exposition. The picture “In the Crimean Mountains”, along with other works of artisans, acquired Pavel Tretyakov.
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