One of the best landscapes of E. Volkov on the topic of spring is the picture “In the forest, in the spring.” In 1877, Yefim Efimovich receives the first prize of the exhibition of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts for this picture.
It depicts a modest corner of the nature of the Russian North, which Volkov carefully captures in painting in all its specific features – clumsy, stunted trees; the withered branches lying on the ground; The marshy hummocks covered with last year’s rusty grass. Every tree, every bush is a kind of personality, with its age, its character.
The bizarrely curved trunks of the birches in the foreground attract the spectator’s eye with an interesting decorative form, and the rhythmically rich pattern of trees in the background plays the role of an openwork curtain through which, through a light mussel, a pond looks through the pond.
The picture is remembered by the special softness of color, simplicity and natural harmony of plans, smoothness of tonal juxtapositions, magnificent drawing. In it, the soft character of the light-air medium is poetically conveyed. The depth of space is shown with the help of light and transparent air, which seems to permeate and envelop all objects.
The surface of the canvas is thinly written: small and flexible brush strokes fall exactly in shape, giving the landscape the necessary softness of “sound”. The clarity of the plastic modeling of the forms makes the viewer literally touch the rough surface of the tree trunk, the soft touch of the mossy soil under the tree, the marshy swamp.
To revive the landscape, Yefim Volkov depicts a pair of birds, as if peacefully conversing with each other. The imaginative structure of this work awakens in the viewer a deep lyrical feeling.
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