Borisov-Musatov – “Pond”

The work of Viktor Borisov-Musatov stands apart from the works of other artists of the late 19th – early 20th centuries due to the attempt to create some very personal, intimate world in his paintings. His works do not describe the era – they tell about the artist’s life, sometimes completely ignoring being and historical elements, they are full of melancholy and longing for the past.

The idea of ​​the painting “The Pond” came to Borisov-Musatov at the estate of the princes Prozorovsky-Golitsyn, where he rested in the summer of 1902. A seated woman is depicted near a small pond – this is the artist’s beloved wife, a fragile figure in a cape, standing next to him – his sister. The clouds are very clearly reflected in the water, as if frozen in the blue sky, the shadows of the same motionless trees – the whole canvas is filled with a deep ringing silence that makes a person feel both his greatness and insignificance.

Borisov-Musatov’s painting “The Pond” impressed critics, artists, and all the painter’s contemporaries very much with its inner poetry hidden behind oil strokes. A wonderful work, striking with the velvet colors, clarity of the sky, the foliage of the trees, the quiet surface of the pond. The woman in a blue dress – the artist’s wife – is the central color and compositional element of the picture: the rich, bright blue color of her dress determines the color scheme and mood of the entire work.

Year of painting: 1902.

Dimensions of the painting: 27.2 x 27.5 cm.

Material: canvas.

Writing technique: oil, tempera.

Genre: genre painting.

Style: symbolism.

Gallery: State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia.

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