River Bank. 1879 Alexey Kondratievich Savrasov (1830-1897)

Description of Alexei Savrasov’s painting "River Bank".

Savrasov is an amazing landscape painter. You’d think that’s what’s depicted on the canvas? Just a river bank, which is open to the expanse, but a little farther on, a mixed forest begins. And just where the river seems to open up, a herd of cows appears on its shore and descends to the water itself, to drink. Shepherds are right there, making sure all the cows get drunk and then drive them back to the pasture. That’s actually the whole event of the painting, but... Nature is the most important thing in the landscape. And here it is presented in an interesting way.

At the very front edge, lush green grass on the ground and in the water. And the forest is presented to us as something dark, brown, only the tops of the evergreen firs remain in their natural color. Only the top is green, but everything below is dark. And of course, the sky.

A stunningly drawn sky, with clouds where rain might be hidden. Maybe that’s why the shepherds are in a bit of a hurry and want to get the herd out on the road faster, so they can get back to the village. Maybe so. The river is not the last in the landscape - it is not big and not small, its current is not too strong, but the blue of water is striking. To tell the truth the river is overgrown with grass and damp, and it leads to swampy condition at least. And the banks of the river are almost steep - this is also a hint at the soon shallowing, although not the fact that so exactly will happen.

We must be sure to remind you that it was Savrasov who first became a master landscape painter. He was the first to paint landscapes without exaggerating the importance of anything...

Just a landscape with its own story. Then there were others - Shishkin, Kuindzhi, and so on... He was the first to paint Russian landscapes, to describe the Russian land. Naturally, others began to draw at his level, but it should be noted that Kuindzhi describes better the lands of Ukraine and Little Russia. Shishkin and Levitan equally succeeded in landscapes, as our expanses, as well as Italian. And Savrasov to the end of his life remained faithful to the Russian landscapes. And this canvas is considered his best landscape.