Silence Mikhail Nesterov (1862-1942)

Description of Mikhail Nesterov’s painting Silence

1903 was the year that Silence was painted. The year when Nesterov, who had long sought inspiration and imagery for his new painting, which was to be titled Holy Russia, finally found what he was looking for. His find was a small monastery in the Siberian wilderness - the Solovetsky Monastery.

Life there was simple and often hard - it would not be possible to devote the entire day to services, even on a major holiday. "Praying to God in the woods, with an axe and a saw," the monks said of themselves, and laughed. The whole world around them was a temple in the absence of the possibility of closing themselves off from the world in the present temple.

Dawn, the silence over the river, the animals and birds - everything led them to think about God, how simple and reasonable he arranged everything, how good he was. They prayed morning and evening, at work and after work. Their way of life so impressed the artist, accustomed to the hustle and bustle of cities and a very different approach, that the painting was born quickly.

It shows a white night, so you can’t see the sun. It is hiding behind the horizon, ready to emerge from there very soon, and its light, close and scattered, floods the mountainside, overgrown with forests. It illuminates the monastery, the two monks in boats. Their image is repeated, as if in reprise - like an echo in the forest they are like each other. The same pose, black robes. The rods in their hands. Despite the fact that the old man on the left and the young man on the right, they resemble each other, because the observer is unable to see their faces.

There is no need to. The painting is not about people, but about nature, about the temple of God, which becomes the whole world, and which man can enter if he keeps reverently silent and does not destroy what he has received from God. Close-ups, lightness of lines, seeming lack of detail - everything serves to create an impression of pacifying silence, which hides answers to all questions.

Silence is the key to them. Be silent and you will hear.