Sunset in winter Yuly Klever (1850-1924)

Description of Julius Clover’s painting "Winter Landscape"

This painter turned more than once in his work to the subject of depicting rural life, but for the most part he depicted landscapes rather than people. One of them was a painting about winter. It was impossible not to love the Russian land, with all its charms and quirks.

On the canvas we see a typical village in winter. Somewhere above the roofs of houses a thin trickle of smoke flows directly into the sky, dissolving in it without trace. This means that in people’s homes the logs in the stoves are already cheerfully crackling to bring a little warmth to each hut. The sun is already setting, which means that every house has already waited for its owners, and the sky is illuminated with a huge glow.

In the foreground, the artist has brought out a sprawling and large tree. It stands completely bare and black. In the midst of the empty road it seems even more lonely than usual. We can judge that the artist associates himself with this tree, just as isolated from people, from his home, from his native land. And such lonely evenings, especially in winter, have already become habitual for him.

We can see that all the puddles are covered with a thin crust of ice. It is enough to step on them, and the ice will break through. This means that the thaw has arrived. But what does a thaw mean in winter. It doesn’t matter that the sun is shining, it doesn’t matter that the weather is nice outside. It doesn’t get any warmer.

The roads are snowed in, which means that somewhere now a man cannot get through the high snowdrifts without waking Mother Nature, without disturbing her. All around is sleeping, and this sleep is deep - till spring everything around will be asleep, and a man cannot change this course of events. Speaking about the general mood of the landscape, everything is depicted quite realistically.

Often art historians comment that winter paintings are dull and colorless. Indeed, in many authors, they seem somehow dull, almost black and white. The same cannot be said about our artist. He portrayed snow in all its riot of colors and shimmering, moreover, an additional spot of color is created just by the above mentioned glow. The strokes of the canvas are quite broad and confident, the artist has clearly drawn even far placed objects.