Ivan Shishkin

by Irina Shuvalova

Russian countryside is some of the world’s most lovely, from the celebrated explosions of wildflowers that fill its forests in the spring, to the icy winter tundra that defeated the advances of Napoleon and Hitler, and provided the backdrop for the drama of many of Russian literature’s celebrated scenes. And no one immortalized it better than Ivan Shishkin (1832-1898), a Russian landscape painter. In this comprehensive work of scholarship, Irina Shuvalova makes a thorough examination of Shishkin’s work.  

Genres: Russia

199 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1981

Reviews

[A. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read a very old copy of this book (published in Leningrad, if that tells you anything). My main complaint with this book was that it was not well laid-out. There's an essay about Shishkin, referencing paintings that were not included alongside the text. And then the essay is repeated four more times, in other languages, before we finally get a series of passable plate reproductions of Shishkin's work. So three stars, because the layout itself was just not great.

On the positive: the essay was informative (I came to this knowing nothing at all about Shishkin, except that I liked the work I saw at the Tretyakov in Moscow), and the paintings were lovely. I'm a huge fan of forests and forest paintings. The one called "Winter" was also especially nice. None of them as lovely as in person, but that's not news (especially with a book as old as this one). I wish there were more English-language resources available about Russian artists.

[Kristin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Really disappointed with this book-- the artist's work is intensely photographic and incredibly evocative, a true window into another time and place--time travel! But these prints are SO bad and pixely that it's not even the artist's work anymore. Extremely bastardized and sad.