View in the Environs of St Petersburg

Ivan Shishkin painted this work at the cape of Lisy Nos (“Fox’s Nose”) near the Gulf of Finland in the summer of 1856, when he was in his first year at the Imperial Academy of Arts. The picture combines academic traditions with the results of four years spent at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture.

The experience of the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture can be seen in the close following of life, the choice of an ordinary motif and the deliberate intertwining of nature with the everyday life of the peasantry.

This is counterbalanced by the decorative frame of the foliage and branches in the foreground, the balanced composition, the artificial green tones and the division of the canvas into separate grounds, which are all features of academic landscapes.