Tanais Gallery
Arkhip Kuindzhi. Oaks.
1900-1905.
Oil on canvas.
83 x 164.
The State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia.
The pattern of Kuindzhi 's generalization can well be observed in his studies and sketches. In his small but expressive study A Tree Against the Background of the Ukrainian Evening Sky (1890-1895), the artist evolved a kind of formula of a tree-image. This generalized type of tree would recur in many of his works. It was included without changes in the painting Oaks (1905). This «formula» is a kind of a massive cloudy form of a whimsical shape. In this way the artist put concrete earthly forms on a par with conventional heavenly shapes. The cloudy mass of tree-tops in the centre of the composition looks monumental and significant. It evokes the image of a resplendent nature fed by the powers of earth, both real and transformed by the artist's imagination.
Zinaida Gippius.
The abstract life calls out to me
and I am its refrain.
The ephemeral, solitary,
unreal is my domain.
A slave to secret dreams am I
where wondorous unfurls.
But for a tet-a-tet, espy
yet cannot find a pearl.
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