Of more all other trees Shishkin liked of a pine and oaks; first - for grace, second - for mighty force made in them. To this love testifies and submitted job distinguished by refined light-shadow transfer.

In second half 1880 the painting of Shishkin a little (but is not cardinal) varies: "the tone has felt" (Ivan Kramskoy), that is began to give more attention to a general atmospheric condition light - air environment uniting subjects, but, as opposed to the tendencies of epoch, saved clearness and integrity of vision of the subject form: The oak grove (1887).

Shishkin spent his childhood amidst the century-old forests and majestic rivers of the Ural and Volga regions and his love for these places remained with him throughout his life.

Shishkin is one of the greatest landscape painters. He pictured both Urals forests and sometimes only one big tree. Hereby he wanted to show the greatness of the Russian nature and forest. At the same time the Shishkin's pictures contain simplicity and natural of composition. In his pictures Shishkin in detail showed the life of every bush, tree, grass, flower and gave a wide look to the Russian nature. Usually his heroes are the giver birth of the Russian land. There are oaks and pines.

A highly esteemed master of Russian realist landscape painting, Shishkin's creative method was based on exhaustive, analytical studies and on a kind of "portraiture" of nature that exposed its most typical features.