Artist Alexei Savrasov created this wonderful work of art in 1871. This date at that time coincided with the opening of the society of traveling exhibitions, where the artist took Active participation many years.

Painting Rooks have arrived, to this day is considered one of the most notable creations of Alexei Savrasov, Etudes and quick sketches for this canvas were created by Savrasov in the current village of Susanino, in the Kostrma region. True, then this settlement was called differently Molvitino, renamed the restless Soviet times in 1939. Of course, when the picture was created, Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov could not fail to notice it, who immediately bought this exhibit of the exhibition. This purchase was not the first, before that a well-known philanthropist bought 3 works he liked from Savrasov.

For some time, a picture with rooks was shown in the Moscow Society of Amateurs visual arts. and even for some time her popularity was blocked by the works of such famous colleagues as Ivan Shishkin and Arkhip Kuindzhi.

A little later, the painting was demonstrated in capital St. Petersburg, immigrating from one exhibition to the next. After all these traveling exhibitions, this masterpiece is again returned to its owner, philanthropist Tretyakov, in whose house such exhibits adorn his living rooms and offices. The gallery itself, which will gather the entire main collection, will be built a little later. The success of this work was, of course, unexpected, repeated orders poured in, of which there were several.

Outside, spring is in full swing. The blue sky is covered with clouds with soft clouds breaking through them. sunbeams, forcing the trees to cast shadows on the March thawed snow. The frail winding birches frozen over the winter with the rooks that have just occupied them, that have arrived at home, are anxiously weaving their nests from twigs and thereby emphasize the spring way of life in the picture.

The rooks flew in quite familiar to our perception, Immediately mentally comes to mind the impression of familiar places that I have only recently visited and seen a great many times. Behind our beloved Russian birch trees and rooks immigrating from the south, you can see a wooden fence, simple peasant huts and, as an adornment of any village, a pretty church, with a dilapidated facade familiar to us all and a long-groomed roof of the bell tower.

According to the opinion of idle art critics everywhere, the church that the artist painted was called the Church of the Resurrection, which can still be seen today, although church services have not been conducted there for a long time, and in this institution there is a museum of Ivan Susanin. Closer to the horizon, the artist showed arable land, in places with dirty snow that had not melted and thawed patches. A familiar picture, despite the fact that today is the 21st century, a similar landscape can be seen today in various neighborhoods of the immense Mother Russia.

Today, the painting with Savrasov's rooks in the original can be viewed in the halls of the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. Her size is 62 by 48.5 cm

In the picture "The Rooks Have Arrived" shows early spring. Nature awakens from sleep, everything comes to life, everything is filled with life, sound and soul. Birds return to their native lands, trees bloom, everything around comes to life. The snow has not yet melted, and the sun is already giving off its warmth, you can feel the arrival of beautiful time year is spring. The air is filled with new notes. He became warmer, fresher, lighter, dearer. Everything is fragrant around. The head is spinning from sensations and expectations of light and dear.

No wonder he painted the picture in such colors. It is shown exactly the time when winter still dominates the whole earth, and spring is already approaching. At the same time, we feel that rooks are the main heralds of spring. And the upcoming work in the spring season. They have already started their work. And from this you feel how they swarm on the branches, shout to each other, flap their wings .... And the soul becomes somehow more cheerful and warmer.

We see that the rooks have already built their nests, preparing for spring, for offspring, for life. It is the birds that know how to listen to nature, are an integral part of it, symbolize lightness, flight and freedom.

The second main stroke is melt water, it is she who screams to us about the onset of spring. She is depicted in the picture in a small depression, which gives a precise feeling - the snow is melting slowly, gradually. At the same time, it is snow that occupies the largest part of the picture, rather than melted spring water. Accordingly, it is felt that winter does not want to leave its temporary possessions. You can guess that the weather is sunny, but we do not see the sun. This can be determined by the shadow in the painting under the trees. But even here we conclude that spring is about to knock on our door, the light is still faded, the sun is dim. But it already plays on the imagination and makes you smile.

In the background of this picture is an old chapel of small size, which gives a feeling of calmness, spirituality.

To the right of the chapel is a small rural house. Only the upper part is visible - a white, slightly faded roof and an attic. There are still bare bushes not far from the house. Between the chapel and the house, there is a temple, three-domed. It is yellowish white in color. And the domes are dark in color, but there is no way to accurately recognize them.

It can be seen that the artist most accurately and believably depicted the Russian landscape, the Russian soul, our nature. At the same time, he gave us the opportunity to think about the lofty and spiritual. With the help of paints, we feel the frost, the smells of the coming spring, the cry of birds ... it's impossible to put into words. It is impossible to say exactly what kind of area it is - a city or a village, whether this is a real area or an invented one. But we can definitely say that this is Russia. Nature is simply mesmerizing.

Among all the paintings symbolizing the onset of a certain season, showing nature and a certain mood, the work of A.K. Savrasov "The Rooks Have Arrived" is one of the most interesting, recognizable and striking. The canvas was written in 1871, and almost immediately became interesting to people. She attracted the attention of her contemporaries, first of all, this happened, because the picture smacks of simplicity, despite the fact that it carries strong images, it speaks of a change in weather and sensations. The masterpiece was purchased by a well-known philanthropist and added to Tretyakov's collection shortly after it was written.

The main idea of ​​the picture

The picture suggests that nature will soon face major changes. It is said to the arrival of spring, to awakening after a long winter. It should be noted that in the picture there are no direct "words" that the onset of spring is approaching. Everything here consists of hints that the author managed to present in such a way that they do not stand out from the overall picture, but harmoniously complement each other, showing that the most long-awaited time of the year will soon come - spring.

The moment depicted in the picture

The picture does not depict nature as a whole, but the immediate moment, which tells us that right now the approach of spring is felt especially sharply. Such moments happen when, for example, a person walks down the street in winter clothes, he is stern and immersed in his thoughts. But suddenly he decides to raise his eyes, and then he realizes that nature and everything around him has changed a lot. He sees that the sky has become bluer, that the sun has begun to shine brighter, and the snow is no longer as cold and impregnable as before, but has practically melted, replaced by sonorous streams, and somewhere in the distance one can hear the singing of birds that rejoice at the approach of spring.

What can be seen on the canvas

The picture shows a completely familiar landscape, here you can distinguish nature, which is still in a state of hibernation, but there are already all the harbingers of the imminent onset of spring.

We can say that it is almost spring. In the foreground in the picture you can see no longer snow-white snow, but dirty, slightly melted. The fact that the picture is spring, we are also told:

• A large thaw patch located on the right side of the picture;
• A ray of spring sun that secretly illuminates the whole picture;
• A special breath gives the picture a feeling of air, in the image of which Savrasov simply had no equal.

Looking closely at these details, you can accurately understand that we have the onset of spring in the picture.

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Painting: The Rooks Have Arrived

Date of creation: 1971

Exhibit place: Tretyakov Gallery (Lavrushinsky lane, 10, room 18)

Description of the picture

The painting by the itinerant artist Alexei Savrasov has become one of the key paintings in Russian painting. This picture is quiet hymn to Russian nature, spring, which is just beginning, spring mood, which is just awakening in us. This picture speaks of spring not directly, but with a hint, a feeling that spring began literally at that moment when we looked at the picture.

The picture is a rather ordinary landscape. We see nature that has not at all departed from its winter sleep, has not been transformed, but is only awakening. At first glance, it seems that the artist painted winter. And, just looking at the details, you understand: this is spring.

A lot of gray and dark paint in the picture emphasizes the mediocrity of the landscape. But this mediocrity is apparent. Firstly, because of the birches, a church with a bell tower is visible, typical of a Russian village in the middle lane.

Secondly, it is worth taking a closer look and we see signs of spring - a huge thaw patch with water on the right side, a ray of sun illuminating the picture from somewhere outside. And we also see something that is impossible to draw, but can be depicted - air. Alexei Savrasov was a great master precisely in the depiction of air, which gave his paintings a feeling, breath, fullness. The picture is filled with air - spring, fresh, warm.

The main detail that confirms the onset of spring is the rooks. They stuck around the birch branches, returned to their old nests, which they left in the autumn. Rooks are migratory birds, since they have flown in, it means that spring has definitely begun, there is no doubt about it.

Featured location

The sketches for this painting were written in the village of Molvitino, Kostroma province (now the village of Susanino, Kostroma region). It depicts the Resurrection Church, which has survived to this day (now the church houses the Ivan Susanin Museum). The finalization of the painting took place in Moscow, in the artist's studio.

The work was immediately bought by Pavel Tretyakov for his collection. In 1872, Savrasov was first ordered to repeat the painting "The Rooks Have Arrived". Later, Savrasov made several more replicas of the painting.

History of painting

At the end of 1870, inspired by the impressions of a summer trip to the Volga and having received (apparently from Pavel Tretyakov) an order for the execution of “drawings and paintings of a winter landscape on the Volga”, Savrasov took a vacation until May 1 and left for Yaroslavl with his family for a long time. Having rented a large apartment, for some time they led a happy, “quiet and concentrated” life in an old picturesque city along the Volga.

The elated state of mind in which the artist was (he wrote to Hertz and Tretyakov about this) was suddenly broken by tragic events: in February, a newborn daughter died (already the third deceased child of the Savrasovs), his wife became seriously ill. The depth of the painter's sorrowful experiences is evidenced by the images of his daughter's grave executed by him at that time at the Yaroslavl cemetery.

And still precisely in the early spring of 1871, under the influence of the “healing expanse”, the beauty of the eternally renewing, resurrecting nature, helping to overcome the suffering, under the brush of Savrasov next to the etudes filled with mental pain appear preparatory work to the painting “The Rooks Have Arrived”. The first biographer of the artist A. Solmonov, apparently, according to Savrasov himself, wrote in 1894 about the creative ecstasy that gripped the master that spring. This spring inspiration (generally inherent in the artist's soul) was also reflected in the drawings and sketches made in Yaroslavl for the conceived painting.

The scale of the idea, the need for natural impressions led to the continuation of work in the "outback" and Savrasov's trip to the sixty versts from Kostroma the village of Molvitino, where, apparently, one could observe a later, delayed arrival of spring and where new sketches and sketches were made. Then, upon his return to Moscow, the artist introduced new details and finalized the composition already in the studio.

The unity of drawing and painting, the state of nature and the structure of feelings, sought by the artist, and at the same time the amazing naturalness and immediacy of expression were achieved in the picture to the fullest. It is no coincidence that the image of a simple, familiar the most typical landscape for Russia and from year to year the repeating state of nature was perceived by sensitive contemporaries as something completely new, as a revelation.

At the end of 1871, the painting "The Rooks Have Arrived" first appeared before the public at the first exhibition of the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions. "Rooks" became a discovery in painting.

Indeed, Savrasov's worldview, his works were characterized by a very special musicality. In order to feel it and understand the secret of the charm of his “Rooks ..”, it is worth taking a closer look, for example, at least in the images of tree branches, then joyfully reaching for the spring blue sky, then sadly frozen and drooping. Sometimes his paintings give us the opportunity to hear the spring hubbub of rooks, the singing of a lark fluttering over the field, the murmur of the first March streams, the murmur of branches under the gusts of wind.