Eye Candy for Today: Ivan Shishkin’s Rye

Rye,  Ivan Shishkin
Rye, Ivan Shishkin

Link is to zoomable version on the Google Art Project, downloadable file on Wikimedia Commons; original is in the State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

In contrast to his scenes of thick forest groves, Russian landscape master Ivan Shishkin here stands his trees as sentinels above the expanse of a rye field. A dirt track leads us invitingly into the scene, and if we continue to follow its curve, leads our eye back to the two tiny figures that give the scene its sense of scale (at the base of the middle tree in the second detail crop, above).

 
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8 Replies to “Eye Candy for Today: Ivan Shishkin’s Rye

  1. Charley,
    His mastery of the landscape, and especially his mastery of trees, is so inspiring!
    Thanks for posting one of my favorites of his works. And although I’ve studied this painting many times (via the web) I have never noticed the tiny figures in the field, or the low flying bird over the track that you focused on.

    Thank you,

    Bill

  2. The greatest rye producer used to be the former Soviet Union. Now, this has been split into two main parts: the Russian Federation 3-4 million tons and Belarus about 1-2 million tons.

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