Lake Ladoga

Kuindzhi came to this quiet northern lake in 1873, not long after finishing at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. He was the son of a poor shoemaker from Mariupol, of Greek descent, and had taught himself much of his craft before the Academy would take him. Here his real subject is water and light. Along the near shore he painted the shallows so clearly that you can see flat stones lying on the bottom through the still surface, a patient, almost scientific study of transparency. Beyond, the lake flattens into a pale silver haze under a heavy sky. Kuindzhi would soon grow famous for pushing light effects further than any Russian landscape painter before him, even showing single glowing canvases alone in darkened rooms. That clear, stone-bedded water was one of the first things critics singled out here.