The Road in the Valley

In 1860 the Academy of Arts in St Petersburg gave Ivan Shishkin its Great Gold Medal, and with it a paid journey to Europe. He put the journey off. From May to October 1861 he stayed home in Yelabuga on the Kama and worked outdoors across the district — the ruined tombs of the Bulgar khans downriver, a burial ground his father had helped excavate, a mill standing in a field, and this road going down a valley. He painted it on cardboard, about 20 by 38 centimetres, the kind of board a painter carries out for an afternoon. He finally left for Germany in 1862 and came home in 1865, before his term abroad was up. The study entered the museum in Kazan in 1962, a century after the summer it was made.