The Rooks Have Returned

Savrasov went out to a village north of Moscow in March of 1871 and painted the least dramatic thing imaginable. Late winter, mud and thawing snow, a few bare birches, a leaning wooden church, and a flock of rooks that have just flown back and are fussing over their nests. There is nothing grand in it. And that was the point. Russian landscape painting until then leaned on Italian light and picturesque ruins, and here was a raw, ordinary, unmistakably Russian early spring, the moment the year turns. When it went on show that year it startled people. Pavel Tretyakov bought it almost at once. His pupil Levitan said the whole thing was very simple, and that underneath the simplicity you could feel the tender soul of the artist.