El camino de los chumaks en Mariúpol

By 1875, when Kuindzhi painted this, the trade he shows was already fading. For centuries the Chumaks had hauled salt and dried fish by ox-cart across the southern steppe, from the Black Sea coast up to the inland towns. The railways spreading across the region in these years were about to make the slow ox-trains obsolete. Kuindzhi knew this road well. He grew up in Mariupol, the town on the far horizon, and he painted the carts under a low, rain-heavy sky, the ruts filled with water, the wet oxen and mud catching what little light gets through. He built the whole picture in browns and greys, with none of the glowing colour he would soon become famous for. The plodding line of carts stretches back until it dissolves into the wet air.