Lanternas de papel

Korovin painted this in 1896, and the young woman holding the round paper lanterns is thought to be Anna Fidler, who would become his wife. By this point he was pushing Russian painting toward something looser and more decorative than his teachers had allowed. The canvas is built almost entirely from color set against color: dark green foliage, a pale evening sky, the black of her skirt, and the warm glow of the lanterns themselves. There is no story being told here, only a mood caught at dusk. The Tretyakov Gallery later chose this narrow canvas as the emblem of a large exhibition marking 150 years since the painter's birth.