one of his first masterpieces, “Noon in the Neighborhood of Moscow” (1869), a “song of joy.” He always preferred to draw daytime scenes, full of sunlight and life as seen in “Pine Forest in Viatka Province” (1872), “Rye” (1878), “Path in a Forest” (1880), “Oaks” (1887) and “Coniferous Forest” and “Sunny Day”(1895).
At the Second Exhibition of the Itinerants, Shishkin presented the painting “In the Backwoods,” for which, in 1873, he received the title of professor. Shishkin subsequently exhibited with the Itinerants for the rest of his life.
Apart from painting, Shishkin was also a master of drawing and engraving. His drawing went through the same evolution as his painting. Those of the eighties, which were executed in charcoal and chalk, are much more expressive than the pen-drawings of the sixties. In 1891, more than 600 etudes and etchings were exhibited at the Academy. The exhibition gave a good idea of the scope of the artist who was deeply aware of and sought to express the beauty and heroic power of the Russian countryside.
Shishkin’s career culminated in the grand composition “Grove of Ship Timber” in 1898, in which the artist’s experience and mastery expressed the indelible impressions of his childhood. The painting was completed not long before the artist’s death. It depicts the Afonasov grove of ship-building timber near Yelabuga. It is his very last painting, devoted to his homeland, which he loved and glorified so sincerely throughout his life.
Shishkin had a troubled private life, twice he fell in love and married and twice his wives died. His sons also died. But he never allowed his sorrows to appear on his canvases. Shishkin died suddenly in his studio in St. Petersburg, while working on the painting “Forest Kingdom.”
The largest collections of Shishkin's work can be viewed at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow and the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg.
Written by Tatyana Klevantseva for RT