Fishes at the setting sun

"Fish at the setting sun" - not the most romantic name for the picture. Until you see the picture of Larionov, there is hope that, perhaps, we are talking about the transparent surface of the pond, in which the fish are splashing against the background of the setting sun. Maybe even a pretty girl by the pond. Such a plot would have been a great Impressionist success, but in this case, Mikhail Larionov got it, and therefore the pond, the water reflections, and the artist is not joking, the radiant maiden at the water will not happen.

Mikhail Larionov wrote, it seems, in all the styles that at that time were rapidly replacing each other. The artist's enthusiasm for the canvas itself, the color rendition, the fascination with the possibilities of the stroke, the light overflows transmitted in the image resemble the radiance of impressionistic paintings (1, 2)


But nevertheless, Larionov is not impressionism, although this work with fishes is always remembered when he speaks of Russian impressionism. This is the cheerful laughter of the Russian avant-garde, when artists laugh earlier and louder than their detractors, and an intense, radiant color flows from hand to canvas, and from canvas to the viewer, simply from an excess of power, from a young distance "Bubnovaletovtsev".

Fish scales shine brighter than gems. Is that what? Still life? Landscape? However, it is just right to call him a portrait, so "portrayed" are alive. Larionovye fish - like a hymn to color, its play, gleams of the setting sun in the shining scales, under the guise of these fish - is the hymn of life itself, youth, excess of strength and unbridled joy.

Author: Alain Esaulova