Fyodor Aleksandrovich Vasiliev
Before the Storm
1870
oil on canvas
56 х 92 cm
Nizhny Novgorod State Museum of Art

The landscape Before the Storm is intensely dramatic. The solitary figure of a traveller with his walking stick, and nowhere to find shelter from the threatening elements, infuses the painting with a sense of anxiety. The romanticism with which the work is imbued, and the free mixture of intense colours, clearly illustrate the painter's talent and originality. By the early 1870s, Vasiliev was already an accomplished master whose works introduced new features to realistic Russian landscape painting. In his own landscapes, the discordant density of his representation of nature could be taken as a prophecy of his own tragic destiny and death.