Vasiliy Vasiliyevich Rozhdestvensky
Siena
1912
oil on canvas
79 x 100 cm
State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Rozhdestvensky, an artist who belonged to the Jack of Diamonds group, spent the summer of 1912 in Italy, in order to study Italian Renaissance art. He visited Venice, Padua, Assisi, Ravenna, and Florence, where he lived for a time. Siena was the final point on his trip and that is where the painter chose to live, near the city wall. “...The vines stretched all the way to a light blue on the horizon... Siena was spread before me on the hillsides. The painted or white stucco houses with slate roofs stood in the shadow of green shutters and old olive trees, the silver leaves of which could be seen in the sky. All of this was reminiscent of the frescoes... I spent the day wandering around Siena, and began to paint the city surrounded by this wall, which was built at the time of the Roman empire...” Dazzled by the pictorial abundance of the nature around him, Rozhdestvensky put down his impressions in a laconic and densely coloured painting.