In this artwork, how is the Subject and description discussed?
The canvas is both realistic and allegorical since it tries to represent an idealised image of the Russian land. Venetsianov is credited with establishing Russia's naturalist school of landscape painting, which is most prominent in In the Ploughed Field: Spring. The sky takes up the majority of the artwork, which Venetsianov carefully studied before painting in order to achieve the effect of three-dimensional clouds and their smooth flow in the artwork. The horizon line in the painting runs quite low and bends even lower on the right side of the canvas. This enables the artist to create the illusion of a large open space. Famous Russian landscape artists such as Mikhail Vrubel and Viktor Vasnetsov later imitated this technique.
The painting's central figure is a young peasant mother leading two horses while watching over her child seated near the furrows in the lower right corner of the canvas. The peasant mother is dressed elegantly in a sarafan and a kokoshnik, both of which are inappropriate for agricultural work. She walks across the field gracefully, barely touching the ground, as if hovering over it, as if she is the goddess Flora, personifying Spring; this impression is reinforced by the fact that the woman figure appears to be proportionally larger than that of the horses. Venetsianov did not delve into the psychological symbolism of spring in the peasant woman's face because he did not paint small details on it, but instead concentrated on the execution of the perfect plasticity of the entire portrait, melodies of rhythms, and consistency of tones, which together give rise to a feeling of sublime beauty. Her body language also closely resembles a Russian folk dance due to the position of her feet and outstretched arms.Some decried Venetsianov's overly elegant and expensive clothing for a peasant woman working in the fields. This, however, was not the artist's "invention". In ancient times, the first day of ploughing was considered a holiday by Russian peasants, so they would dress up for the occasion. Some researchers also drew parallels between the peasant woman in In the Ploughed Field: Spring and Ivan Argunov's Portrait of an Unknown Woman in Russian Costume, which was created several decades earlier.The canvas's plot is not entirely idyllic. The viewer realises that the young mother only sees her child when she is passing him with horses. Figures of other ploughing peasants can be seen in the distance, to the left and right. This enables the artist to not only create the illusion of spatiality and demonstrate the scale of the field, but also to demonstrate that everyone is preoccupied with work. Some silhouettes are translucent, allowing the previously painted background to shine through. Uprooted stumps and other details emphasise the realism and "non-fictional" nature of the painting's landscape.Bluish tones play an important role in the colour scheme of the artwork, but rather than the usual coldness that the colour blue adds, the painting remains warm and joyful; the soft green of freshly blossoming foliage serves as an important component in making the image look warm. The artist uses whitened, brightened tones in the upper, whitish-blue portion of the image, while greenish ochre colours dominate in the lower portion. Venetsianov achieved a harmonious transition of tones from intense in the foreground to calmer and calmer, fading in the zone where earth and sky meet.
kokoshnik Mikhail Vrubel Viktor Vasnetsov Portrait of an Unknown Woman in Russian Costume Russian Ivan Argunov realistic allegorical Flora horizon idyllic sarafan