Red sunset 1895

Arkhyp Kuindzhi painted this small oil on canvas, entitled ‘Red Sunset’, in Russia in the late 19th century. It is an image of romantic intensity. Kuindzhi’s handling of light and colour here, and in other paintings like ‘Birch Grove’, owed something to his contact with the Wanderers group and their commitment to landscape painting. But he broke away from their social realism to pursue a personal vision of nature. He seems to have been interested in the science of colour, and his paintings were hugely popular in their time for their almost theatrical use of light. Historical sources and archives are vital to understanding how paintings like this acquire their resonance. What did viewers at the time make of them? How was Kuindzhi’s art received by the institutions of art in Russia and further afield? These are some of the questions that the art historian can bring to bear on the interpretation of art.