View of Tarusa from high Oka bank 1916

Vasily Polenov’s "View of Tarusa from high Oka bank” presents a landscape where structure and form dictate our experience. The composition is divided into distinct horizontal bands. From the muted blues and grays of the river at the base, to the dense forest, and the town that nestles in the valley. Finally the painting resolves into a horizon defined by a bright field and the sky above. The painting engages with the semiotics of space and distance. The brushstrokes vary in intensity, creating a textured surface. The sky, with its gestural clouds, contrasts with the more defined shapes of the landscape. This contrast can be interpreted through the lens of structuralism. The natural versus the man-made, the temporal versus the permanent. In the end it is the sky which dominates the view and our attention. The function of its aesthetic presence is to remind us that our understanding of the environment around us is always shifting and subjective.