Before the Storm
Medium
Etching
Dimensions
Plate: 5 1/16 x 4 1/8 in. (12.8 x 10.5 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of the Humanities Fund Inc., The Boris Bakhmeteff Collection, 1972
Accession Number
1972.744.18
Tags
Art Historical Context
Ivan Ivanovich Shish, a leading Russian landscape painter of the 19th century, captures the tense anticipation of nature in his 1873 etching *Before the Storm*. This intimate print, measuring just 5 1/16 x 4 1/8 inches, depicts a brooding sky over a vast landscape, evoking the dramatic buildup of an impending tempest. Shishkin, a master of the Peredviziki (Wanderers) movement, celebrated Russia's wild, untamed wilderness with meticulous realism, drawing from direct observation of the forest and fields. Etching allowed Shishkin to translate his painterly precision into printmaking, using acid ...