Maybe Polenov never finished this painting, "View of Tarusa from the High Oka Bank." Artists can sometimes work on a painting over many years. Or perhaps he was more interested in giving us the sense or feel of this view rather than trying to do what a camera would have done. Vasily was 72 in 1916.
I love how this painting is created out of nine layers that are actually distances. In the front, nearest where we are standing, is a little corner of the Oka River. Then there is a triangular piece of dark green forest. Beyond that is a lighter stream-like green field. Beyond that we see the city of Tarusa with its church tower way over on the left. Do you see it? Further beyond is another band of forest with a few houses tucked in here and there. Still further on is a hillside that doesn't seem to have been planted with anything this time of year. Then there are blue hills, a great sky filled with a piling up of giant clouds. Finally, the artist takes us beyond the beyond, above the clouds. Maybe he would have painted outer space if he hadn't run out of canvas.
But 1916 was a terrible time for the world. Russia was on the brink of a revolution. The First World War was underway, involving thirty-two countries. 1916 was called the year the armies of Britain, France and Germany were bled to death. The battles at Verdun and Somme in France were the longest and most deadly. When I traveled to France as a young priest, the friend who drove me around said as we passed through these areas, "During the First World War, the bombing was so unrelenting and intense, the soil here was turned to dust." Still, Vasily Polenov saw beauty and wonder — the city of Tarusa seeming to be woven into a great layering up of nature.
And here is the wonderfully preserved Church of Sts. Peter and Paul today, which Vasily Polenov included in his View of Tarusa from the High Oka Bank — one hundred and five years ago!
