Description of the picture:
Sleeping children – Perov. 1870. Oil on canvas. 53×61
No task for an artist is more difficult than writing children. The author chose the most suitable situation – deep sleep. This allowed the master to do the work with extraordinary thoroughness, scrupulousness and extraordinary love.
Sunlight leaked through the crevices of the walls of the old barn illuminates the two children sleeping on the straw. In this seemingly usual situation, the author managed to find many nuances and subtleties that cause the viewer a lot of the most positive emotions. A difficult angle, the play of light and shadow, the details noticed – everything fills the work with touching tenderness.
Children’s legs, unusual for shoes, unpretentious beads on the girl’s neck, inferior clothes, gunny covering the boy – these details will tell much more about the characters than dozens of pages of text.
One cannot help noticing the tenderness with which the author himself treats his heroes. He frankly admires the children, paying close attention to the smallest details, light, texture. The painting received rave reviews from critics, was appreciated by Russian art lovers, and also became an adornment of foreign exhibitions of Russian art."