Alenushka and her brother Ivanushka

In a dark hollow formed by the exposed roots of a fallen tree, a barefoot young woman in a red-and-blue skirt and white headscarf holds a startled boy close against her chest; both stare wide-eyed toward the viewer as if alarmed. Above them a black raven swoops between pale birch trunks, and scattered orange autumn leaves drift through the gloom around them.

Deep blacks, mossy greens and cool greys dominate the forest, punctuated by the warm red and blue of the girl's clothing and flecks of orange foliage. The raven and tangled roots are rendered with sharp, almost graphic edges against softer, blended undergrowth, and the characters' fixed, staring eyes give the scene a tense, uneasy charge.