Russian hills

Numerous half-length figures in ornate folk-patterned robes, red kokoshnik-like headdresses and raised hands are packed tightly together beneath a jagged stone arch overgrown with small yellow leaves; a green winged figure kneels in the foreground among strewn roses, fruit and twigs, while stylized carved faces flank the opening.

Painted in warm ochre, red and olive tones against a smoldering orange-red sky, the crowded figures are modeled with heavy academic shading and gilded highlights on textured, relief-like fabric. The claustrophobic stacking of bodies and masks under the rock arch, lit from within by warm color, gives the scene a charged, enigmatic theatricality rather than any open landscape.