Beginning to work on the paintings of the series “From the Life of Christ” (1890s – early 1900s), the artist wrote about the task of creating the image of Christ before him: “The difficult task before me is overwhelming, but I can not give it up, too In the gospel stories Christ is a real living man, or the son of man, as he constantly called himself, and by the greatness of the spirit the Son of God, as he was called by others, so the point is that in art to give this living image, what he was in action ity. ” In the picture following Christ and the sinner, included in the cycle “From the life of Christ” – “On the Genisareth (Tiberias) lake” – he stopped on the image of Christ, which he found in the previous picture.
The same oriental type of face with a calm and wise expression (this is precisely the face of a sage, not a prophet and sufferer), the same state of self-absorption, which here is particularly expressive,
because it is conditioned by the plot of the picture. Actually, there is no plot either: a deeply thoughtful traveler walks silently along the lake shore with a staff in his hand, surrounded by a landscape with a deceased, quiet lake, bordered by a chain reaching the horizon of the mountains, and with ancient stones on the shore. But in this deserted deserted landscape, this ideal, eternal beauty is poured, he breathes such a majestic tranquility, correlated with the deep concentration of a traveler immersed in his thoughts, that with all the “eventlessness” of the plot of the picture, the significance of what is happening for the viewer leaves no doubt. The beauty of the evangelical narrative is conveyed by the artist through the visible colorful beauty of painting. These subtle connections between the word and the painting were caught by the artist even when he saw in Paris the interior of the Russian church, in the design of which the landscapes of Bogolyubov were used. “It is original and beautiful,” he wrote in one of his letters to his relatives, “to see large landscapes in the
church, to be carried to nature and evangelical narratives and legends.” In any case, the picture “At Genisareth Lake” already testifies to the high significance of the landscape in Polenov’s reflections on the harmony, to which he always aspired and which was embodied for him in the Gospel Jesus. in the design of which were used the landscapes of Bogolyubov. “It is original and beautiful,” he wrote in one of his letters to his relatives, “to see large landscapes in the church, to be carried to nature and evangelical narratives and legends.” In any case, the picture “At Genisareth Lake” already testifies to the high significance of the landscape in Polenov’s reflections on the harmony, to which he always aspired and which was embodied for him in the Gospel Jesus. in the design of which were used the landscapes of Bogolyubov. “It is original and beautiful,” he wrote in one of his letters to his relatives, “to see large landscapes in the church, to be carried to nature and evangelical narratives and legends.” In any case, the picture “At Genisareth Lake” already testifies to the high significance of the landscape in Polenov’s reflections on the harmony, to which he always aspired and which was embodied for him in the Gospel Jesus.
The Tiberias Lake, better known as the Sea of Galilee, and in modern Israel as the Sea of Galilee (Hebrew, the Arab Bahr Tabaria, the Sea of Kinnerere or the Hinnerref Sea, the Sea of Galilee, Gennesaret Lake) is a freshwater lake in the northeast of Israel.
