Dose of Art #80: Ivan Shishkin – Morning in a Pine Forest (1889)

Shiskin (1832-1898) was a landscape painter and an art professor. His most famous painting Morning in a Pine Forest features a family of playing bears. The bears were actually painted by Konstantin Savitsky, but his signature was removed by the art collector Paul Tretyakov because “from idea until the performance, everything discloses the painting manner and creative method peculiar just to Shishkin”. As a result, it is now solely attributed to Shishkin.

The scene was used on a wrapper for “Mishka Kosolapy” chocolates, and for many Russian children, this was their first encounter with the painting.