Not targeting a specific theme or event, vasnetsov managed to portray in his picture the soul of russian fairy tale, akin to quiet mid-russian nature. The image of alyonushka, painted with a peasant girl as the model, conveys the suffering of a meek, lonely orphan, abandoned by everybody, who is present in many a tale. She spends an eternity sitting on a white stone, as if turned into stone with suffering, her eyes a mirror of unspoken despair. The girl's eyes pull you in like a whirlpool. The deep dark water, with a shimmering transparent reflection, is pulling at alyonushka like a magnet. The girl's figure seems to have been put together using naturally occurring shapes, dying evening colours and foliage patterns, to project a distilled inward-turned sadness of autumn nature, which takes care to conceal and safeguard the heroine. Nature consoles her like a mother consoles her baby. Landscape motifs are suggested by poetical folklore images, for example the swallows that are gathered on a twig above alyonushka's head as good message bringers, while the fluttering aspens are a symbol of bad luck. Object Type: painting. Date: 1881. Dimensions: 221 × 173 cm (87 × 68.1 in). Medium: oil on canvas. Collection: Tretyakov Gallery. Vasnetsov Alenushka
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