The Artist's Road Painting the World's Beautiful Places

The Ripple Effect

Perspectives from The Artist’s Road


Ripples          1901         Arkady Rylov

   Dropping a small stone into the water seems to be a metaphor for the artist’s work—casting a soft outward ripple through the creation of an artwork and hoping that ripple becomes a wave of creative energy. Although it may seem to always be an act of faith, there is one certainty—the connection of the artist to Nature and the courage to create is a positive force in the world.

   We wish you all a most creative 2025 and leave you with this work of art called “Ripples” by Arkady Rylov (1870-1939), a Russian historical and landscape artist. Rylov studied in St. Petersburg under Archie Kuindzhi. Later, he taught his own students at the Academy of Arts with live animal models, bringing rabbits, cats, dogs, wild birds and squirrels into the studio without cages. He received the title of Academician of Painting in 1915, ranking him as one of the founders of Soviet landscape painting. His Socialist Realism works of art were accepted by the Bolsheviks, but he continued to try to find his place in the new world by returning to proletarian themes as he could. He wrote that his most cherished paintings were those that were “a talk with nature." Rylov illustrated children's books as well and wrote a book of essays about nature illustrated with his own watercolors.

Self-Portrait     1901     Arkady Rylov