Moonlight in the mountains

Taras Shevchenko. Moonlight in the mountains. Watercolour (13.8 × 31.8 cm). (Not before 1.VI 1851 – VII 1857]. Taras Shevchenko National Museum, inv. № g – 270.

The story of the picture associated with a trip to Kara-Tau (like image expedition tents in the foreground and see the cows. number 87).

For color and character performance has much in common with other watercolors by the time the expedition (see number 2, 8, 10, 11, 17).

Mountainous terrain indicates that the figure shown villages not neighbor to Novopetrovsk fort, as erroneously noted in his memoirs NI Uskova ("Kyiv antiquity", 1889, Vol. II, p. 304 – 305), and forwarding tent in the mountains of Kara-Tau.

Watercolor could be performed both during the expedition, and later the sketch 1851 First date determined by the arrival in the valley Apazyr when the expedition approached the mountainous terrain.

In 1857 Shevchenko gave this picture Uskova (see app. Before number 33).

The literature is known as the "Night of the Kyrgyz steppes of buildings " [Iv. Bryk, Places to Taras Shevchenko in the family Uskova, Lviv, 1925, p. 6].

Storage areas: property of Uskov family, N. I. Smoljak, Institute of Taras Shevchenko, Kharkiv – Kyiv, Gallery of pictures Shevchenko, Kharkiv.

G. P. Palamarchuk

After publication: Taras Shevchenko Complete Works in 10 volumes. – Kyiv: ed. Academy of sciences of UkrSSR, 1964, Vol. 9, № 6 (image), p. 8 (notes).