1902
Canvas, tempera
177 х 216

The painting has no story: it shows two ladies wearing ancient dresses, lost in contemplation, against a landscape backdrop. It is known that the artist used as models his sister, Yelena Borisova-Musatova, and his bride, Yelena Vladimirovna Aleksandrova, but these are images of Eternal Femininity rather than portraits. A large part of the composition is taken by the water surface. The painting features no sky, but its blueness illuminates all the space. The outline of the pond resembles an enormous eye, which reflects the dome of sky. The ladies are portrayed in a state of mystic detachment. The direction of the heroines glances is fixed by two spatial vectors, one of which points to the bottomless bowl of the pond, the other, to the infinity of the sky. By using the device of "double frame" – the painting and the pond – the artist submerges the viewer into a "reflected" world. Spiralling streamy lines softly flow from one shape to another, joining together the outline of the shore, the silhouettes of the figures, the reflections of the trees, pulling down into the abyss, into the whirlpool of "dormant memories at the bottom".

at 10, Lavrushinsky Lane, Hall 45