ABSTRACT
The Russian concept of courage is boldness, but boldness is courage in large scale action. It is courage multiplied by the space in which to exhibit this courage. In Russian landscape painting many works are devoted to the seasons of the year: autumn, spring and winter. These were favorite themes of Russian landscape artists throughout the nineteenth century and later. The Russian landscape with its heroic dimension seems to pulsate, expanding out and becoming more natural, condensing in villages, churches and cities and becoming more human. Venetsianov was virtually the first Russian landscape painter to display this distinctive trait in Russian landscape painting. The Soviet Union is also a huge ensemble of cultures or cultural monuments. Cities in the Soviet Union, however much they may differ, are not isolated from one another. The interaction of people with nature and with their surroundings does not always last for centuries or millennia and is not always "natural" or "unintentional."
