In the painting Midday, each brushstroke vibrates and breathes, imbued as they are with colour and light. On a hot day, a man and a woman on a motorcycle have driven up to a well. They are washing their faces, which have been warmed by the sun, and scooping up handfuls of water, in which the sun itself is sparkling, deep in the well. This same reflected glare imprints itself on their faces, clothes, and the grass surrounding the well full of life-giving water.

Plastov Arkady

Plastov, Arkady Alexandrovich (1893, Prislonikha (Simbirsk Gubernia) - 1972, Prislonikha (Ulyanovsk Province))
Painter, graphic artist. Studied under Archangelsky at the Simbirsk Theological College (1908-1912), at the Stroganov School of Art and Industry (1912-1914, occasional student), advised by Fyodor Fedorovsky (1914-1917) and studied sculpture under Sergei Volnukhin at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture and painting under Leonid Pasternak, Alexei Korin, Apollinary Vasnetsov and Alexei Stepanov in studios. Contributed to exhibitions (from 1921).