A view opens up from the window of a room in a Zagorsk hotel onto the Cathedral of the Assumption in the St Sergius Trinity Monastery. The resolution of a purely pictorial task the combination of a landscape and a still life becomes a reflection on the coexistence of two sides of life: the mundane alongside religious traditions.

Osmerkin Alexander

Osmerkin, Alexander Alexandrovich (1892, Elisavetgrad - 1953, Pleskovo, near Moscow)
Painter, graphic artist, teacher. Studied under Nikolai Pimonenko at Kiev School of Art (1909–1911) and Ilya Mashkov's studio in Moscow (1913–1915). Contributed to exhibitions (from 1913). Member and exhibitor of the Knave of Diamonds (1914), World of Art (1917–1922), Moscow Painters (1925), International Exhibition in Venice (1924, 1930). Taught at the Moscow Institute of Fine Arts (1918‒1930), professor of the Leningrad Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (1932–1947).