The history of Russian art of the second half of the 19th century is firmly connected with the name of Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin, an outstanding painter, remarkable draftsman and engraver, whose 175th anniversary was celebrated in 2007. In his works, the artist glorifies the grandeur and beauty of his native nature, the endless expanses of its fields, golden fields, mighty oak groves, and forest thickets. Shishkin was sincerely convinced that there is nothing more beautiful than the true motives of nature, that they do not need embellishment or idealization. Objectivity became the fundamental basis of his mature work, but behind it stood the artist’s boundless passion for the beautiful and eternal face of nature. Shishkin is characterized by an accurate reproduction of nature, and at the same time he sought to move from external verisimilitude to generalization and typification, to a poetic understanding of the motive. Shishkin is one of the most famous Russian artists; he is among those whose work forms the basis of the national school of painting.