"Autumn Day, Sokolniki Park" (1879)
Landscape, particularly melancholy and lyrical views of central Russian landscapes was another genre at which the wanderers excelled. Although some of these paintings were attacked for lacking a social message, most of the group produced at least some work of this type. Perhaps the most famous of the wanderer landscape specialists was Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin (1832-98). This landscape, entitled "Autumn Day, Sokolniki Park" (1879) is by Isaac Levitan (1860-1900), a painter who never officially joined the organization. Nevertheless, he was close to them in spirit. He was also one of the best friends of Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, and if one wants to imagine the kind of landscape that would have been in Chekhov's mind as the backdrop for a play like The Seagull it would be hard to beat this.