Confidences

In the summer of 1897 Konstantin Somov stayed with his family at Sergievo near St Petersburg. He wrote to Alexandre Benois about its old park and pond. In Confidences, the setting occupies far more space than the women conversing. The title promises a human story, but first we must discover its participants among trees and patches of sunlight.

Two women sit at the lower edge, their heads inclining towards one another and parasols separating them from the greenery. Their gestures identify an intimate conversation while its content remains outside the image. That distance becomes part of our experience: we see their closeness while remaining strangers to what they say.

Pale parasols form small rounded shapes beside a substantial trunk. They mark a sheltered place for summer leisure. Somov enjoyed walks and encounters familiar from seventeenth- and eighteenth-century European painting. That earlier pictorial experience enters a contemporary observation of country-house life.

A sunlit path climbs between the trees in a narrow pale strip. Its open space catches the eye more readily than the small figures. The composition delays our encounter with the people by leading us through the garden first. The title directs curiosity towards conversation, while the painting repeatedly returns attention to the setting.

A small pavilion nearly disappears among the leaves. This is a designed park with places for privacy, linked to a culture of leisure. Nature has been arranged for walking, resting and conversation. Somov chooses a setting where relationships unfold away from street noise and visible everyday labour.

Numerous coloured touches describe foliage, while substantial trunks divide the surface. As the son of a Hermitage curator, Somov grew up seeing older European art. Its memory joins his observation of summer light. A recognisable park coexists with a carefully organised decorative whole in which each opening has its place.

Somov and his friends would soon establish the World of Art group, treating the history of taste as a resource for new work. Confidences shows that interest without literal historical reconstruction. A contemporary outing takes on the character of an earlier gallant scene, revealing how inherited images shape our perception of private life.