According to the recollections of R. N. Barto’s wife, Larisa Petrovna Galanza, Landscape with a Classical Column is a very significant one of the artist’s works and stands apart amongst his rich artistic legacy.

It was painted during the war, in 1943. R. N. Barto created several works that dealt with a wartime subject matter, but he was acutely and adversely affected by the events of this time. His wartime works are set apart by their heightened dramatic character. As a rule they depict landscapes that are often gloomy and restless, capturing unstable, extreme states of nature.

The words “made during the siege of Moscow” are inscribed on the backside of many works he created in autumn of 1941. And while he remained in Moscow R. N. Barto often recalled and wrote that Crimea was one of his most favorite places.

The painting Landscape with a Classical Column speaks of the changes that took place during the course of the war and portrays shifts in the artist’s mood.

The dark shadows at the base of the column are the German soldiers abandoning Crimea. These shadows emanate from darkness, move along, bending under the emerging light, and then pass once again into darkness, into nonexistence. The time depicted by the artist are the minutes before sunrise, when its already almost light out, when the sun hasn’t yet come up but the darkness is already leaving, departing; this is a time of anticipation of imminent changes, of surety that they will come and that this will take place very soon. The artist is connecting his hope and his certainty that the dawn is coming, that the end of the war is drawing near, with the triumph of culture over the vandalism of war; this is the message of the ancient, classical column that is still standing, that survives.