The desperate desire crept up again and again to toss aside, cut short and break off everything and return to Moscow regardless of the cost. And the beginning of “great changes” could be felt at the Academy up through that time, which also encouraged departure. Winter had already ended and the miserly Leningrad sun appeared over the city on an ever more frequent basis and ever warmer. On a usual Saturday, as always, I went to the Hermitage. Of course, to Rembrandt. When the sun’s rays fall on Danaë and merge with the Rembrandt-esque golden rain, a miraculous thing takes place. People silently watched this amazing sight, which was like a celestial natural phenomenon, an eclipse of the Moon and Sun, a phenomenon that always gives rise to a some sort of a feeling of awe in its audience.
*
Danaë is a portrait of Vera, the artist’s wife. The author depicts himself in the right corner of the painting. The work is set in a room of the house on Bolshaya Polyanka (Street) in Zamoskvorechye (district of Moscow), where the artist lived a large part of his life.
