In order to gain inspiration and create paintings devoted to the past, Borisov Musatov would often visit old estates. One of his favourite estates was Zubrilovka near Saratov, a park and garden ensemble that belonged to the Golitsyn-Prozorovsky princes. The manor had started deteriorating, and he was drawn to the neglected garden in the manor. During one of his visits, he wandered deep into the garden where he found a semicircular marble pond, along with a staircase that led into the depths of the reservoir. Borisov Musatov took a photograph of this secluded place, which serves as the background for the painting, 'The Pool". In this photo, his favourite models posed for him: his sister Elena (standing) and his bride, Elena Alexandrova.
Similar to most Symbolist paintings, no action takes place in the painting, and all movement has stopped. Shades of white, blue and lilac are found throughout the painting. His work synthesises two different themes, with Borisov-Musatov combining specific features of decorative art and easel art together. The painting uses two different perspectives – the viewer looks at the reservoir from above; therefore, they cannot see the sky but only its reflection in the pond. This allows us to look at the world reflected through the artist's soul.
The viewer looks at the two women from below, with the woman standing at a complex angle. Borisov Musatov used this unusual composition structure to convey a generalised world, which was a world full of memories.
The painting has a musical rhythm to it, built on repetitions and alternating circular rhythms. Upon taking a closer look at the rounded line of the reservoir, it is seen that it flows into the same curved line of the sitting lady's crinoline. The figures in the painting are generalised, representing two triangles with an interval formed between them, adding to the depth and taking the spotlight as the main focus of view against the depth of the pond.
Borisov Musatov refrained from using bright light fragments for his paintings, just like this one. The way the clouds are drawn in the reflections, the rocks seem to be light and fluffy, appearing to have no weight at all. The openwork, transparent clothes of the sitting lady resemble flowers and clouds, acting as some form of convergence of dreams and memories.
"The Pool" feels like a dream suspended between reality and memory. The two women, dressed in flowing garments, less like ordinary figures than symbols of inner states one seated and reflective, the other standing like an apparition in the water. The pool acts as an imperfect mirror, it blurs the sky, the trees, and the bodies into a single poetic entity on the surface. This fusion suggests a philosophical interpretation of identity, transition, and the fragile boundary between the visible world and the emotional expression.
What stands out most is the still serenity. Nothing dramatic is happening, yet the painting has a resounding silent tension, as though a conversation has just ended or is about to begin. To me, it represents the melancholic beauty of passing moments. How youth, memory, and emotion appear briefly, shimmer in light, and then dissolve like reflections on water within ripples of thoughts.
