The lay of the land; A rare show of Russian paintings from the Tolstoy era.("Russian Landscape in the Age of Tolstoy" at London's National Gallery )

Byline: Ginanne Brownell

A spirited orange fox scampers up a lush hill, past healthy pines and scarred birch trees. At the summit, against the backdrop of a vast glimmering lake, sit three old men with long white beards, looking like they belong in an Old World folk tale. So serene and at peace are these "God's folk," as Leo Tolstoy referred to Russian peasants in "War and Peace," that the fox seems almost drawn to them. There is no tension in this painted landscape--just an equal balance between man and nature. Done by Mikhail Nesterov in 1914, the painting, "The Little Fox," is a calming image of a time long since destroyed by revolutions, collectivization and reform.

Landscape has played an integral role in shaping Russia and its people. Napoleon's defeat outside Moscow in 1812 was due in large part to the fact that his soldiers were unaccustomed to the harsh winter across the open plains. Tolstoy and his contemporaries were all drawn to the land as a backdrop for their work. "Wonderful walk across the fields," wrote Tolstoy in his diary. "Came back home and was seized with the desire to write 'The Cossacks'." The role of terrain in landscape painting is the theme of a spectacular new exhibition, "Russian Landscape in the Age of Tolstoy" at London's National Gallery (through Sept. 12). The exhibition is a treat not only because many of the works on display have never appeared together under the same roof, but also because most have never been seen outside of the former Soviet Union.

Though these works inspired plenty of Russian writers and musicians who became household names worldwide, the painters themselves were never international stars. Exhibition curator Christopher Riopelle says that the landscapes hold their own against their European contemporaries but never made it out of Russia--partly because they were physically difficult to transport. "Music and literature were easily absorbed by a very ready audience in the West, but the paintings never came out so we never took them into our consciousness," he says.

Until now. The exhibition offers a rare glimpse into the 19th-century vision of Mother Russia from the painters' perspective. Tsarist Russia was a vast swathe of contiguous land stretching from the Central European plains through the forested Siberian steppe to the Pacific Ocean, offering a rich source of inspiration. ...