"Road to Nowhere"

This painting called "Road to Nowhere" was done by a Russian surrealist painter named Leonid Shchigel. He's an up an coming artist who takes after Salvador Dali's surreal paintings. Shchigel had no art degree and was completely self-taught as an artist. It wasn't until he began his job as a security guard that he practiced his art daily-utilizing all the free time he had working in the grave yard shift. Rather than focusing on the realistic qualities of life he noticed the unrealistic, but beautiful, qualities dreams so greatly exhibit.





In this painting there is a black piano that turns into train tracks, going into the distance. There is a train in the distance that is coming toward the foreground. It is kind of clear sky's in the distance but closer to the piano there is dark and gloomy sky's. The floor is black and white checkered, like the colors of the keys on the piano. There is a music book on top of the piano opened face up. There is electricity lines down the length on the tracks. There is smoke coming from the train. There is a chair under the piano and the piano looks brand new and not used. No one is to be seen in this painting, the only person maybe would be the train conductor. There are white gloves on the piano "playing" but no visible person.



Our interpretation of this painting is that the train that is in the distance coming towards the foreground is taking a journey to a "darker world". With the clear sky's in the background and the dark, black sky's in the foreground this represents the coming to the "darker world". The dark sky could represent worries and challenges that are going to have to be faced sometime in the near future. Another thing is there are more geometric shapes on the ground and are more defined than all of the other shapes in this painting.