[11] Art historian Faina Maltseva wrote that A Birch Grove is an "innovative work" that is one of the best examples of realistic landscapes of the 1870s.

He worked in a photo studio as a retoucher, then began attending classes at the Academy of Arts, and in 1868 received the title of non-class artist.

that one of the first studies directly related to the idea of the painting A Birch Grove, could be a landscape from 1878, Pine Forest with a River[22][23] (canvas on cardboard, oil, 25.6 × 33.4 cm, 1878, State Russian Museum, inv.

[31] The delay was a source of irritation for the organizers of the Moscow section of the touring exhibition — in a letter to Kramskoi on February 23, the artist Ilya Repin wrote: "Kuindzhi is not ready?

[6][7] The greatest impression was made by A Birch Grove — both artists and spectators who visited the exhibition noted "the extraordinary nature of the picture", which later became one of Kuindzhi's most famous works.

[32] In a letter to Pavel Tretyakov dated March 1, 1879, Ivan Kramskoi wrote about the reaction caused by the appearance of Kuindzhi's paintings at the exhibition: "The public received them enthusiastically, artists (that is, landscape artists) at the first moment dazed, they did not prepare, a long time were with open jaws and only now begin to gather their courage and then angrily, then secretly let various rumors and opinions, many reach a high comic in the denial of his paintings, so...

1093, p. 4) published a detailed review by Vladimir Stasov entitled "Art Exhibitions of 1879", which praised Kuindzhi's "unusually poetic feeling and view" and also noted the originality of his paintings.

[10][34] Directly from the exhibition, all three of Kuindzhi's paintings, including A Birch Grove, were bought from the artist by Pavel Tretyakov for 6,500 rubles.

As for the A Birch Grove, "Lubitel" wrote that the trees in it do not grow, and "rastykana", they are "precisely cut out of cardboard, painted in a dirty-green shade and placed as a decoration".

In 1901, he organized several private exhibitions, where four works were presented to close acquaintances: A Birch Grove (1901, now in the Belarusian National Arts Museum), a revised Evening in Ukraine (1878, completed in 1901, now in the GRM), Dnieper (1901, now in the Pskov Museum-Reserve, a variant of the painting Dnieper in the Morning, 1881) and Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane (1901, now in the Vorontsov Palace-Museum, Alupka).

[49] As of 2020[update], the painting A Birch Grove was exhibited in room 21 of the main building of the Tretyakov Gallery on Lavrushinsky Lane.

As in other works by Kuindzhi, a significant effect is achieved by unusual combinations of light and color, sharp contrast of sun and shadow, which creates the impression of very bright sunlight.

[3][50]The arrangement of the birches growing in the clearing in the foreground preserves this "accentuated symmetrical division of the compositional plans of the painting".

[3][51] The combination of different shades of green used in painting the birch foliage and the distant forest further emphasizes the feeling of a bright sunny day.

[53] A "stereoscopic" effect of painting is entirely determined by spatial construction, while "the interest in revealing the volumetric nature of the objects in A Birch Grove is clearly lost.

According to Vitaly Manin, "from this color begins to sound more definite and intense, the emotional impact of it intensifies", as a result of which "the artist achieves the integrity of the impression".

[28]The second version of the painting A Birch Grove (canvas, oil, 165 × 115.5 cm),[55] presented at the exhibition in 1881, Kuindzhi wrote at the request of the industrialist and collector Pavel Demidov, Prince of San Donato, but for some reason their deal fell through.

[55] The third version of the painting A Birch Grove (1901, canvas, oil, 165.5 × 116 cm) in 1910 (after the author's death) became the property of the Artists' Society named after A.I.

Noting that in Kuindzhi's work "everything always consists of one strongly felt and transmitted pictorial light effect, and everything else he has not finished, not studied, sacrificed", the critic recognized that "but this motif is always something poetic!"

[11] The artist and critic Alexander Benois in the book "History of Russian Painting in the XIX century"[dubious – discuss], the first edition of which was published in 1902, recognized that A Birch Grove once so amazed the St. Petersburg public that many thought that to achieve the effect the author of the canvas resorted to "charlatan tricks", using additional lighting from the back or front.

Paying tribute to the artist's skill, Benois wrote that studying this painting "one is filled with great respect for its creator," who "made sure that every stroke 'meant' and sounded, that nothing was superfluous.

According to Petrov, on the basis of the everyday Central Russian motif, which includes a forest edge and flowing between white birch trees, the artist "created a hymn" pouring from the sky life-giving light.

Petrov noted the "elevated and festive tone of the picture's imagery," which Kuindzhi achieved "with the help of bold generalization and intensity of contrasts, glowing in the sun and shaded color forms and zones, as well as rhythmic definition of the landscape solution, reminiscent of a kind of natural pattern and, to some extent, decoration ..."[59] Art historian Faina Maltseva noted that A Birch Grove is "an innovative work", one of the best examples of realistic landscapes of the 1870s.

[3] Nevertheless, according to Maltseva, in this work "Kuindzhi managed to create a real image filled with a great sound", and his skill "manifested itself here with particular force".

[61] The art historian Vitaly Manin wrote that in A Birch Grove Kuindzhi developed the search for a positive ideal that he had begun three years earlier in the painting Ukrainian Night.

At the same time, Manin noted that the generalized painting of A Birch Grove creates a feeling of stasis, "gives the impression of numbness, of freezing".