[2] He began to draw early and in 1838 he enrolled as a student of professor Karl Rabus at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (MSPSA).

Then, in 1854 by the invitation of the Grand Duchess Maria Nikolayevna, President of the Imperial Academy of Arts, he moved to the neighborhood of St. Petersburg.

His best students, Isaac Levitan and Konstantin Korovin, remembered their teacher with admiration and gratitude.

The Rooks Have Returned (1871) is considered by many critics to be the high point in Savrasov’s artistic career.

Using a common, even trivial, episode of birds returning home, and an extremely simple landscape, Savrasov emotionally showed the transition of nature from winter to spring.

The process may have begun with the death of his daughter in 1871, which led to a crisis in his art and, possibly, dissatisfaction with his artistic career.