1864

January: leaves Roller's studio to work on his own, devotes much time to etching. February: goes to Geneva, visits the studios of Calame and Francois Didet, painter and water-colourist, founder of the Geneva landscape school. March: sends a written report to the Academy, with photographs of his studies and drawings. Spring, before May 18: goes to Paris. Early summer: goes to Switzerland, to the Lake of the Four Forest Cantons, then to Düsseldorf. Summer: works from nature in the Teutoburg Forest near Düsseldorf, together with Lev Ramenev and another fellow student, Eugenius Dücker, later a teacher at the Düsseldorf Academy of Fine Arts. July 31: the Council of the Academy approves Shishkin's work abroad, noting especially his successes in engraving. September: returns to Düsseldorf. Sends to St. Petersburg his picture Herd in the Forest (commissioned by the well-known St. Petersburg art collector Nikolai Bykov) and several studies; after a three-year interval, again takes part in the Academy exhibition. Visits Brussels and Antwerp.