Konstantin Somov’s Rainbow (1897) turns a passing weather scene into something quietly enchanted. Catalogued as Raduga and a Symbolist landscape, it shows figures gathered beneath dark trees as a rainbow breaks across the sky. The sitters are not identified; the drama is atmosphere. Somov, associated with Mir Iskusstva, made art from masks, performance and erotic tension, with same-sex desire threaded through much of his wider work. Here, queerness is a modern read: after darkness, colour arrives and the world opens.
