He later said of that period, "If I decided to be a landscape painter, then I needed to create such paintings that can compete with other genres in the strength of their influence. My extraordinary teachers taught me to paint. With their help, I grasped the laws of composition and perspective--they developed my taste. The ability to distinguish between colors was given to me at birth, but I had to work hard to achieve everything else. In my paintings I never strove to depict the most typical features of reality--which was the main goal of socialist realism, the leading politically derived style in our country. I had different intentions: I wanted to convey to people the beauty of the surrounding world, to awaken the best feelings in them. I always felt that the main thrust of a persons life should be uplifting and ennobling the soul and that art plays a crucial role in this development."