The seventh brochure, written by Guy Abot and published by the association Les Amis de Nicolas Tarkoff, analyzes an oil on canvas (81 x 65 cm), Children with a cup of milk, representing the artist's children Boris and Jean. It was created in February 1910 by Nicolas Tarkhoff in one of the bedrooms in the apartment-studio located in Place du Maine in Paris where the artist and his family are living.
It is painted with oil directly on the canvas without any primer. As all his works painted in studio, Nicolas Tarkhoff supports his realization on a series of preparatory sketches in pencil or ink and on oil studies, brushed quickly on a cardboard or on a canvas to grantly grasp the instantaneity of light and colors.
He shows in this painting skilful organization of the composition, traced in an instinctive way, by framing the children in a large triangle. In the hierarchy of the elements, Boris, in the foreground, becomes the main actor because of his pink shirt valued by the shades of green of the bedroom wallpaper, his brother's shirt and the bed cover. The colors structure the shapes. The pillow on which Jean is rested restitues the nuances of light in pearly colors. Nicolas Tarkhoff plays all the ranges of complementary colors which reinforce their tones as opposed: reds with greens, yellows with purples, oranges with blues... His touches of colors, characteristics of his plastic language, are written on the canvas like notes of a music score and make the diversity of their sounds in a harmonious whole.
