According to the mythological tales of Polynesia, the creation of the universe started with a cosmic egg being laid by a gigantic bird into an endless and shapeless ancient ocean. Sunrise by the Ocean, an acrylic painting on canvas created by Russian artist Vladimir Kush in 1991, is a fantasy landscape, creating various types of moods with the application of elements and principles of design. It primarily depicts a very intense yellow sun between two eggshell halves, rising from the ocean in a grey sky at the first hours of dawn before the sun has illuminated the sky.

It is the nascent sun, not yet taken its final form and craps of original matter continue to flow from the burning sphere rising over the ocean. While the sky and the earth emerged from the two halves of the broken egg, the yolk gave birth to the sun, signalling the beginning of life. The broken egg symbolises the Big Bang moment, the beginning of the world, when the time began, which is the key feature of the painting, drawn directly in the middle of the painting.

There are two eggshell halves placed on either side of the entrance to the bay, flanking the newborn sun. It is the nascent sun, not yet taken its final form and the scraps of original matter continue to flow from the burning sphere rising over the ocean.

The rays of the newly formed rising sun light up the whole canvas with its invincible rays, covering the space entirely, the land, water, the long valley as far as the eye can see. The egg, which had just opened, shines with a thousand lights and its shell is held as by ramparts to maintain it, with men above, as if they were on the scaffolding, either to unravel the mystery of the egg, either they seek to take care of it or to maintain it.

Barring the broken egg, the painting depicts a few thin and grey clouds in the sky directly above the sun, shining from the rays of the sun passing through them and a grey ocean, instead of traditional blue, flowing forward into a bay in the foreground of the painting. However, the beige coloured beach, looking dark and drab, barren and lifeless, with the only plants being dead, twisted and broken tree trunks, depicts a different story with a man pulling a canoe onto the beach in the foreground and a woman, appears to be sitting by the lake, alone. Apart from that, there is nothing around, no sign of civilization, which implies that the sun is represented as the one who brings life, fertility and humanity to men.

Surrealist painter and sculptor Vladimir was born in Moscow in 1965 and studied at the Surikov Moscow Art Institute. After working for several years in Moscow as an artist, he finally immigrated to the United States and earned International recognition in 2011, when he won the first prize in Painting at the Artistes du Monde international exhibition in Cannes. Although he is frequently described as surrealist, he refers to it as metaphorical realism.It is maintained by many art critics that Sunrise by the Ocean, created by Vladimir Kush in 1991, is influenced by ‘Geopolitical child observing the birth of the new man’, painted by the famous Spanish artist Salvador Dali or it could be perfectly interpreted as to its continuity, because both the works contain several obvious common features.