Isaac Levitan
(1860-1900)

Isaac Levitan was born in August 1860 in a small Lithuanian town Kybartai. Almost no information about the childhood of the artist. Levitan's father was a minor civil servant. After settling with his family in Moscow, he sought to give his sons a good education. Likely to choose the way of life of Isaac Levitan crucial role played his elder brother - an artist. He often took the boy with him to the sketches for art exhibitions. When Isaac was 13, he was admitted to the number of students the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture.

Years of study in the School of steel for Isaac time of trial, since his parents had died by that time, and was waiting for help from anyone. But in the walls of the school, he not only found a great ability, but was able to say a new word in the Russian landscape. Levitan's teachers were Alexei Savrasov and Vasily Polenov . As a fine artist, Savrasov possessed remarkable qualities of the teacher. Not by chance, along with Levitan, is in his studio, and his influence has formed a galaxy of great landscape painters: KA and C. A. Korovin , M. Nesterov , SI Svetoslavsky, A. Stepanov and other great artists. "Let's all easy Levitan - recalled his friend, the famous Russian painter Mikhail Nesterov - however, he has worked hard, with a slow shutter speed." From the age of 18 he began to exhibit his paintings soon have come to the attention.

Lived mainly in Moscow. He also worked in Ostankino (1880 - 1883), in different places of the Moscow and Tver provinces, in the Crimea (1886, 1899), on the Volga River (1887 - 1890). Was a member of the "Association of the Wanderers." He managed to overcome stage convention classico-romantic landscape, which had preserved at the Wanderers. Unusually susceptible to the impressions of nature, he is in his paintings and watercolors, passed a poetic mood, excited by the sight of her diverse phenomena, thus not allowing to furnish the details, it is true boldly grasped it something from which there is such a mood.

His' landscapes of mood "gained special psychological saturation, expressing the life of the human soul that peers into the mysteries of nature as the center of life (not for nothing was his favorite philosopher Schopenhauer). Sensitively apprehended innovations of Impressionism, he nevertheless never given to pure, joyful play of light and color, staying in the circle of his images, imbued with "the world's longing." Even the early work of the artist surprisingly lyrical ("Autumn day. Sokolniki", 1879). Levitan's mature period as a master of landscape-painting, who knows how to turn a simple image of a typical motif in Russia, opened Birch Grove (1885 - 1889).

Already at that time the sun canvases sometimes give way to the landscape, imbued with a tragic sense of loneliness, boredom. Levitan was seriously ill and he was haunted by the thought of approaching death. Doctors direct Levitan in Italy. "I feel a little better, although still important. In Italy, food, and a week or two of going to Paris to see the exhibition - he writes the artist A. M. Vasnetsov - imagine how lovely we now have in Russia, - the river overflowed, everything comes to life ... There is no better country than Russia! Only in Russia can be a real landscape. "

Poetics of fine works of figurative synthesis spiritualized "Volga period", when the artist along with his friends travels to the Volga ("Evening on the Volga," 1888 "Evening. Golden Pool", 1889, "After the Rain. Ples", 1889, as well as thematically adjoining them painting "Fresh wind. Volga", 1891 - 1895). A particularly strong impression on him Old Believer monasteries over the river and the ancient city Svijazhsk. The far corner of the Russian land, the harsh northern nature prompted the artist theme of his famous painting, "Eternal Rest". Starting work on its composition, Levitan drawn sketches to an abandoned graveyard. He managed to keep the real landscape and give it the grandeur and depth, comprehended as a revelation. Deep Transvolga gave disappear into the night sky purple bands.

Steel surface of the river can be seen from a bird's flight. Like a wing above the water flattened beak on it an old country church and churchyard, wind ruffled the top of the aspens and it seems gusts heeled lid crooked crosses, which put the conservatives. Levitan depicted in the landscape movement and stillness, the quiet hum - banked the tops of the trees and the little bright window of the church, purple horizon and gray water. And over the eternally existing peace of the world, created by the Creator, the wind of time disappear most signs of human presence. Indeed, not only the element of wind pass over the eternal peace, but a man's life passes over the rest is being created. The artist manages to convey a sense of space, airy lightness, joy, contemplation of nature among the colors of the landscape. "I'm all in this picture," - these words of Levitan's latest work can be attributed to all of his best stuff. This "analysis" is usually sad, as in the picture "In Deep Waters" (1892), or in the famous "Vladimir prison" (1892), where on the road, which escorted the prisoners to Siberia, is visible (in the typical manner of the master reduce real human presence to minimize or even to zero) only a tiny figure stranger near a roadside icons.

See also: http://isaak-levitan.ru - site of the artist I.Levitane.