Who is Levitan Isaak Ilyich?

Isaak Ilich Levitan - a brilliant Russian landscape painter, a Jew by nationality. That's who Levitan is.

Early life

In 1860, the second son, Isaac, was born in the family of an educated Jewish philistine Ilya Levitan. The poor family on the verge of a beggarly existence lived at that time in Lithuania in the town of Kirbaty. Ilya Levitan himself was an interpreter, then he taught languages. In search of a better life, they all moved to Moscow. The existence of the family from this is not better. They settled on the outskirts on the fourth floor in a small apartment. There was no money at all. Children could not even go to school, because there was nothing to pay. Father himself was engaged with them.

At the age of 13, Isaak entered the Moscow School of Painting and Sculpture. He immediately, without hesitation, decided that he would be a landscape painter. Even their miserable apartment was good because from it you could admire the setting sun for a long time.

When Isaac was fifteen years old, his mother died. And two years later, when he contracted typhus, his father also died. Simultaneously, he fell ill with typhoid and Isaac, but he recovered, but the consequences affected his whole life - he was weak in health. How they survived, starving, four young children without financial assistance, they know only themselves. Neither Isaac nor his brother ever told anyone about his childhood and adolescence. Perhaps their memories were so bitter and bleak.

In the school

First Levitan studied with Vasily Perov, but in the fourth grade he was invited to his class of landscape by Alexei Savrasov. Levitan studied easily, but all the same he worked hard and hard. Pictures created by him in 16 years, "Autumn. Road in the village "and" Evening ", are now in the State Tretyakov Gallery. And then the school marked them with a silver medal and monetary aid.

Eviction of Jews from Moscow

In 1879, a decree was issued prohibiting Jews from living in the ancient capital of Russia. Who is Levitan? An outcast that does not belong where life is boiling. The brothers settled near Moscow in a summer cottage in Saltykovka. The places there were beautiful. What else should a landscape painter? Paint and canvas, and maybe just a pencil and paper, watercolor, ink, pen. All that can serve as educational material for depicting the state of nature, its mood. But Levitan goes to Moscow every day. And not in vain. At the exhibition in 1879 his picture "Autumn day. Sokolniki. " In her, a female figure wrote the brother of A. Chekhov Nicholas. Picture-elegy immediately appreciated and bought PM Tretyakov. Levitan does not have "pass-through" works. He is still studying, but what a gamut of colors reigns on the canvas "Oak", permeated with the sun! The painter is extremely sensitive to the subtle changes in nature and knows how to convey them. But neither talent nor skill prevented Levitan from gaining the title of artist at the end of the school in 1885. Who is Levitan after the school? Master of calligraphy.

Acquaintance with A. Chekhov

After graduation there was no diploma, no money from Isaak Levitan. He settled near Moscow near Babkino, where the Chekhovs' family was staying. Anton Pavlovich and Isaak Ilyich will meet for the first time here. To the ill Levitan his friend Mikhail Chekhov will bring his brother-doctor. So their acquaintance will take place. The confused and suspicious Levitan literally blossom, communicating with the cheerful and cheerful Chekhov family, where everyone is ready for inventions and rallies, and Anton Pavlovich himself serves as the ringleader. The joy and smile of life will flow from the canvas "Birch Grove", which will begin to write here Isaak Ilich Levitan. His and Chekhov's biography will often be intertwined. Here he will continue to explain his love for Russian nature, so simple and mild, but sometimes amazingly joyful and majeure. A. Chekhov nature of the Moscow region for some time began to be called "levitanical." A little later, Isaak Ilyich Levitan will present a photo to AP Chekhov with a dedicatory inscription. The closeness of the two artists is said and two small paintings, which the painter gave the writer. One is called "Istra River", and the second is "Oak and Birch". On it against the background of the forest thicket passes a narrow path, next to which stands a powerful oak, and to it gently the thin white birch grows. Both landscapes were above Anton Pavlovitch's desk together with the artist's photograph.

"Birch Grove"

Everything in this line is filled with light. He, shimmering, plays on the trunks, making them even brighter and whiter. The sun permeates the foliage, each tree reaches out to it and lavishes under its rays. It's amazing how many shades of green the artist found for his work. Only a sophisticated master colorist can work with almost two colors, without inducing the viewer to experience the monotony and paleness of the color palette. On the contrary, it is rich and does not merge into one mass. And the bluish bells in the foreground reinforce the impression of the juiciness of the young grass that filled the lawn.

Crimea in the life of the artist

At this time, in the mid-80s, the material condition of the artist was improving, after he had worked for Mamontov, but his health was deteriorating, and for his amendment he went to the Crimea. There he first came to rapture, wrote romantic works, and then, as he admitted in letters to A. Chekhov, he got bored in the North. He returned back and exhibited Crimean landscapes ("Tatar cemetery, Crimea", "At the seashore, Crimea", "Ai-Petri", "Crimean landscape", "In the Crimean mountains") at the Moscow exhibition. They were all redeemed in the first days. Life, led by Isaak Ilich Levitan, the biography and paintings of the artist are described step by step in the article.

Travel by boat

The first trip across the Volga, undertaken in the spring of 1887, proved unsuccessful. It was gray, rainy and cold weather. A strong wind blew from the Volga. Disappointed artist returned. But the Volga is not one of those rivers that you can forget. The next year he again went to the Volga. Here he found the town of Plyos, the neighborhood of which became the impetus for creativity not for one year. In the "Evening on the Volga" slowly and majestic river flows immense width. There is no end in it, no land. On the other shore, even the forest is not clearly visible. It stands on the opposite bank of the hillsides with a bluish strip in the gathering twilight and melts in the distance, turning into a thin strip. The Volga is calm. The evening clouds are reflected in its water. Only high-high glows the golden sunlight, the setting sun, which is behind the painter's back.

"After the rain. Plyos, 1889

The river is also immense. But everything on it is washed by the last rain and shines with a special silvery light. This purity and ripples on the river remind of rain, which brought renewal to nature. People are present indirectly. Communication with them occurs through an urban landscape in the distance, and boats, and barges on the shore. The depicted world is poetic and spiritual. So who is Levitan? He is a poet who picked up a brush and not in words, but with colors and a picture, speaks of harmony, which is sometimes possible.

Journey to Western Europe

In the years 1889-1890. Levitan goes to get acquainted with modern painting in France and Italy. In addition, he saw works by artists of the Barbizon school and the Impressionists, Levitan himself wrote many landscapes. However, towards the end of the journey, he was already irresistibly drawn home, to everything that he knew and felt with all his heart.

The period of the peak of the creation of spiritual values

The nineties - the heyday of creativity Levitan. And the artist himself. He was always handsome, but now he has become an elegant fashionable man who, besides that, attracted people with sensitivity and delicacy. In his eyes shone, according to Shalyapin, "a rare poetic soul." In 1890, Levitan wrote "A quiet abode", which linked together a number of impressions of the artist from the monasteries of Plyos and Moscow region, seen by the Russian man more than once, and which, in Chekhov's opinion, evoked the desire to go farther and farther into the ocean of pure bliss. Levitan, like no other, revealed the mystery of Russian nature, its quiet beauty.

Personal turmoil

On the Volga I. Levitan went not alone. Among others he was accompanied by artist S. Kuvshinnikova. This lady was carried away by the amorous and passionate Isaac Ilyich Levitan. His biography was supplemented by a novel with an ugly but elegant and intelligent lady who was older than him for 12 years. They began to be talked about. After all, Kuvshinnikova was married to a doctor. AP Chekhov wrote a story "Jumping", in which everyone saw this pair. And Levitan was offended and broke off relations with A. Chekhov. They were reconciled by L. L. Shchepkina-Kupernik. But from Levitan it was a formal reconciliation, because he was so offended that he wanted a duel. Such was the suspicious Isaak Ilich Levitan. Interesting facts about his life are also connected with Chekhov. The most charming Levitan became a member of Senator Turchaninov's house. He was carried away by his wife, and the daughter of the senator fell in love with Levitan. At this time, as never before, Levitan painted still lifes with flowers. Then he painted in one of the visits the painting "March", depicting the estate of the Turchaninovs. This is the bright end of winter, which no one has seen before. It has white snow, a dazzling blue sky, blue shadows on the snow. After Levitan, this motif was often repeated in the pictures of Yuon and Grabar. Let's return to the Turchaninovs' house. In this novel, the young girl interfered completely with nothing, and this leads Levitan out of balance, and the artist even shoots. Chekhov felt in it some kind of theatricality, because the wound was not dangerous for life. In addition, at that moment Levitan killed a seagull, which he brought into the house and threw at the feet of women. This was a tragicomic incident in which Isaac Ilyich Levitan was wounded. The facts from the artist's life became a creative impulse for AP Chekhov and were reflected in the play "The Seagull".

In the Whirlpool (1892)

At this time, Levitan experienced his unsuccessful novels with Kuvshinnikova and Turchaninova and projected his inner experiences on nature. Anxiety is the main motive of this work, which covers the viewer. In the same places and Pushkin wrote his "Mermaid".

"Vladimirka" (1892)

The endless road of convicts to Siberia. In any weather, people went to hard labor in shackles in the vast expanses and under the scorching sun, and under the pouring cold autumn rains. This desolate tract so excited Levitan that in several breathless sessions he painted a picture and presented it to Pavel Tretyakov.

"Over eternal rest" (1894)

Cape, dilapidated chapel, cemetery. The wind bends thin trees, and it seems that a little more and he will demolish both the churchyard and the church. The expanse of the lake under the sky with the overhanging leaden clouds is boundless. Nature, indifferent to man, is eternal. She brings sad melancholy and reflections on the eternal - about the loneliness of man, about his smallness in the vast expanses. A person feels like a grain of sand. The composition of the picture is strict and clear. Two-thirds of the canvas occupies the sky. Only the dome of the chapel, directed to the sky, resists the power of the elements. Faith and only faith will help a person to stand.

"Spring. Great water "(1897)

The last years of the painter are his huge rise. It is impossible to describe everything that Isaak Ilich Levitan created at this time, whose work is extremely diverse. Lyrics and light poetry - this is his work "Spring. Great water. " Since childhood, spring has been his favorite season. And now a wise man sings a hymn to a resurgent beauty with a gentle blue sky, azure water, thin light tree trunks. Here, in this enchanted land, silence reigns and peace, in which everyone dissolves, who is brought to look at the canvas. So, who is Levitan? The artist-philosopher, lyric artist, who was the best able to express the charm of the discreet Russian nature and its quiet charm.

Heart disease cut short the life of the creator when he was thirty-nine years old. He died in 1900. Too early Isaak Ilyich Levitan passed away. Creativity, all the pictures, the most outstanding, we tried to analyze, not missing the main thing - his ability to fill the breath of life with his works. Now his remains are at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.