Artist Isaak Ilich Levitan: biography, creativity

Artist Isaak Ilich Levitan was born in the town of Kibarty (Lithuania) in August 1860. About the childhood, he almost did not tell anyone, so there was no information about this period of his life to his descendants. It is known that his father was some very small employee and struggled to give the children a good education. Isaak Levitan, whose biography begins with the move to Moscow, followed in the footsteps of his brother-artist, who took him to exhibitions, to open-air, to sketches. At the age of thirteen, Isaac was accepted into an art school.

Great teachers

With the teachers, the boy was very lucky, but in general all the years of training brought him severe trials. He by that time remained a round orphan, no one could help him, all problems at this young age had to be solved independently. With such a brilliant landscape painter as Isaak Levitan, the biography was complicated. Abilities in it immediately emerged remarkable, as the teachers were wonderful: Vasily Polenov and Alexei Savrasov - the very names themselves all said about these artists. In addition, the teacher, for example, Savrasov was excellent, brought up a whole cohort of excellent students: Nesterov, both Korovin, Svetoslavsky, Stepanov ...

Levitan, whose biography is described in this article, felt that everything was easy for him, and he was constantly afraid of this ease, worked hard and hard, he was looking for his own style. From the age of eighteen he took part in exhibitions, and his pictures immediately began to speak. Isaak Ilich Levitan immediately became a bright phenomenon in the sphere of Russian culture. As an artist Levitan was very oppressive, but he explored nature, not dissecting it in a medical way, he seemed to be conversing with her in confidence. And no one has learned from her as many secrets as Levitan.

Biography

The artist did not like to go far away from his native nature, he lived mostly in Moscow, he worked in the provinces of Tver and Moscow, twice in the Crimea and many - on the Volga, because he was in the "Wanderers' Association." He lived always quietly, there was no time for excess, because the work took him all the time, all his strength and all his love. All these life-breathing works, created by Levitan, are biographies, the most authentic.

Vision and Feeling

He overcame the scenic conventions of the romantic landscape, which in some places were preserved by the Wanderers' friends. A person extremely sensitive to any impressions of nature in all its manifestations, the artist I. I. Levitan and his picture - each! - this is every time a vision, a "reading" of experience. Musicians have an absolute hearing.

On landscapes, Levitan had an "absolute eye" or "absolute feeling." The same applies to watercolor drawings, where exactly the poetic mood is conveyed exactly, which was the essence of the artistic phenomenon of nature. In watercolors, Levitan, whose landscapes are always extremely reliable, avoided details, but boldly and accurately conveyed the mood that the nature's picture whispered to him.

Philosophy

"Landscapes of mood" Levitan have a rare psychological richness, they invested a huge part of the human soul. He was so able to peer into nature, as if all the secrets of life were concentrated in it (A. Schopenhauer's favorite philosopher of the artist, by the way, that explains his ability precisely). Levitan's paintings were perceived by some innovations of impressionism, but the artist nevertheless could not surrender to the purity and joy of the play of light and color, since he did not cease to stay in the circle of primordially Russian images, and they were always and inevitably enveloped in the "world anguish" inherent in our souls.

Even the earliest works are exceptionally lyrical. The artist I. I. Levitan and his painting "Autumn Day, Sokolniki", as it were, open for us his first period of creativity. In maturity, Levitan, becoming a master of the landscape, he learned even the simplest motive to turn into a typical image of his native country. Creativity Levitan mature opens "Birch Grove". During all the years of his life, from time to time the sun left his paintings, and landscapes were born, filled with tragic apprehensions, melancholy and loneliness. The artist was seriously ill, thoughts of a close death did not leave him. Nevertheless, he did not go to Italy for treatment. "It's only in Russia that a real landscape artist can work," he explained.

Golden Plow

Poetically inspired by the works written by Levitan during a trip along the Volga with friends, the Wanderers. Levitan's "Volga period" in terms of creative efficiency is comparable to Pushkin's "Boldinsky Autumn". The antiquities of Sviyazhsk, the Old Believers crosses over the river, the harsh beauty of the northern nature, the distance from all the magnificent, perishable, unnecessary - that's what the artist II Levitan found there. And his picture was born - real, symbolic - "Above eternal rest".

Etudes of the abandoned churchyard were useful to start work on the composition, so the landscape is real, as often happened, but the artist gave it an extraordinary depth and grandeur, and the earth joined with the sky, giving it the Volga distances, sinking in the evening violet. In addition to this picture, Levitan painted landscapes in a variety - excellent, warm, bright, rich in imagery: "Evening: Golden Pole", "Evening on the Volga", "After the Rain", "Fresh Wind", but truly characteristic, famous There is a recognizable all, it all the same it - "Above eternal rest".

View details

In this picture there is everything: both silence, and a heavy rumble of a large bell, and a graveyard rest, and an endless movement of life. The gray, cold power of the river is shown, as it were, from the height of the flight of a bird, and a narrow cape spread over the water above the water, on which a small old temple is sheltered, and with it a pogost. And the wind continuously and demandingly tears the tops of aspens, and even the crosses tipped, it seems, under his pressure.

But the temple window glows brightly, from this, even the gray water and the dark purple of the horizon seem to lighten. Such is the eternally existing peace of the world, which was created by the Creator: this wind, it seems, drives not clouds, not aspens, but time itself sweeps over this landscape quickly and irrevocably. No sign of human presence in this landscape. There is only space, where the soul is not confused neither by the smallness of details, nor by the vastness of the world. Thus, Levitan's paintings break through to universal harmony.

About the style

The very concept of style is a category of transpersonal. Starting work on the picture, the artist as if enters the proposed game, accepting its terms. Of course, he has the right to rebel against these conditions, to refute them by his manner of writing. Something similar happened to Levitan. In his early works - "The Village", "The Road in the Forest", "The Autumn Day in Sokolniki", "The Watermill", "The Alley Ostankino", "The Garden in the Snow," "Landscape Dali" and others - , Although "suprapersonal," not directly.

The Moscow principles of the painting school, of course, dominate. However, in the above-mentioned picture "Above Eternal Peace", at the highest point of Levitan's philosophical meditation, the Art Nouveau style manifests itself quite loudly. Although it is impossible to single out one style in his works. Levitan's paintings are an endless search. Here, and echoes of romanticism, and realism (landscapes the same!), And symbolism, and impressionism, and Art Nouveau, and expressionism, but they are all claimed only in the densest style compounds. The main thing for Levitan was to catch the motive of the work in its natural state, and the ways to express it, he knew different and enjoyed all as needed.

Composition and form

Compositional work Levitan solved by classical patterns, they are in balance, a kind of graphism. The composition is divided into conditional triangles. For example, this is the case: on the right in the foreground is the shore, then it is on the left, in the direction of the river, then again the ledge of the shore on the right, balanced by the reeds on the left, so the outlet of the river to the horizon is sharpened. All this construction is completed by two boats, whose form as it continues continues to strive for the horizon line. As a result, both parts are combined in a composition: not strict symmetry, but rather, equilibrium.

The volume and space are embodied and interact most clearly in architecture, but in painting something similar should also happen - in the ratio of the background and the subject. And as Isaak Levitan painted a picture of autumn! The most vivid confirmation of this. The trees look very strong, the water is not only transparent, but also wet, and the boats on it, even the tiniest ones, are seen hollow inside, light and floating on the surface of the water.

Color and light

The artist's favorite color is green, and he was able to break it into a dozen shades of one emerald green paint. Even the shadow, he never wrote in black. Thin layers, glaze - that's how Levitan sought the fabulous picturesqueness of his creations. The artist feels the interrelation of color and light genius: for example, the cold light of the moon intensifies in blue, even the greenness turns slightly blue, and the water serves as a reflecting plane. In Levitan, color does not cease to be intense, objects, moving away, darken very slightly.