Excursion "Revived Levitan landscapes"

“The whole life, all the work of Levitan passed over his beloved country, over its nature beneficial rain,” wrote the artist G. Nissky, – after him, a wonderful rainbow shone over the Russian landscape, into the gates of which all artists who love their country, their people, their nature should pass. I. Grabar called Levitan “the greatest and wisest master of the Russian landscape”. Korovin recalled that Levitan often could not hold back tears, looking at nature. In it is the truth that is revealed when “the heart sees the Divine in everything,” as the philosopher I. Ilyin said. Levitan himself admitted, "but what to do, I can not be at least a little happy, calm, in short, do not understand myself outside of painting." I have never loved nature so much, I have never been so sensitive to it, I have never felt so strongly this divine thing, spilled in everything, but that not everyone sees, that even it cannot be called, because it is not amenable to reason, analysis, but is comprehended by love. Without this feeling, there can be no true artist.”

The fate of the city of Ples is inextricably linked with the name of the great Russian artist Isaac Levitan. Today we will get acquainted with the life and work of Isaac Levitan in Ples: we will see the house-museum of Levitan, the monument to the painter and his favorite Plesian landscapes.

Isaac Levitan was born in 1860, near the Lithuanian railway station of Kibarty in an educated but poor family. During his studies, Levitan lived hand-in-hand, especially after the death of both parents. The artist M. Nesterov recalled: about “an extremely beautiful elegant Jewish boy there were legends associated with his plight (for example, they said that he did not have a lodging, sleeps in the attic of the old Yushkov house, known as the haunted house”). Undoubtedly, the interest in his person among his peers and older comrades was fueled by the fact that Levitan already then discovered an outstanding talent and was strongly distinguished among his fellow students. Jewish origin has repeatedly caused trouble in the life of the artist. He graduated from the school with a diploma of a “non-class artist”, which gave him the opportunity only to teach cleanliness: it was secretly known that members of the attestation commission considered it inappropriate that the Jewish young man too audaciously declares his involvement in the Russian landscape. The artist was expelled from Moscow twice. The first time in the years of study in 1879, when the imperial administration initiated the eviction of Jews from the capital in connection with the attempt on Alexander 2, committed by the Narodolov Solovyov; and in 1892, for the second time, Levitan is already a well-known artist again forced to leave Moscow (eviction in 24 hours were all Jews). Then Levitan had to hide in the Vladimir province, until friends and influential well-wishers (such was P. Tretyakov, who constantly bought works from the artist) achieved the abolition of deportation. It is noteworthy in this context the phrase of A. Chekhov: “The Jew Levitan is worth five Russians.”

Levitan had a delightful noble face; I rarely saw such expressive eyes afterwards, such an extremely artistic combination of lines. He had a big nose, but in the overall harmony of facial features it was not noticed at all. Women found him beautiful, he knew it and flirted strongly in front of them, Chekhov said. Interestingly, Vasily Polenov chose Isaac Levitan as a model for depicting Christ in the painting “Dreams”. After 1894, Isaac Levitan received the title of academician of landscape painting and began to teach. The artist dreamed of the House of Landscapes, a spacious workshop in which all Russian landscape painters could work side by side. One day, dreaming, Levitan said to his disciples: “And what, gentlemen, if we become famous as Barbizonians!” I'll save money in the Lyon loan, buy out my workshop, and when I'm a very old kalosha or die, you'll build a landscape house in it. Already at the end of the 1870s Levitan began to paint his mood landscapes, in which he not only depicted nature, but also expressed his own feelings.

In 1887 Levitan met Kuvshinnikova, who kept a salon in Moscow. Levitan taught Sophia painting, they spent a lot of time together. In 1887 Levitan went to the Volga. The first trip did not impress the artist. A year later Levitan again went to the Volga region, but together with Kuvshinnikova. Levitan first visited Plyos in the spring of 1888 with his friends Kuvshinnikova and Stepanov. Artists traveled up the Volga on a steamer in search of picturesque places for sketches. The decision to stop came immediately, as soon as a high green hill appeared because of the turn, and on it - a small wooden church and churchyard crosses near it. Kuvshinnikova recalled: At last we got to Plyos, and he immediately fascinated us. We decided to stop, rented two rooms near the shore of the town turned out to be a premium corner, amazingly beautiful, poetic and quiet. We have been doing remarkably well.”” Having collected their luggage, they went down the old villages to the embankment, along which, “like pieces of white sawn sugar” lined up in a series of merchant mansions. Their unusual luggage with easels, etudels and umbrellas from the sun caused an undisguised curiosity among local residents. Sophia Petrovna Kuvshinnikova recalled: We found two rooms near the shore and with the help of hay, carpets, two tables and several benches arranged bivouac. The reckless life of our bohemian, of course, made a strong impression here. The artist here was an unprecedented bird. We've got questions and conversations. Who? How? Why? Why? In the bazaar, all the news about us was reported, what we eat, where we go. But somehow, it soon went quiet. We quickly got used to it, and we were patient. All day long we wandered about the shore and the surrounding area, and every day our huge umbrellas from the white canvas, which we ourselves washed with blue, stood out from the hot light that penetrated this umbrella.

Here Levitan worked extraordinarily hard and fruitfully. He was attracted by golden-headed temples and a wooden church on the top of the mountain, a steep river bank and chamber courtyards, panoramic views and quiet streets, a shining fresh birch grove and gentle wildflowers. The artist accepted Ples as a real “paradise for a landscape painter” and it was here that he experienced the rise that determined his further creative life. In just three seasons in Ples, he wrote about 200 paintings: 23 canvases, as well as sketches, sketches, sketches. According to Nesterov: "... a series of Volga sketches and paintings brought the beginning of real fame to Levitan." They say, “Levitan discovered Ples, Ples glorified Levitan.” “We lived amazingly well,” recalled Kuvshinnikova. Even Levitan ceased to mope, and this mood was reflected in his paintings. Chekhov told him, “Your paintings even have a smile on them.” Ples became for Levitan that cherished corner, where the artist came more than once to find inspiration. Nesterov wrote: There the art of Levitan became stronger, received its face. Completely new techniques and great skill amazed us all the sketches and paintings that Levitan brought to Moscow from the Volga. An outstanding artist, contemporary of Levitan Mikhail Nesterov wrote: Levitan was a “realist” in the deep, imperishable sense of the word: a realist not only of form, of color, but also of the spirit of a subject often hidden from our external gaze. K. Paustovsky noted: Levitan left about 100 autumn paintings, not counting sketches. They depicted things familiar from childhood: lonely golden birches, not yet covered with wind; the sky, like thin ice; shaggy rains over forest cuttings. But in all these landscapes, whatever they depict, the sadness of farewell days, crumbled leaves, decaying grasses, the quiet humming of bees before the cold and the winter sun, barely warming the earth, is best conveyed. It seems that Levitan reveals to us in every bleak corner, in every mown shack and every faint swamp a special singing beauty. Anton Chekhov wrote: “That from the paintings of Levitan blows inexpressible charm, that it is impossible to break away: everything would look at them and look at them.” To such an amazing simplicity and clarity of motive, to which Levitan has recently reached, no one has reached him, and I do not know whether anyone will come after.

In Chekhov’s novel “Three Years” there is an episode where the heroine at an art exhibition considers a painting in the description of which Levitan’s “Quiet Abode” is quite recognizable: In the foreground of the river, through it a log bridge, on that bank a path disappearing into the dark grass ... And in the distance burns the evening dawn... And suddenly it seemed to her that these clouds... She has seen the forest and the field many times. And she wanted to walk and walk and walk along the path, and where there was evening dawn, there was a reflection of something unearthly, eternal, an ocean of pure joy and undimmed bliss. The artist Alexander Benois recalled the appearance of this picture at the exhibition: “It seemed that the shutters were removed from the windows, they opened them wide, and a stream of fresh, fragrant air poured into the old exhibition hall.” The witty Chekhov could not deny himself the pleasure of remembering the name of his friend “in vain” – he formed the adjective “levitative” and widely used it in everyday life. In his letters there are lines: “Nature here is much more levitative than yours”, “I will come to you beautiful as Levitan”, “he was languid as Levitan”. Although the lion’s share of Levitan’s heritage consists of landscapes, among his works there are no less penetrating portraits and still lifes. They also feel admiration for God’s creations and a sense of frailty, transience and fragility of earthly existence. Art historian Vladimir Petrov wrote: Works in this genre of Levitan can hardly be called “dead nature”, so they feel not just the artist’s enjoyment of the beauty of the form and color of flowers, but also “respect” for them feels that for him they were, as he himself said in the late 1890s to his students, “living”, poured juice, reaching for the sun. Isaac Ilyich Levitan himself admitted that in the painting “Above Eternal Peace” he was all, with all his psyche, with all its content. Levitan was always looking for motive and mood. After Levitan's death, 40 unfinished paintings remained. Levitan died on July 22, 1900, Levitan was buried in the old Jewish cemetery, and in 41 his ashes were transferred to the Novodevichy cemetery and placed next to the graves of his friends Chekhov and Nesterov.

The painting "Autumn Mill". Ples" - the most significant among the presented works of Levitan at the 8th periodic exhibition of paintings of the Moscow Society of Art Lovers 18 88-1889. The landscape of Plesa, the Shokhonka river flowing into the Volga, was painted by the artist several times from different viewpoints. Ples, like its surroundings, are characterized by a combination of lyricism and scope, softness and powerful abundance. The landscape invites the viewer to walk around the area, and a special silence and alertness poured into the landscape, like nature, awaits the audience and froze in silence.

The painting “After the Rain. Ples” is a thin and rich display of nature in connection with the life of a small, typical Volga town. Here the life of people, its traces - houses and a church, barges and boats running along the river steamer - play a large role in the image, color the landscape with a special content. The depicted objects are as expressive and emotional as the state of the weather, and together form what can be called the emotional atmosphere of the landscape, its lyrical direct sound.

The painting “Birch Grove” with a fascinating range of emerald green flowers in different shades and transitions depicts a very modest and simple motif of nature. However, in terms of poetry and painting skills, it belongs to one of the best works of Levitan. Having begun work on the painting in Babkin in 1885, he finished it only in the summer of 1889 in Plyos, when he developed in practice his theory of plein-air tonal painting with subtle transitions of light in dim light. Plein-air painting finally destroyed the gray shadows: they became transparent and colored in light and pure tones. From the picture as if blows freshness and smells of a summer sunny day in the forest, there is a sense of joy and freedom of the summer flowering of nature life.

Painting: "Evening. Golden Ples." - one of the masterpieces of Levitan, full of soft noble harmony. The picture from a bird's eye view captures the view of the Volga and the artist's favorite town of Ples at the end of the summer day. With amazing sensitivity, the feeling of peaceful silence, the soft glow of golden pink pre-sunset light, the gentle haze of fog floating over a wide river and enveloping the smooth outlines of churches standing on the shore and houses with a red roof are conveyed. Almost physically felt evening freshness of air, juicy and aroma of herbs covering the hillside. Everything is filled with a sense of the integrity of life, beauty and joy of being: “It seems that now the bell will strike, and prayerful words involuntarily come to mind: Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth, and goodwill in people.”

• Tour of the Plesa