Levitan. Above eternal peace

Looking at the peaceful landscapes of Isaac Levitan, it is difficult to believe that the artist often suffered from depression, because of him, women were ready to commit suicide, and he himself almost shot himself. August 30 marked the 156th anniversary of the birth of the brilliant landscape artist. Levitan did not live to see his 40th birthday for several weeks; he devoted half of his life to painting. On the artist’s birthday, we remember one of his most famous paintings, “Above Eternal Peace,” and little-known facts of his biography.

1. Levitan did not pay for his studies for his success in painting

Isaac Levitan was born in the town of Kybartai (now part of Lithuania). The head of the family, in search of big earnings, moved his family to Moscow in 1870. Here the future artist, at the age of 13, entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. Famous masters taught at Levitan: Vasily Perov, Alexey Savrasov and Vasily Polenov.

A misfortune occurred in the Levitan family. In May 1975, my mother died, and two years later my father also died, who fell ill with typhus. It was a very difficult time for Isaac, his brother and two sisters. Levitan was allowed not to pay tuition for his success in art. The talented young man was supported by his teachers. Savrasov took Isaac to his landscape class. Already at the age of 16, Levitan received recognition. In 1877, an exhibition was held where the aspiring artist presented two of his paintings. For them he received a small silver medal and 220 rubles to continue painting.

Levitan later recalled that his time at school was very difficult. He was malnourished, wore shabby clothes, and was ashamed of his torn shoes. Sometimes he had to spend the night at the school. The artist often found himself in difficult financial situations. Later he rented a room in Moscow on Tverskaya, for which he paid only in paintings. Moreover, the hostess very meticulously chose, in her opinion, the most beautiful works. She also grumbled about why there were no chickens, goats or other animals on them.

2. Levitan received a diploma as a penmanship teacher

Surprisingly, after graduating from college, Levitan was not given an artist’s diploma, although he was considered one of the most talented students. But they didn’t give him a diploma because of revenge on his teacher Alexei Savrasov. When the master drank, he often spoke unflatteringly about the creative abilities of his colleagues. And these colleagues decided to take it out on Levitan at their graduation. Savrasov's favorite student was predicted to receive a large silver medal, but he was not awarded anything, but was given a diploma as a teacher of calligraphy.

3. Vasily Polenov wrote Christ from Levitan

Isaac Levitan had a bright appearance - refined facial features, a deep look of dark, sad eyes. This thoughtfulness of the artist inspired Vasily Polenov, who depicted Levitan in the image of Jesus Christ in the painting “Dreams” of 1894.

Levitan inspired Vasily Polenov’s painting “Dreams” (“On the Mountain”)

4. The artist had an eight-year affair with a married woman

Thanks to his talent and natural beauty, Isaac Levitan has always been the center of women's attention. Although the artist often had affairs, he never married anyone. Levitan said that even the best women are owners by nature. “I can’t do this. All of me can belong only to my quiet, homeless muse, everything else is vanity of vanities,” the landscape painter believed.

Isaac Levitan “Self-portrait”, 1880

And yet the artist also had long affairs. One of them lasted eight years with Sofia Kuvshinnikova, into whose salon the artist once ended up. This married lady was older than him. Kuvshinnikova turned out to be a very extraordinary person. Sophia was fond of hunting, painting, wore elements of a men's suit, her house was decorated in the Russian style, and fishing nets hung on the windows instead of curtains, and a hand-made crane lived in her bedroom. In general, this lady was clearly different from most women of that time, which interested the artist. Kuvshinnikova, who admired Levitan’s works, began taking private lessons from him. In the summer they went to sketches on the Volga.

5. Levitan had a fight with Chekhov over a woman

Isaac Levitan and Anton Chekhov were friends all their lives; they had a warm relationship long before both became famous. They met through the brother of the writer artist Nikolai Chekhov. Anton Pavlovich even came up with a special term in relation to the works of his artist friend. He called them “Levitanists.” Moreover, according to Chekhov, the artist’s paintings had varying degrees of “levitanism.”

Levitan more than once became the prototype for some characters in Chekhov's works. The writer did not approve of his friend’s romance with Kuvshinnikova; he considered her rude. Then Anton Pavlovich wrote the story “The Jumper”, in the heroes of which you can recognize Isaac and Sophia. At first, Levitan chuckled, saying that who else, but not Chekhov, should teach him morality. But gossip around Kuvshinnikova and her affair with the artist began to grow, and she persuaded Levitan to write an offensive letter to Chekhov. The writer also responded in a harsh tone. After that, the friends did not communicate for three years.

6. Levitan found solace in nature

The artist suffered from frequent depression. Although he understood the power of his talent, doubts about his calling periodically came over him, and he was often dissatisfied with himself. During periods of such gloomy moods, Levitan could not see people; he took his dog Vesta with him and went hunting. In fact, he did not hunt, but wandered, enjoying nature, in which he found solace.

7. Levitan dreamed of donating the painting “Above Eternal Peace” to the Tretyakov collection

Isaac Levitan wrote one of his most philosophical paintings, “Above Eternal Peace,” in 1894, six years before his death. He worked on this work in the Tver province. The artist transferred the church depicted in the picture from a previously created sketch on Plyos, where he went with Kuvshinnikova.

The space in the picture is presented in the form of generalized planes of water and sky. In this work, Levitan managed to reflect the confrontation between the eternity of nature and the frailty of human existence. The gloomy grandeur of nature is countered only by a warm light in the window of a small church.

Isaac Levitan “Above Eternal Peace”, 1894

Levitan considered the painting “Above Eternal Peace” to be one of his main works. He said that he was happy to give this painting to collector Pavel Tretyakov. The artist spoke about his work: “Eternity, a terrible eternity, in which generations have drowned and will drown again... What horror, what fear!” Levitan wrote to Tretyakov about the painting “Above Eternal Peace”: “... I am all in it, with all my psyche, with all my content, and it would hurt me to tears if it had passed by your colossal collection...”. Now the painting “Above Eternal Peace” (150x206 cm, oil on canvas) is kept in the Tretyakov Gallery.

8. Levitan shot himself for love

The artist spent a lot of time with Sophia; they often went to paint together. So they went to Lake Ostrovnoye in Vyshnevolotsk district. Nearby was the estate of St. Petersburg senator Ivan Turchaninov, where his wife Anna Nikolaevna and her daughter Varya lived. Anna Nikolaevna was the same age as Kuvshinnikova. Both ladies began to fight for the artist’s attention, and he amused himself by flirting with each in turn.

Sophia understood that Levitan no longer had the same feelings for her and tried to poison herself. She scraped the sulfur from the matches, added it to the water and drank it. They managed to save her - a doctor was visiting the house where she was staying. Levitan needed a new muse and he broke up with Sophia. Unfortunately, Anna Nikolaevna’s daughter, 20-year-old Varya, fell in love with the artist. She threw hysterics at Levitan, demanded that he leave his mother and threatened that he would commit suicide. The artist could no longer stand it and shot himself in the head. The bullet passed through the skin without hitting the skull.

Chekhov found out about this and came to save his friend. The artist did not need serious help. The writer met Levitan with a black bandage on his head, he took it off and went hunting. He returned with a killed seagull, which he threw at Anna Nikolaevna’s feet. Attentive readers of Chekhov's works will note that he used this incident in The Seagull.

Isaac Levitan suffered from heart disease. Anna Nikolaevna was with the artist until the end of his days. Levitan died suddenly in July 1900 at the age of 40.

Isaac Levitan Above Eternal Peace. 1894.

The iconic philosophical painting by Isaac Levitan “Above Eternal Peace” has long attracted attention.

In a letter to P. M. Tretyakov on May 18, 1894, the artist wrote about his painting: “I am so incredibly happy that my work will again reach you that since yesterday I have been in some kind of ecstasy. And this, in fact, is surprising, since you have enough of my things, but the fact that this last one came to you touches me so much because it contains all of me, with all my psyche, with all my content...”

It is known that the artist wrote this work while listening to music. The solemn and sad sounds of Beethoven's funeral march inspired the author and forced him to create a gloomy and almost tragic atmosphere of this work. One of the artist's friends called it "a requiem for himself."

Levitan began work on the painting in the summer of 1893 on Lake Udomlya, near Vyshny Volochok. The church in the picture was painted from the sketch “Wooden church in Plyos at the last rays of the sun.” A sketch of the canvas “Above Eternal Peace” called “Before the Storm” is also kept in the State Tretyakov Gallery.

Isaac Levitan Above Eternal Peace. 1894.

Helplessness, fragility and defenselessness - these are the main feelings that every viewer experiences before this work of the great artist.
In the painting “Above Eternal Peace,” lead clouds hang heavily over the earth. The wide lake opening behind the cliff looks gloomy and harsh. Levitan wrote that he felt “alone, face to face with a huge expanse of water that could simply kill...”.

There is a church on a small cliff, next to it there is a forgotten cemetery, a graveyard, the last refuge... Fragile trees bend under the strong wind, a thin, intermittent path leading to the church is a symbol of oblivion, abandonment, wear and tear.

The elements surrounding the cliff breathe with power. It seems that in one more moment the graveyard will disappear, the church will scatter across the world... Destruction seems inevitable.
The viewer hears the howling of the wind, feels the piercing cold, dampness, and hears the rumble of distant thunder.

In the distance you can see a deserted island, which is rapidly “swimming away” from the cliff. It seems that the island takes with it the souls of the dead, so that eternity absorbs the remnant of the human spirit, the very memories of the departed people.
Human life is insignificant, fleeting and meaningless... The huge space covered by the artist’s gaze presses on the viewer. The viewer experiences an acute feeling of loneliness and defenselessness in front of this eternal peace, which people are afraid to even think about.

The eternal question is what is there, beyond the threshold of eternity, tormenting the author, but he does not find an answer, leaving this search to the viewer.
In an amazing way, the small dome of the church resists the full power of the elements. It is directed strictly upward, and its color, merging with the metallic tones of the sky, creates a feeling of unshakability and strength.

The painting was released at the moment of greatest flowering of the artist’s talent. That is why his idea, philosophical depth, and the refined skill with which this canvas was painted so amazed his contemporaries and amazes his descendants. The content of this picture will be relevant for all generations.

And in its essence it is his spiritual testament, his creative program and the most complete philosophical attitude of the artist to the world and people. Russian poets and musicians admired the work. It served as an impetus for the creation of many musical, poetic and literary works.

OVER ETERNAL REST

Spreading your hand
dark bushes,
I didn’t even find the smell of raspberries,
But I found grave crosses
When I went to the raspberry farm for the barns...

It's fantastically quiet there in the dark,
It's lonely, scary and damp there,
The daisies there don’t seem to be the same -
Like creatures of another world.

And so in the fog of muddy water
The cemetery stood quietly, deaf,
Everything was so mortal and holy,
That there will be no peace for me until the end.

And this sadness, and the holiness of former years
I loved so much in the darkness of my native land,
That I wanted to fall and die
And hug daisies while dying...

Let me go beyond a thousand lands
Takes away life! Let it carry me
Throughout the land there is hope and blizzard,
Which someone can't stand anymore!

When will I sense the proximity of a funeral?
I'll come here, where the white daisies are,
Where is every mortal
buried holy
In the same white sad shirt...

Rubtsov Nikolay

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Other articles about Levitan.

Levitan is the greatest of Russian landscape painters

Heartbreaker Levitan and his beloved woman

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Isaac Levitan. Over eternal peace.

Isaac Levitan.
Over eternal peace.

1894.
Canvas, oil. 150 x 206.
Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia.

“Above Eternal Peace” is the third among the paintings of a unique dramatic trilogy created by Levitan in the first half of the 1890s. - (along with the paintings “At the Pool” and “Vladimirka”).

For the first time in the master’s painting, in addition to the poetic beauty of eternal nature, one can feel a philosophical attitude towards the frailty of human existence. Under swirling leaden-purple clouds, on the steep and deserted shore of a huge lake stretching to the very horizon, stands a dilapidated wooden church.

Behind it, a few trees bending under sharp gusts of wind cover a dull graveyard. And there is not a soul around, and only the dim light in the church window gives a ghostly hope of salvation.

It is no coincidence that the artist chose such a perspective to display the image. The picture is full of feelings of deep melancholy, powerlessness and loneliness, but the author’s point of view is very expressive, which directs the viewer upward, towards the cold air currents.

“Above Eternal Peace” is one of Levitan’s most significant works, about which he himself wrote in a letter to Pavel Tretyakov:

“I’m all in it.
With all my psyche,
with all its content..."

Levitan painted this picture to the sounds of the Funeral March from Beethoven's "Eroic Symphony". It was to such solemn and sad music that the work was born, which one of the artist’s friends called “a requiem to himself.”

Download Symphony No. 3 "Heroic". free on player.com
Sergey Yesenin.
Tears

“The more I saw and spoke with the amazingly sincere, simple, thoughtfully kind Levitan, the more I looked at his deeply poetic landscapes, the more I began to understand and appreciate... great feeling and poetry in art...

I realized that you don't need to copy objects and painstakingly paint them to make them seem as impressive as possible - this is not art.

I realized that in any art the most important thing is feeling and spirit - that verb with which the prophet was commanded to burn the hearts of people. That this verb can sound in paint, in line, and in gesture - as in speech.

From these new impressions I drew the appropriate conclusions for my own work in the theater."
(F.I. Chaliapin).

...Levitan's paintings caused the same pain as memories of a terribly distant, but always tempting childhood.

Levitan was an artist of sad landscapes. The landscape is always sad when a person is sad. For centuries, Russian literature and painting spoke of a boring sky, skinny fields, and lopsided huts. "Russia. poor Russia, your black huts are to me, your songs are windy to me, like the first tears of love."

From generation to generation, man looked at nature with eyes clouded from hunger. She seemed to him as bitter as his fate, like a crust of black wet bread. To a hungry person, even the brilliant sky of the tropics will seem inhospitable.

This is how a stable poison of despondency was developed. He muffled everything, deprived the colors of their light, play, and elegance. The gentle, varied nature of Russia has been slandered for hundreds of years, considered tearful and gloomy.

Artists and writers have lied to her without realizing it.
Levitan was a native of a ghetto, deprived of rights and a future, a native of the Western region - a country of small towns, consumptive artisans, black synagogues, cramped conditions and poverty...

Levitan's paintings require slow viewing. They are not overwhelming to the eye. They are modest and precise, like Chekhov's stories; but the longer you look at them, the sweeter the silence of provincial towns, familiar rivers and country roads becomes...

Levitan saw the beauty of the rains and created his famous “rainy works”: “After the Rain” and “Above Eternal Peace”...

In the painting “Above Eternal Peace” the poetry of a stormy day is expressed with even greater force. The painting was painted on the shore of Lake Udomli in the Tver province.

From the slope, where dark birch trees bend under the gusty wind and a rotten log church stands among these birches, the distance of a remote river, meadows darkened by bad weather, and a huge cloudy sky opens up. Heavy clouds, filled with cold moisture, hang above the ground. Slanting sheets of rain cover the open spaces.

None of the artists before Levitan conveyed with such sad force the immeasurable distances of Russian bad weather. It is so calm and solemn that it feels like greatness.
Konstantin Paustovsky. "Isaac Levitan."

Wikipedia has articles about other people with this surname, see Levitan. Isaac Levitan ... Wikipedia

- (1860 1900), Russian painter. Landscape painter. Studied at MUZHVZ (1873 1885) with A.K. Savrasov and V.D. Polenov; taught there (since 1898). Participant in exhibitions of the Itinerants (since 1884; since 1891 member of the TPHV), the Munich Secession (since 1897), the magazine World ... Art encyclopedia

Isaac Ilyich (1860, Kibartai, Lithuania - 1900, Moscow), Russian painter and graphic artist; outstanding landscape painter. Born into the family of a railway employee. In 1870 he entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (MUZHVZ), where he studied with... ... Art encyclopedia

- (1860 1900), Russian Itinerant painter. The creator of the “mood landscape”, which is characterized by a wealth of poetic associations, a major tone (“March”, 1895; “Lake. Rus'”, 1900) or a mournful spirituality of the image (“Above Eternal Peace”, 1894).... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

Isaac Levitan I. Levitan, Self-portrait (1880) Date of birth: 1860 Place of birth: Kibarty, Kovno province Date of death ... Wikipedia

I. Levitan, Self-portrait (1880) Date of birth: 1860 Place of birth: Kibarty, Kovno province Date of death ... Wikipedia

Isaac Levitan I. Levitan, Self-portrait (1880) Date of birth: 1860 Place of birth: Kibarty, Kovno province Date of death ... Wikipedia

Isaac Levitan I. Levitan, Self-portrait (1880) Date of birth: 1860 Place of birth: Kibarty, Kovno province Date of death ... Wikipedia

Isaac Levitan I. Levitan, Self-portrait (1880) Date of birth: 1860 Place of birth: Kibarty, Kovno province Date of death ... Wikipedia

Books

• Isaac Levitan, . As a rule, we become acquainted with the work of our great painters in early childhood. Whether it’s reproductions of paintings hanging on the walls of kindergartens and schools, or their reduced versions in…
• Masterpieces from A to Z: Issue 4, . With the new project of the publishing house "Gallery of Russian Painting" art lovers will have new - truly unique - opportunities. We offer you the most complete thematic selections...