Isaac Levitan
Isaac Levitan
Isaac Levitan (August 30, 1860 – August 4 1900) was a classical Russian landscape painter who advanced the genre of the mood landscape.
Isaac Levitan was born in a shtetl of Kybartai, Kaunas region, Lithuania, into a poor but educated Jewish family. His father Elyashiv Levitan was the son of a rabbi, completed a Yeshiva and was self-educated. He taught German and French in Kaunas and later worked as a translator at a railway bridge construction for a French building company. At the beginning of 1870 the Levitan family moved to Moscow.
In September 1873, Isaac Levitan entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture where his older brother Avel had already studied for two years. After a year in the copying class Isaac transferred into a naturalistic class, and soon thereafter into a landscape class. Levitan’s teachers were the famous Alexei Savrasov, Vasily Perov and Vasily Polenov.
In 1875, his mother died, and his father fell seriously ill and became unable to support four children. He died in 1877. The family slipped into abject poverty. As patronage for Levitan’s talent and achievements, his Jewish origins and to keep him in the school, he was given a scholarship.
After Alexander Soloviev’s assassination attempt on Alexander II, in May 1879, mass deportations of Jews from big cities of the Russian Empire forced the family to move to the suburb of Saltykovka, but in the fall officials responded to pressure from art devotees, and Levitan was allowed to return.
Levitan’s work was a profound response to the lyrical charm of the Russian landscape.
Self portrait, 1880
Indian ink, brush and white on yellow paper,
The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia ▼
Autumn Day. Sokolniki, 1879
Oil on canvas,
The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia ▼
Sunny Day. Spring, 1877
Oil on canvas,
Private collection ▼
Village in winter, 1878
Oil on canvas,
The Art Museum, Tula, Russia ▼
Evening in the field, 1883
Oil on canvas,
The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia ▼
Oak, 1880
Oil on canvas,
The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia ▼
Barns, 1880
Oil on canvas mounted on cardboard,
The Picture Gallery, Vologda, Russia ▼
House with broom-trees, 1880
Oil on canvas mounted on cardboard,
The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia ▼
Village on the bank of a river, 1880
Oil on canvas,
The A. N. Radishchev Museum of Arts,
Saratov, Russia ▼
The first green. May, 1883
Oil on canvas,
The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia ▼
Boulevard in the evening, 1883
Oil on canvas,
The Picture Gallery of Armenia, Erevan, Armenia ▼
Sunny day, 1884
Oil on canvas,
Art Museum of the Uzbekistan, Tashkent, Uzbekistan ▼
Footbridge. Savvina Sloboda, 1884
Oil on canvas,
The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia ▼
Jewish woman in an oriental shawl, 1884
Water color on paper,
Museum-Estate of V. Polenov, Tula region, Russia ▼
The Istra river, 1886
Oil on canvas,
The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia ▼
In the mountains in the Crimea, 1886
Oil on canvas,
The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia ▼
On the Volga,1888
Oil on canvas,
The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia ▼
Evening on the Volga, 1888
Oil on canvas,
The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia ▼
Golden autumn. Village, 1889
Oil on canvas,
The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia ▼
After the rain. Plyos, 1889
Oil on canvas,
The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia ▼
Mediterranean seacoast, 1890
Oil on canvas,
The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia ▼
By the riverside, 1890
Oil on cardboard,
The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia ▼
Sunset over a forest lake, 1890
Oil on canvas, Private collection ▼
Autumn landscape, 1890
Patel on cardboard,
The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia ▼
Autumn landscape with a church, 1890
Pastel on paper,
The Russian Museum,
St. Petersburg, Russia ▼
Deep waters, 1892
Oil on canvas, Private collection ▼
Vladimirka road, 1892
Oil on canvas,
The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia ▼
Autumn. The Manor, 1894
Pastel on paper,
Museum of Fine Arts,
Omsk, Russia ▼
Above eternal peace, 1894
Oil on canvas,
The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia ▼
Late autumn, 1898
Oil on canvas,
The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia ▼
Fresh wind. Volga, 1895
Oil on canvas,
The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia ▼
Cloudy day, 1895
Pastel on paper,
The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia ▼
Footpath in a forest, ferns, 1895
Oil on cardboard,
The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia ▼
March, 1895
Oil on canvas,
The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia ▼
Stormy day, 1897
Oil on canvas,
The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia ▼
Spring flood, 1897
Oil on canvas,
The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia ▼
Remains of the past. Twilight. Finland, 1897
Oil on canvas,
The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia ▼
The lake, 1899
Oil on canvas mounted on panel,
The Art Museum of Nizhniy Novgorod, Russia ▼
Meadow on the edge of a forest, 1898
Pastel on paper,
The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia ▼
Haystacks. Twilight., 1899
Oil on cardboard,
The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia ▼
Landscape with an Izba, 1899
Sketch, Oil on canvas,
Art Museum of the Uzbek Republic, Tashkent, Uzbekistan ▼
Fog. Autumn, 1899
Watecolor and white on cardboard,
The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia ▼
Summer evening. Village outskirts, 1900
Oil on cardboard,
The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia ▼
Hay making, 1900
Oil on cardboard, Unfinished
The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia ▼
Haymaking, 1900
Oil on paper mounted on cardboard,
The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia ▼
The apiary
Oil on canvas, Private collection ▼
Corniche, Southern France
Oil on cardboard, The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia ▼
The twilight. The Moon
Oil on cardboard,
The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia ▼
Landscape with buildings
Oil on cardboard,
The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia ▼
Small hut in a meadow
Oil on cardboard,
The Kostroma District Museum of Visual Arts,
Kostroma, Russia ▼
Valley of the river. Autumn
Pastel on paper,
The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia ▼
