the emotional landscapes of isaac levitan

isaac levitan was an unknown quantity to me until a few weeks ago when i came across a site dedicated to his work. my knowledge of russian artists to this point has been largely confined to the suprematists. levitan's work is of course diametrically opposed to their work.

i am drawn by the moodiness of his work which captures in the natural world what we would term as “feeling”. his ability to see beyond the impression of landscape that was being popularized by his fellow artists in france, britain, and the united states at that time, and to evoke the subtlety of emotion is his greatest gift.

the following biography can be found in its entirety at: outdoor painting.com.

"isaac levitan was born in 1860 in kybartai, russia (now lithuania). his father moved the family to moscow in the early 1870’s. isaac’s mother and father died while he was attending the moscow college of painting. only seventeen, levitan became homeless. he stayed with friends and family and even slept in the empty classrooms of the college. his tuition was waived because of undue hardship.

isaac’s teachers, vasily polenov and alexei sarasov, stressed the importance of working outdoors. sarasov taught his students to “seek out in the most ordinary and commonplace phenomena the intimate, the infinitely touching and often melancholy features which are strongly felt in our native scenery and which evoke an overwhelming response in our soul.” this was a philosophy that the young levitan would adopt in his own painting.

it was his ability to evoke the subtlest emotions in his landscapes that helped levitan to convey the russian landscape as no one else did. he is often associated with russian impressionism. although he painted in an impressionist manner, levitan cannot be defined by this technique alone. it is this aspect that elevates his art from french impressionism. the french school sought only to convey the fleeting effects of light and contemporary life without any deeper meaning.

isaac levitan was a friend of the writer, anton checkhov. both men shared and nurtured a common view of nature and mankind’s place in it. they both used nature as a metaphor for human emotions in their art. It is an art of the psychological landscape; the landscape of mood and it has influenced generations of artists that have followed him.

in 1897, levitan was diagnosed with a heart condition. three years later, he died at the young age of forty.”

here are some of my favourite paintings by levitan.

vladimirka. 1892

wind. 1895 . . .

high water. 1897

nenufar. 1895


a vast library of levitan’s work is maintained by the good people at abc gallery.