Portrait of Isaac Ilyich Levitan

Isaac Ilyich Levitan Painting Reproductions 4 of 6

1860-1900

Russian Peredvizhniki Painter

Isaac Ilyich Levitan (August 30, 1860 - July 22 August 4 new style, 1900) was a classical Russian landscape painter who advanced the genre of the mood landscape.

Youth
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 Savrasov, V.G. Perov and Vasiliy Polenov. For his successes at school, Levitan was awarded a box of paints and two dozen brushes.

In 1875, his mother died, and his father fell seriously ill and became unable to support four children; he died in 1879. The family slipped into abject poverty. As patronage for Levitan's talent and achievements and to keep him in the school, he was given a scholarship.

Early work
In 1877, Isaac Levitan's works were first publicly exhibited and earned favorable recognition from the press. 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. In 1880 his painting "Autumn day. Sokolniki" was bought by famous philanthropist and art collector Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov.

In the spring of 1884 Levitan participated in the mobile art exhibition by the group known as the Peredvizhniki and in 1891 became a member of the Peredvizhniki partnership. During his study in the Moscow School of painting, sculpturing and architecture, Levitan befriended Konstantin Korovin, Mikhail Nesterov, architect Fyodor Shekhtel, and the painter Nikolai Chekhov, whose famous brother Anton Chekhov became the artist's closest friend. Levitan often visited Chekhov and some think Levitan was in love with his sister, Maria Pavlovna Chekhova.

In the early 1880s Levitan collaborated with the Chekhov brothers on the illustrated magazine "Moscow" and illustrated the M. Fabritsius edition "Kremlin". Together with Korovin in 1885-1886 he painted scenery for performances of the Private Russian opera of S.I.Mamontov.

In the 1880s he participated in the drawing and watercolor gatherings at Polenov's house.

The landscape of mood
Levitan's work was a profound response to the lyrical charm of the Russian landscape. Levitan did not paint urban landscapes; with the exception of the View of Simonov Monastery (whereabouts unknown), mentioned by Nesterov, the city of Moscow appears only in the painting Illumination of the Kremlin. During the late 1870s he often worked in the vicinity of Moscow, and created the special variant of the "landscape of mood", in which the shape and condition of nature are spiritualized, and become carriers of conditions of the human soul (Autumn day. Sokolniki, 1879). During work in Ostankino, he painted fragments of the mansion's house and park, but he was most fond of poetic places in the forest or modest countryside. Characteristic of his work is a hushed and nearly melancholic reverie amidst pastoral landscapes largely devoid of human presence. Fine examples of these qualities include The Vladimirka Road, 1892 Evening Bells, 1892, and Eternal Rest, 1894, all in the Tretyakov Gallery. Though his late work displayed familiarity with Impressionism, his palette was generally muted, and his tendencies were more naturalistic and poetic than optical or scientific.

Late life
In the summer of 1890 Levitan went to Yuryevets and among numerous landscapes and etudes he painted The View of Krivooserski monastery. So the plan of one of his best pictures, The Silent Monastery, was born. The image of a silent monastery and planked bridges over the river, connecting it with the outside world, expressed the artist's spiritual reflections. It is known that this picture made a strong impression on Chekhov.

In 1897, already world-famous, he was elected to the Imperial Academy of Arts and in 1898 he was named the head of the Landscape Studio at his alma mater.

Levitan spent the last year of his life at Chekhov's home in Crimea. In spite of the effects of a terminal illness, his last works are increasingly filled with light. They reflect tranquility and the eternal beauty of Russian nature.

He was buried in Dorogomilovo Jewish cemetery. In April 1941 Levitan's remains were moved to the Novodevichy Cemetery, next to Chekhov's necropolis. Levitan did not have a family or children.

Isaac Levitan's hugely influential art heritage consists of more than a thousand paintings, among them watercolors, pastels, graphics, and illustrations.

122 Isaac Levitan Paintings

Lake Como, 1894 by Isaac Levitan | Painting Reproduction

Lake Como 1894

Oil Painting
$322
Canvas Print
$49.87
SKU: LEV-8074
Isaac Ilyich Levitan
Original Size: 15.7 x 21.4 cm
Private Collection

Lake. Grey Day, 1895 by Isaac Levitan | Painting Reproduction

Lake. Grey Day 1895

Oil Painting
$368
Canvas Print
$49.87
SKU: LEV-8075
Isaac Ilyich Levitan
Original Size: 47.5 x 57.8 cm
The Nizhniy Novgorod Art Museum, Nizhni Novgorod, Russia

A Crimean Landscape, n.d. by Isaac Levitan | Painting Reproduction

A Crimean Landscape n.d.

Oil Painting
$408
Canvas Print
$49.87
SKU: LEV-8076
Isaac Ilyich Levitan
Original Size: 39.4 x 49.5 cm
Private Collection

Autumn Sunny Day, c.1897/98 by Isaac Levitan | Painting Reproduction

Autumn Sunny Day c.1897/98

Oil Painting
$306
Canvas Print
$49.87
SKU: LEV-8101
Isaac Ilyich Levitan
Original Size: 11.5 x 18.5 cm
The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia

Autumn, a.1890 by Isaac Levitan | Painting Reproduction

Autumn a.1890

Oil Painting
$502
Canvas Print
$49.87
SKU: LEV-8102
Isaac Ilyich Levitan
Original Size: 57 x 76 cm
The Rostov Regional Fine Art Museum, Rostov-on-Don, Russia

Autumn. Road to Village, 1877 by Isaac Levitan | Painting Reproduction

Autumn. Road to Village 1877

Oil Painting
$472
Canvas Print
$50.29
SKU: LEV-8103
Isaac Ilyich Levitan
Original Size: 66 x 44 cm
The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia

Autumn. Mill. Reach, 1888 by Isaac Levitan | Painting Reproduction

Autumn. Mill. Reach 1888

Oil Painting
$518
Canvas Print
$49.87
SKU: LEV-8104
Isaac Ilyich Levitan
Original Size: 41 x 65 cm
The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia

Autumn. River, c.1898/99 by Isaac Levitan | Painting Reproduction

Autumn. River c.1898/99

Oil Painting
$413
Canvas Print
$49.87
SKU: LEV-8105
Isaac Ilyich Levitan
Original Size: 32 x 46.5 cm
Private Collection

Aspen. Grey Day, 1884 by Isaac Levitan | Painting Reproduction

Aspen. Grey Day 1884

Oil Painting
$401
Canvas Print
$49.87
SKU: LEV-8106
Isaac Ilyich Levitan
Original Size: 38.5 x 27.3 cm
National Art Museum of Belarus, Minsk, Belarus

The Rests of the Past. Twilight. Finland, 1897 by Isaac Levitan | Painting Reproduction

The Rests of the Past. Twilight. Finland 1897

Oil Painting
$607
Canvas Print
$49.87
SKU: LEV-8107
Isaac Ilyich Levitan
Original Size: 57 x 87 cm
The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia

Fern in Wood, 1895 by Isaac Levitan | Painting Reproduction

Fern in Wood 1895

Oil Painting
$664
Canvas Print
$49.87
SKU: LEV-8108
Isaac Ilyich Levitan
Original Size: 82.2 x 126.2 cm
The Nizhniy Novgorod Art Museum, Nizhni Novgorod, Russia

Apiary, 1887 by Isaac Levitan | Painting Reproduction

Apiary 1887

Oil Painting
$352
Canvas Print
$49.87
SKU: LEV-8109
Isaac Ilyich Levitan
Original Size: 22.5 x 31.5 cm
The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia

Apiary, a.1880 by Isaac Levitan | Painting Reproduction

Apiary a.1880

Oil Painting
$356
Canvas Print
$49.87
SKU: LEV-8110
Isaac Ilyich Levitan
Original Size: 20.5 x 31 cm
Omsk Regional Museum of Fine Arts M. A. Vrubel, Omsk, Russia

Cloudy Day, 1890 by Isaac Levitan | Painting Reproduction

Cloudy Day 1890

Oil Painting
$501
Canvas Print
$49.87
SKU: LEV-8111
Isaac Ilyich Levitan
Original Size: 32.4 x 57.3 cm
Kareliya Museum of the Fine Arts, Petrozavodsk, Russia

Landscape, 1883 by Isaac Levitan | Painting Reproduction

Landscape 1883

Oil Painting
$498
Canvas Print
$49.87
SKU: LEV-8112
Isaac Ilyich Levitan
Original Size: 42.5 x 74 cm
The State Memorial Estate "The Rostov Kremlin", Rostov, Russia

Landscape, n.d. by Isaac Levitan | Painting Reproduction

Landscape n.d.

Oil Painting
$340
Canvas Print
$49.87
SKU: LEV-8113
Isaac Ilyich Levitan
Original Size: 25 x 34.5 cm
Chelyabinsk Region Picture Gallery, Chelyabinsk, Russia

Landscape, n.d. by Isaac Levitan | Painting Reproduction

Landscape n.d.

Oil Painting
$328
Canvas Print
$49.87
SKU: LEV-8114
Isaac Ilyich Levitan
Original Size: 31 x 26 cm
The State Central Museum of Musical Culture M. I. Glinka, Moscow, Russia

Landscape with Steamship, c.1888/90 by Isaac Levitan | Painting Reproduction

Landscape with Steamship c.1888/90

Oil Painting
$304
Canvas Print
$49.87
SKU: LEV-8115
Isaac Ilyich Levitan
Original Size: unknown
Private Collection

The First Greens. May, c.1883/88 by Isaac Levitan | Painting Reproduction

The First Greens. May c.1883/88

Oil Painting
$463
Canvas Print
$54.56
SKU: LEV-8116
Isaac Ilyich Levitan
Original Size: 42 x 58.7 cm
The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia

Before the Storm, 1879 by Isaac Levitan | Painting Reproduction

Before the Storm 1879

Oil Painting
$693
Canvas Print
$52.49
SKU: LEV-8117
Isaac Ilyich Levitan
Original Size: 72 x 102 cm
The Nizhniy Novgorod Art Museum, Nizhni Novgorod, Russia

Train in Way, 1890 by Isaac Levitan | Painting Reproduction

Train in Way 1890

Oil Painting
$619
Canvas Print
$59.23
SKU: LEV-8118
Isaac Ilyich Levitan
Original Size: 59 x 76 cm
Latvian National Museum of Art, Riga, Latvia

Late Autumn, c.1894/98 by Isaac Levitan | Painting Reproduction

Late Autumn c.1894/98

Oil Painting
$575
Canvas Print
$49.87
SKU: LEV-8119
Isaac Ilyich Levitan
Original Size: 59 x 91 cm
State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia

Portrait of Panafidin, 1891 by Isaac Levitan | Painting Reproduction

Portrait of Panafidin 1891

Oil Painting
$679
Canvas Print
$60.19
SKU: LEV-8120
Isaac Ilyich Levitan
Original Size: 88.5 x 71 cm
Regional Art Gallery, Tver, Russia

Wood-Cutting , 1898 by Isaac Levitan | Painting Reproduction

Wood-Cutting 1898

Oil Painting
$664
Canvas Print
$49.87
SKU: LEV-8121
Isaac Ilyich Levitan
Original Size: 68 x 103.5 cm
The Nizhniy Novgorod Art Museum, Nizhni Novgorod, Russia

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