Isaac Levitan
1861-1900
One of the great masters of Russian landscape, whose influence is still felt to this day, Levitan is, in terms of scope and influence, possibly the Turner of Russia. Levitan was the founder of the ‘mood’ landscape, and was born in the Pale of Settlement to the family of a rabbi. Self-educated, he learned both German and French to the proficiency of a teacher.
At the beginning of 1870 the Levitan family moved to Moscow and Isaac entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. In 1875 the school admitted Nikolai Chekhov, brother of the Russian writer Anton Chekhov, who would later become Levitan’s closest friend.
Levitan’s mother died in 1875, followed by his father in 1877. However, in recognition for his talents and achievements – as well as to help with his Jewish origins (Jews were to all intents and purposes banned from travel in Tsarist Russia) – and to keep him in the school, he was awarded a scholarship.
In 1877, Levitan’s works were first publicly exhibited and earned favourable reviews. But following Alexander Soloviev’s assassination attempt on Alexander II in May 1879, the mass deportation of Jews from the major cities forced Levitan to move to the suburbs. However, in response to complaints from his increasing number of devotees, the artist was allowed to return, meeting Pavel Tretyakov, who continued to purchase Levitan’s works throughout his life.
In the early 1880s Levitan collaborated with the Chekhov brothers on the illustrated magazine Moscow and by the mid 1880s their friendship had deepened. In the spring of 1884 Levitan participated in the mobile exhibition by the Peredvizhniki group, and in 1891 became an official member, no small achievement for someone of Jewish extraction.
Levitan’s work was a profound response to the lyrical charm of the Russian landscape, the ‘landscape of mood’, in which the shape and state of nature are spiritualized, and become carriers of conditions of the human soul. The style varied but was probably closest to Impressionism. Over time his subject matter became more varied, with the ‘silent monastery’ a common theme. Peace is the overwhelming emotion, man’s communication with nature and, by turn, beauty.
In September 1892 Jews were again expelled from Moscow but, such was his influence, that Levitan returned three months later and in 1898 was named the Head of the Landscape Studios of the Imperial Academy of Arts in St Petersburg.
Levitan spent the last year of his life at Chekhov’s home in Crimea suffering the effects of a terminal heart condition. He was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Moscow but, in April 1941 his remains were moved to the Novodevichy Cemetery, next to Chekhov’s.
