Above eternal peace picture of Levitan history. Levitan I.I.

Description of Levitan’s painting “Above Eternal Peace”

Isaac Ilyich Levitan is a master of mood landscape.
His strokes include many landscapes of Russian nature.
The work “Above Eternal Peace” is considered the most Russian painting ever written.

In this plot of the painting, the artist contrasts the triumphant eternity of nature with the absurdity of human life.
Earthly passions seem insignificant and ridiculous in contrast to the formidable eternity capable of swallowing everything.

The picture is painted in cool shades and not very bright colors.
The upper part of the picture is occupied by cold, massive, leaden clouds.
It seems as if they are about to fall to the ground from their heaviness.
There is a steep cliff in the foreground.
There is a small church and a cemetery on it.
Apparently they have long been forgotten.
The church is very old and rotten, and the cemetery is abandoned, as can be seen from the bent crosses.
The space from the cliff to the clouds is occupied by a lake.
Just looking at him sends shivers down to the bones.
A gloomy and cold vast expanse.
You can see how the wind bends the cemetery trees to the ground.

Levitan’s painting “Above Eternal Peace” evokes many different thoughts.
And perhaps while drawing, its author experienced his own emotional experiences and fears, but whoever looks at it now, feels the same for himself.
Some think about their unfulfilled hopes and dreams, others are saddened by their insignificant life, for others it is like an impetus for a new beginning.
The start of something better and colorful, not dark and cold.
But all these thoughts are united by one, the most basic and final one.
Everyone, looking at the picture, thought about the transience of their existence.
Time does not stand still.
You need to live today and now.
Massive clouds will always be replaced by bright skies and sunshine.
Make your life brighter.

Isaac Levitan. Over eternal peace. 152 x 207.5 cm. 1894. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

Isaac Levitan (1860-1900) believed that the painting “Above Eternal Peace” reflected his essence, his psyche.

But they know this work less than “Golden Autumn” and “March”. After all, the latter are included in the school curriculum. But the picture with grave crosses did not fit in there.

Time to get to know Levitan's masterpiece better.

Where was the painting “Over Eternal Peace” painted?

Lake Udomlya in the Tver region.

I have a special relationship with this land. Every year the whole family vacations in these parts.

This is exactly what nature is like here. Spacious, saturated with oxygen and the smell of grass. The silence here rings in my ears. And you become so saturated with space that you hardly recognize the apartment. Because you need to squeeze yourself back into the walls covered with wallpaper.

The landscape with the lake looks different. Here is a sketch of Levitan, painted from life.

This work seems to reflect the artist’s emotions. Vulnerable, prone to depression, sensitive. It reads in somber shades of green and lead.

But the picture itself was already created in the studio. Levitan left room for emotions, but added reflection.

The meaning of the painting “Above Eternal Peace”

Russian artists of the 19th century often shared ideas for paintings in correspondence with friends and patrons of the arts. Levitan is no exception. Therefore, the meaning of the painting “Above Eternal Peace” is known from the artist’s words.

The artist paints the picture as if from a bird's eye view. We look down at the cemetery. It personifies the eternal peace of people who have already passed away.

Nature is opposed to this eternal peace. She, in turn, personifies eternity. Moreover, a terrifying eternity that will absorb everyone without regret.

Nature is majestic and eternal in comparison with man, weak and short-lived. The endless space and giant clouds are contrasted with a small church with a burning flame.

The church is not made up. The artist captured it in Plyos and transferred it to the expanse of Lake Udomlya. Here in this sketch she is close up.

It seems to me that this realism adds weight to Levitan’s statement. Not an abstract generalized church, but a real one.

Eternity did not spare her either. It burned down 3 years after the artist’s death, in 1903.

It is not surprising that such thoughts visited Levitan. Death stood relentlessly over his shoulder. The artist had a heart defect.

But don’t be surprised if the picture evokes in you other emotions that are not similar to Levitan’s.

At the end of the 19th century, it was fashionable to think in the spirit of “people are grains of sand that mean nothing in the vast world.”

Nowadays the worldview is different. After all, people go into outer space and onto the Internet. And robotic vacuum cleaners roam our apartments.

The role of a grain of sand does not suit modern man at all. Therefore, “Above Eternal Peace” can inspire and even calm. And you won’t feel fear at all.

What is the pictorial merit of the painting?

Levitan is recognizable by its refined forms. Thin tree trunks unmistakably identify the artist.

In the painting “Above Eternal Peace” there are no close-ups of trees. But subtle forms are present. This is a narrow cloud across the thunderclouds. And a barely noticeable branch from the island. And a thin path leading to the church.

Levitan painted the beautiful painting “Above Eternal Peace.” The painting he began working on in the summer of 1893 is now kept in the Tretyakov Gallery. Isaac Ilyich then lived on Tver land among forests, rivers and lakes.

During one of his walks around the area, the artist saw Lake Udomle. On the shore there was a poor rural churchyard, above the water - a large one. A strong wind swayed the tops of the cemetery grove. It is this view that gives rise to Levitan’s idea for a new large painting.

A work that speaks to the viewer

The artist’s brush makes the space of the landscape “Above Eternal Peace” speak. Levitan, whose picture was presented to a wide range of viewers, hoped to tell them about the most important things for a person. And when this work appears in 1894 at the exhibition of the Itinerants, discerning critics will see that this is not even a landscape - it is a picture of the human soul.

Viewers appreciate the painting “Above Eternal Peace” primarily for the way its colors glow. It must be said frankly that Isaac Ilyich Levitan is the artist who made the greatest discovery in Russian art. He rediscovered what the remarkable researcher Academician Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev later called landscape thinking.

Contrasting two worlds

It turns out that in Rus' there has long been an ancient tradition of contemplating spatial images. Observing nature, as they said in the old days, “with smart eyes,” that is, speculation. Or in other words - spiritual reflection on the mysterious things surrounding a person. About God and the soul, about life and death, about the transience of earthly existence.

By contrasting the solemn height of the sky and the deserted, almost lifeless space of the lake, the tragic structure of the picture written by Isaac Levitan is created - “Over Eternal Peace”. Because the viewer feels the presence of two worlds here: time and eternity. Confrontation of simple human concerns with divine perfection.

"Above eternal peace." Levitan. Description of a special spiritual perception

The lake on the canvas looks endless, almost like a sea. And the church crowning the slope with a cross on the onion-shaped dome seems to be likened to a ship. According to the long-standing Evangelical tradition, the head of the church is Christ, and only he can save a person whose life is nothing more than a difficult and dangerous journey through the sea of ​​life.

Sentimentality or a unique gift

Isaac Ilyich Levitan is an artist with a unique gift of spiritual perception of the world. And the painting “Above Eternal Peace” undeniably testifies to this. But there is another very precious piece of evidence, which is contained in the memoirs of the artist Konstantin Alekseevich Korovin, who knew Isaac Ilyich closely.

His memoirs describe how Levitan could lie on the grass for hours in the summer and gaze into the endless expanses of heaven. The sky delighted and inspired him. These are amazing memories. Because, in fact, you can look at Russian nature with different eyes, and everyone perceives it in their own way.

Looking sentimentally, many people feel a sweet sadness in their hearts, and for some it even brings tears. Also, Konstantin Alekseevich Korovin, seeing them in Levitan’s eyes, decided that Isaac Ilyich was too sentimental. But the creator of the painting “Above Eternal Peace” looked at the surrounding nature completely differently. He contemplated the Russian landscape as God's creation. And it was not sweet sadness, but a deep longing for something higher and unattainable that filled him. This is how deeply religious people look at the icon.

Testament to descendants

This is an infinitely talented masterpiece - “Above Eternal Peace”! Levitan, whose painting today occupies one of the most honorable places in the halls of the famous Tretyakov Gallery, was a truly great man, a genius and God's chosen one. Everything he created is incredibly beautiful, new and unusual. Spectators contemplating his creations are filled with a variety of feelings. Some people think about unfulfilled hopes, others think about the meaning or insignificance of human life.

But the most remarkable thing written by Isaac Ilyich, of course, is the creation “Above Eternal Peace.” The brightest and most joyful picture, which remained as a testament for descendants, so that they would look at the sky as often as possible and admire its endless expanses, not forgetting the meaning of their own existence.

Isaac Levitan’s painting “Above Eternal Peace” is the artist’s third work in a dramatic trilogy, which also includes paintings “At the Pool” and. This painting is distinguished by the appearance of a philosophical component in it, which is no less important than admiring nature. The work is filled with loneliness and deep melancholy, which is emphasized by a carefully considered choice of perspective.

The work of the landscape artist amazed many with its emotionality. A grandiose panorama opens up before the audience: a high cape of the coast, the endless expanses of water of the lake and a huge sky with thunderclouds. The cape seems to be floating, but viewers involuntarily direct their gaze forward in the direction of its movement to the small island, to the blue distances on the horizon and then up to the sky. Three elements - earth, water and sky - are covered at once, in one glance, they are depicted in general, with large, clearly defined details. And it is precisely the generality of what is depicted that distinguishes this landscape from the previous ones - the artist creates a majestic, monumental image of nature.

Here, as in other Levitan canvases, nature lives. In this picture, the psychologism characteristic of all the author’s paintings acquires a new quality: here too, nature lives, but with its own life, flowing against the will of man. She is spiritualized, just as nature is spiritualized in fairy tales and epics. The viewer here sees not just the surface of the water in which the surrounding is reflected, as is usual for us, he feels it as a single mass that sways in a huge bowl and glows with a single whitish-leaden color. The sky is also in motion, majestic actions are unfolding on it: randomly piling up, swirling, colliding with each other clouds, darker, leaden-violet, tones and lighter, heavier and lighter ones move. And only a small pink cloud emerging from the gap that appeared between the clouds, a cloud whose outline resembles an island in a lake, calmly floats past and will soon disappear.

Let us also note the earthly part of the picture - a cape with an old church nestled on it, trees swaying by the wind and crooked grave crosses. Earthly life is included in the eternal life of nature. This painting gives birth to thoughts about the meaning of life, about the life and death of man, about immortality, about the infinity of life. Levitan wrote in one of his letters: “Eternity, a terrible eternity, in which generations have drowned and will drown again... What horror, what fear!”

“The painting “Above Eternal Peace” makes you think about the meaning of life and its transience. “I am all in it, with all my psyche, with all my content,” the artist himself said about this picture.

Year of painting: 1894.

Dimensions of the painting: 150 x 206 cm.

Material: canvas.

Writing technique: oil.

Genre: landscape.

Style: realism.

Gallery: State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia.

Isaac Levitan's painting “Above Eternal Peace” is the conclusion of a dramatic trilogy that the artist created in the early 1890s. It is customary to include the paintings “At the Pool” and “Vladimirka” in this trilogy. Many perceive in the painting “Above Eternal Peace” not only a celebration of the eternal beauty of nature, but also a philosophical reflection on the frailty of human existence. A dilapidated wooden church stands on the deserted shore of a huge lake under swirling leaden-purple clouds. In the background there is a sad graveyard, above which the trees are bent under sharp gusts of wind. There is not a soul around, only the light flickering in the church window gives the wanderer little hope of salvation. The picture is filled with a feeling of deep melancholy, loneliness and powerlessness. It was not by chance that the artist determined the angle of display of the image. One can feel the point of view of the author of the picture, which directs the viewer’s gaze upward against the cold air currents.

Levitan’s work “Above Eternal Peace” is rightfully the most striking and significant in the artist’s work. In his letters to P. Tretyakov, Levitan wrote that he himself completely embodied himself in it. With its content and psychological state, it fully corresponds to his mood. It is no coincidence that one of Levitan’s friends called this work “Requiem to myself.” This work was born to the sad, solemn music of Beethoven, namely, the funeral march from the “Eroic Symphony.”

Levitan is considered an artist of sad landscapes. His landscapes often evoke pain and despondency. Many people associate this with memories of the author’s distant and sad childhood, because the landscape is always sad when a person is sad. It is better to look at Levitan’s painting “Above Eternal Peace” slowly and thoughtfully. Like many other works, it does not overwhelm the eye, but rather is precise and modest, similar to Chekhov’s stories, but the deeper you look into it, the sweeter the depth and its piercing becomes. Feeling the beauty of the rains, the artist created the famous paintings “After the Rain” and “Above Eternal Peace.” The painting “Over Eternal Peace” was painted in the Tver province, on the shores of Lake Udomli. In it, the poetry of a stormy rainy day is expressed with great force.

It is perhaps impossible to name another artist other than Levitan who could convey the immeasurable expanses of Russian bad weather with such sad power. The greatness of this storm is felt through peace and triumph.