Description of the picture:
Lake. Russia – Isaac Ilyich Levitan. 1899-1900. Canvas, oil. 149×208
The synthesis of all the impressions and observations of Levitan over the nature of his native land was his last monumental work – “Lake. Russia “.
Levitan (1860-1900) began to work on this canvas in 1899, but the path to the final embodiment of the image lay through many previous years of reflection and observation, expressed in dozens of studies, sketches and options for the future picture. The master put in his canvas his love for the nature of his native country, carried through his whole life. Here, lyricism is combined with monumentality, and in the pictorial solution, the almost impressionistic perception of the natural world is adjacent to the decorative and monumental beginning.
The free breathing of the earth is felt in the strong rounded rhythm of the gentle hills. Beyond the lake, on the far shore, a panorama of villages, arable land, forests. Slender belfries whiten there, cheerful groves stand, and even peasant canvases whitening in the sun are visible – all this is Russia. Levitan wanted to name the picture “Russia,” but he doubted and said to one of his students: “… perhaps only a little pretentious, it’s better to somehow simpler.” The artist filled the landscape with a solemnly majestic melody of the infinitely beloved Russian nature."
