Why the genius of the Russian landscape Isaac Levitan twice tried to commit suicide

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Isaac Ilyich Levitan - one of the outstanding Russian landscape painters, who discovered at the end of the 19th century for art lovers the simple beauty of Russian nature. For twenty years of his career, the artist left a huge artistic heritage. Some of his contemporaries called Isaac Levitan "a lucky loser." Indeed, the great artist was not very lucky in his personal life …

There are various versions about the origin of Levitan. Officially, he was born into a family of Lithuanian Jews Elyasha and Basi Levitan, and the date of birth is considered to be August 18, 1860. The boy was the second child of four children in the family.

According to the second version, which became known quite recently, Isaac was born into the family of Elyash's younger brother Khatskel and his wife Dobra on October 3, 1860. And presumably Isaac Levitan (Itzik Leib) was taken from the impoverished Khatskel family to be raised by the Levitans as a "poor relative." This version explains that all Levitan's life

But be that as it may, Elyash (Ilya) Levitan, wishing to improve his financial situation and give his children a decent education, in the early 1870s moved his family to Moscow, where they still remained in extreme poverty. However, when the sons decided to study painting, the father did not resist. And Abel (Adolf) Levitan, and after him the 13-year-old Isaac, enter the art school. They were called so in the plural: "Levitans". Yes, and the brothers were very similar to each other.

The plight of the family was such that the leadership of the school at times allocated material assistance to the brothers, and in 1876 they were exempted from tuition fees "due to extreme poverty" and as "having made great strides in the arts."

And after the death of his father, the worst times came. In the late 1870s, their Jewish family, like all Jews living in the capital, were expelled from Moscow by decree of Emperor Alexander II after an attempt on his life. The Levitans settled in a rented dacha near Moscow in Saltykovka. In those difficult times, Abel painted a portrait of his brother, where he is depicted as very young.

And Isaac at that time was drinking heavily on landscapes, unable to show anyone his work. Since there was nothing to get out of even to the railway station: only one sole remained from the boots, which I tied to my feet with ropes. The jacket and trousers were worn down to holes.

At the school, Levitan was one of the most talented students. His teachers Savrasov and Polenov predicted a great future for him as a landscape painter. But due to many reasons, including the national factor, Levitan was released from the school in 1884 with the title of "out-of-class artist", which gave him the right to teach only calligraphy., - wrote K. Paustovsky, -

And in 1891 Isaac Ilyich was admitted to the Association of the Itinerants. Collectors bought his unique landscapes for good money. And seven years later, Levitan was awarded the title of academician of landscape painting. He became a teacher at the very school in which he was so poorly certified. The artist's financial situation stabilized, and in the last years of his life he visited France, Italy, Switzerland.

After 30 years, Levitan became very painful: the beggarly student life from hand to mouth made itself felt. Many of his acquaintances claimed that the artist, as a student, sometimes lived on three kopecks a day. And having lost his home and fleeing the cold in winter frosts, he secretly spent the night at the school.

Twice in his life, the artist fell ill with typhus. After the second time, he received an aggravation of heart disease, which became the reason for the death of the artist, who did not live to be forty years old.

In addition, Levitan suffered from melancholy, depression, a suicidal state: he twice tried to commit suicide. And all because of unfulfilled love, dissatisfaction with oneself and personal disorder. Isaac Ilyich shot himself twice. But, fortunately, the attempts were unsuccessful. - he wrote.

However, despite all the troubles of life, he had great success with women. His appearance was so attractive that it is not surprising that many portraits were painted from him by contemporary artists, including Vasily Polenov, Valentin Serov, and fellow students Nikolai Chekhov, Alexei Stepanov.

“, - writes the biographer of the painter Ivan Evdokimov. -

Women fell in love with the handsome artist and lost their heads, but despite this, the poor artist's personal life did not work out. Although he was quite amorous, and sometimes, for the sake of the object of his passion, he did crazy things.

(This graphic portrait was painted by Valentin Serov a year after the death of the great landscape painter.)

Levitan's landscapes are closer to music than to painting

But a simple Russian landscape for the artist was above all love:

Natural scientist K. Timiryazev once said: "Levitan is the Pushkin of the Russian landscape." And he was right. The lightness of Pushkin's poems and Levitan's virtuoso brush is an ingenious skill brought to a unique perfection.

The master possessed a unique gift of making the landscape speak. For this he absolutely did not need "neither people, nor animals, nor even birds." His teacher A. Savrasov said: What Levitan embodied in his "mood landscapes"

Canvas “Autumn Day. Sokolniki "is one of the most iconic works in the work of Isaac Levitan, thanks to which he became known as a landscape painter. In 1879, Pavel Tretyakov himself purchased this canvas from a student of the Moscow School of Painting and Sculpture Levitan for 100 rubles. For comparison: ten years later he paid the painter three thousand for the painting "At the Pool".

Remarkably, the figure of a girl in dark clothes was painted by Nikolai Chekhov, an artist and brother of the famous writer Anton Pavlovich, with whom Levitan had been friends since his student days.

Two years after the death of the artist, brother Abel put a monument on his grave. And in the spring of 1941, Levitan's grave was moved to the Novodevichy cemetery.

Was in the life of Levitan and scandalous love story connected with a married lady Sophia Kuvshinnikova, which almost ended in tragedy.