Levitan's paintings autumn day Sokolniki. Essay-description based on the painting by I.I. Levitan “Autumn day. Sokolniki. Description of Levitan’s painting “Autumn Day. Sokolniki"

The most beautiful painting “Autumn day. Sokolniki" was created by the great master of the brush - I.I. Levitan.

The viewer is shown a beautiful time of year - autumn. We see a long alley, which is lined with maple trees on both sides. I think this road is located in the park and residents of the town often walk along it. At the moment, a lonely woman is walking along it. She is wearing a dark dress. Her gait is quiet and calm. I think she is enjoying the surrounding beauty, the bright yellow maple leaves that have slowly begun to crumble to the ground.

The tall trees in the background of the picture are still completely green, which indicates that autumn has recently come into its own.

The artist depicted the sky in gray colors. Fluffy clouds float across it. Most likely, it will start to rain soon and everything in the park will become wet and tatty.

Peering at the picture more closely, I see that the wind is blowing in the park. He develops a dark women's dress. The heroine of the picture at some moments seems to be resisting strong gusts of wind. The trees bend down and quickly say goodbye to their bright autumn outfits. Walking in this weather is not particularly pleasant. After all, the body is completely penetrated by the cold wind and you want to quickly hide in a cozy and warm apartment. But the woman is not afraid of such inconspicuous weather. She walks alone with her thoughts. Most likely, she has something to think about and reflect on.

Painting “Autumn day. Sokolniki" has its own peculiarity. It turns out that I.I. Levitan never painted people on his canvases. Where did the image of a woman come from? Not surprisingly, it was completed by Chekhov’s brother A.P. It turns out that this painting was created by two artists. And it seems to me that without a female character, the picture would be less realistic and exciting. It is the female person, painted in dark colors, that attracts the viewer’s attention, making the picture bewitching and mysterious.

Autumn day. Sokolniki - Isaac Ilyich Levitan. 1879. Oil on canvas. 63.5 x 50 cm

It all started with how I lured the young artist Isaac from his life class. Under the leadership of Savrasov, Levitan's complete transformation took place. The complex, beggarly life of the aspiring painter did not turn into accusatory stories, but, on the contrary, transformed Isaac Ilyich into a subtle lyricist, feeling and contemplative. This is exactly what Savrasov demanded of him: “...write, study, but most importantly, feel!” And young Isaac studied...and felt, of course.

Already in 1879, a wonderful painting appeared dedicated to Sokolniki Park on one of the gloomy autumn days. The nineteen-year-old student at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture immediately attracted the attention of the public, and most importantly, Pavel Tretyakov. The keen eye of this outstanding Russian patron of the arts did not miss a single significant work, especially when it showed not only technique, but also poetry of color, plot, truthfulness, and soul, finally. “Autumn day. Sokolniki" met all these parameters, so it is not surprising that he bought the work directly from a student exhibition, which immediately attracted close public attention to its author.

What do we see in the picture? A deserted alley of the park, strewn with yellow fallen leaves. The grass is still green, but the color is not as bright as in summer, but on the contrary, withered like autumn. Young trees grow along the road. They were planted quite recently, which is why they are so thin, with sparse crumbling foliage, and in some places it is completely absent. As a contrast to this young growth, the edges of the picture were “surrounded” by the old trees of the park. Tall, powerful, dark green and slightly gloomy. And above this entire poetic landscape, clouds float, gray and gloomy, creating the feeling of a damp, cloudy day.

The central element of the picture is the heroine, but her presence does not “steal” the main role from nature. Rather, it acts as a kind of tuning fork for the mood created by this park and the autumn day. Just as he had nothing to do with bears since his most famous work, Levitan is not the author of this remarkable, lonely figure. The girl in a dark dress walking straight from the canvas towards the viewer was painted by Nikolai Chekhov, a Russian artist and brother of the famous writer Anton Pavlovich.

The general mood of the canvas is sad and nostalgic, and there is an explanation for this. It was during this period that Levitan was subjected to the first eviction from, according to a decree prohibiting the residence of Jews in the city. Living in Saltykovka, Levitan recalled his favorite landscapes, lovingly transferring them to canvas.

A close examination of the painting reveals a broad brushwork style – both the road and the crowns are painted with sweeping strokes. However, taking a couple of steps from the frame, all these wide movements of the brush merge into an iridescent surface, and the blurriness of the palette adds airiness to the landscape.

Another amazing property of the canvas is sound imaging. It seems that you can quite clearly hear the gusty but short movements of the autumn wind, the creaking of tall pines, lonely rustling steps along the path, the rustling of leaves.

Everything in this picture is surprising and atmospheric. The gaze stubbornly clings to individual elements, which are built into a coherent, laconic, but emotional image. And the last detail is a quick look at the name, catchy and capacious. Like Blok’s sacramental “Night. Street. Flashlight. Pharmacy”, Levitan’s is no less exhaustive – “Autumn Day. Sokolniki".

Artist, Isaac Levitan - the history of the painting "Autumn Day. Sokolniki"

Our information: Levitan's painting "Autumn Day. Sokolniki" was written in 1879 and is located in the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. Isaac Ilyich Levitan was born on August 18, 1860 (August 30, new style) in the village of Kibarty, near the Verzhbolovo station, Suwalki province, in the family of a railway employee. He painted more than 1000 paintings. Date of death: July 22 (August 4), 1900 (age 39).

Turns out!

"Autumn day. Sokolniki" - the only landscape by Isaac Levitan, where a person is present, and then this the person was not written by Levitan and Nikolai Pavlovich Chekhov (1858-1889), brother of the well-known Russian writer Anton Pavlovich Chekhov. After that, people never appeared on his canvases. They were replaced by forests and pastures, foggy floods and the poor huts of Russia, voiceless and lonely, just as man was voiceless and lonely at that time.

How did Levitan meet Chekhov?

Levitan left the Moscow School of Painting and Sculpture without a diploma or means of livelihood. There was no money at all. In April 1885, Isaac Levitan settled not far from Babkin, in the remote village of Maksimovka. The Chekhov family was visiting the Kiselyov estate in Babkino. Levitan met A.P. Chekhov, whose friendship lasted throughout his life. In the mid-1880s, the artist's financial situation improved. However, a hungry childhood, a restless life, and hard work affected his health - his heart disease worsened sharply. A trip to Crimea in 1886 strengthened Levitan's strength. Upon returning from Crimea, Isaac Levitan organizes an exhibition of fifty landscapes.

In 1879, the police evicted Levitan from Moscow to the dacha area of ​​Saltykovka. A royal decree was issued banning Jews from living in the “original Russian capital.” Levitan was eighteen years old at that time. Levitan later recalled the summer in Saltykovka as the most difficult in his life. It was intensely hot. Almost every day the sky was covered with thunderstorms, thunder grumbled, dry weeds rustled from the wind under the windows, but not a drop of rain fell. The twilight was especially oppressive. Lights were being turned on on the balcony of the neighboring dacha. Night butterflies beat in clouds against the lamp glasses. Balls were clattering on the croquet court. The schoolchildren and girls fooled around and quarreled, finishing the game, and then, late in the evening, a woman’s voice sang a sad romance in the garden:

Click on the picture to enlarge the full size of the painting "Autumn day. Sokolniki"

That was the time when the poems of Polonsky, Maykov and Apukhtin were better known than simple Pushkin melodies, and Levitan did not even know that the words of this romance belonged to Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin.

My voice for you is both gentle and languid
The late silence of the dark night is disturbing.
Near my bed there is a sad candle
Lit; my poems, merging and murmuring,
Streams of love flow, flow, full of you.
In the darkness your eyes shine before me,
They smile at me, and I hear sounds:
My friend, my gentle friend... I love... yours... yours!...

A.S. Pushkin.

In the evenings he listened to the singing of a stranger from behind the fence, he also remembered
one romance about how “love wept.”
He wanted to see the woman who sang so loudly and sadly, to see
girls playing croquet and schoolchildren driving with shouts of victory
wooden balls to the railway track itself. He was thirsty
tea from clean glasses on the balcony, touching a slice of lemon with a spoon, waiting a long time,
until a transparent thread of apricot jam drips from the same spoon. To him
I wanted to laugh and fool around, play burners, sing until midnight, run around
on giant steps and listen to the excited whispers of schoolchildren about the writer
Garshina, who wrote the story “Four Days,” which was banned by censorship. He wanted
look into the eyes of a singing woman - the eyes of those singing are always half-closed and full
sad beauty.
But Levitan was poor, almost beggarly. The checkered jacket was completely worn out.
The young man grew out of him. Hands, smeared with oil paint, stuck out of the sleeves,
like a bird's feet. All summer Levitan walked barefoot. Where did you go in such an outfit?
appear in front of cheerful summer residents!
And Levitan was hiding. He took a boat, swam it into the reeds on
at the dacha pond and wrote sketches - no one bothered him in the boat.
Writing sketches in the forest or fields was more dangerous. Here it was possible
bump into the bright umbrella of a dandy reading Albov’s book in the shade of the birches,
or a governess cackling over a brood of children. And no one knew how to despise
Poverty is as offensive as the governess.
Levitan hid from the summer residents, yearned for the night songster and wrote sketches.
He completely forgot that at home, at the School of Painting and Sculpture, Savrasov
predicted Corot's glory for him, and his comrades - the Korovin brothers and Nikolai Chekhov - everyone
once there was a debate over his paintings about the charms of a real Russian landscape.
Corot's future glory was drowned without a trace in resentment towards life, torn elbows and
worn out soles.
Levitan wrote a lot in the air that summer. This is what Savrasov ordered. Somehow
in the spring, Savrasov came to the workshop on Myasnitskaya drunk, and in his heart beat out
dusty window and hurt my hand.
- What are you writing? - he shouted in a crying voice, wiping his dirty nose
blood on a handkerchief. -Tobacco smoke? Manure? Gray porridge?
Clouds rushed past the broken window, the sun lay in hot spots on
domes, and abundant fluff from dandelions flew - at that time all Moscow
the courtyards were overgrown with dandelions.
“Drive the sun onto the canvas,” Savrasov shouted, and the door was already
the old watchman looked disapprovingly - “Evil spirits.” - Spring
missed the warmth! The snow was melting, cold water was running through the ravines - why not
Did I see this in your sketches? The linden trees were blooming, the rains were as if
water, and silver poured from the sky - where is all this on your canvases? Shame and
nonsense!

From the time of this cruel scolding, Levitan began to work in the air.
At first it was difficult for him to get used to the new sensation of colors. What's in
in smoky rooms it seemed bright and clean, in the air it seemed incomprehensible
it was completely withered and covered with a cloudy coating.
Levitan strove to paint in such a way that the air could be felt in his paintings,
embracing with its transparency every blade of grass, every leaf and haystack. All
all around seemed immersed in something calm, blue and shiny. Levitan
called this something air. But it was not the same air as it was
seems to us. We breathe it, we feel its smell, cold or warmth.
Levitan felt it as a boundless environment of transparent substance, which
gave such a captivating softness to his canvases.

Summer is over. The stranger's voice was heard less and less. Somehow at dusk
Levitan met a young woman at the gate of his house. Her narrow hands turned white
from under black lace. The sleeves of the dress were trimmed with lace. soft cloud
covered the sky. It was raining sparsely. The flowers in the front gardens smelled bitter. On
Lanterns were lit on the railway booms.

The stranger stood at the gate and tried to open a small umbrella, but he
didn't open up. Finally it opened, and the rain rustled on its silk
top. The stranger slowly walked towards the station. Levitan did not see her face - it
was covered with an umbrella. She also did not see Levitan’s face, she only noticed
his bare, dirty feet and raised her umbrella so as not to catch Levitan. IN
in the wrong light he saw a pale face. It seemed familiar to him and
beautiful.
Levitan returned to his closet and lay down. The candle was smoking, the rain was humming,
drunks were crying at the stations. Longing for maternal, sisterly, feminine love
entered Levitan's heart from then on and did not leave him until the last days of his life.
That same fall, Levitan wrote “Autumn Day in Sokolniki.” It was
his first painting, where there is a gray and golden autumn, sad, like the one of that time
Russian life, like the life of Levitan himself, breathed from the canvas cautiously
warmth and tugged at the hearts of the audience.
Along the path of Sokolniki Park, through heaps of fallen leaves, a young woman walked
the woman in black is that stranger whose voice Levitan could not forget.
“My voice is both gentle and languid for you...” She was alone in the autumn
groves, and this loneliness surrounded her with a feeling of sadness and thoughtfulness.

The painting "Autumn Day. Sokolniki" was noticed by the audience and received, perhaps, the highest possible rating at that time - acquired by Pavel Tretyakov, the founder of the famous State Tretyakov Gallery, a sensitive lover of landscape painting, who put above all not the "beauty of nature", but the soul, unity of poetry and truth. Subsequently, Tretyakov no longer let Levitan out of his sight, and it was rare that a year did not acquire new works from him for his collection. The painting "Autumn Day. Sokolniki" is one of Tretyakov's pearls!

Konstantin Paustovsky "Isaac Levitan"

BIOGRAPHY of Isaac Levitan:

The fate of Isaac Ilyich Levitan was sad and happy. Sad - because, as often happened with Russian poets and artists, he was given a short life span, and in less than forty years of his life, he experienced the hardships of poverty, homeless orphanhood, national humiliation, and discord with an unfair, abnormal reality. Happy - for if, as L.N. Tolstoy said, the basis of human happiness is the opportunity to “be with nature, see it, talk with it,” then Levitan, like few others, was given the opportunity to comprehend the happiness of “conversation” with nature, closeness to her. He also learned the joy of recognition, understanding of his creative aspirations by his contemporaries, and friendship with the best of them.

The life of Isaac Ilyich Levitan ended prematurely at the very turn of the 19th and 20th centuries; he, as it were, summed up in his work many of the best features of Russian art of the last century.

Levitan wrote about a thousand paintings, sketches, drawings, and sketches in less than a quarter of a century.

The happiness of the artist, who sang his song and managed to talk to the landscape alone, remained with him and was given to people.

Contemporaries left many confessions that it was thanks to Levitan that native nature “appeared to us as something new and at the same time very close... dear and dear.” “The backyard of an ordinary village, a group of bushes by a stream, two barges near the bank of a wide river, or a group of yellowed autumn birches - everything turned under his brush into paintings full of poetic mood and, looking at them, we felt that this is exactly what we have always seen, but somehow they didn’t notice.”

N. Benois recalled that “only with the advent of Levitan’s paintings” did he believe in the beauty of Russian nature, and not in “beauty.” “It turned out that the cold vault of her sky is beautiful, her twilight is beautiful... the scarlet glow of the setting sun, and the brown, spring rivers... all the relationships of her special colors are beautiful... All the lines, even the calmest and simplest, are beautiful.”

The most famous works of Levitan, Isaac Ilyich.

Autumn day. Sokolniki (1879)
Evening on the Volga (1888, Tretyakov Gallery)
Evening. Golden Reach (1889, Tretyakov Gallery)
Gold autumn. Slobodka (1889, Russian Museum)
Birch Grove (1889, Tretyakov Gallery)
After the rain. Plyos (1889, Tretyakov Gallery)
At the whirlpool (1892, Tretyakov Gallery)
Vladimirka (1892, Tretyakov Gallery)
Above Eternal Peace (1894, Tretyakov Gallery). Collective image. Used view of the lake. Ostrovno and view from Krasilnikovaya Hill to Lake Udomlya, Tverskaya Gubernia.
March (1895, Tretyakov Gallery). Mustache type “Gorka” Turchaninova I. N. near the village. Ostrovno. Tver lips
Autumn. Estate. (1894, Omsk Museum). Mustache type "Gorka" of the Turchaninovs near the village. Ostrovno. Tver lips
Spring is big water (1896-1897, Tretyakov Gallery). View of the Syezha River in Tver Province.
Golden Autumn (1895, Tretyakov Gallery). The Syezha River near the us. "Slide". Tver lips
Nenyufary (1895, Tretyakov Gallery). Landscape on the lake Ostrovno u us. "Slide". Tver lips
Autumn landscape with a church (1893-1895, Tretyakov Gallery). Church in the village Ostrovno. Tver lips
Lake Ostrovno (1894-1895, Melikhovo village). Landscape from us. Slide. Tver lips
Autumn landscape with a church (1893-1895, Russian Museum). Church in the village Islandly from us. Ostrovno (Ushakovs). Tver lips
The last rays of the sun (Last days of autumn) (1899, Tretyakov Gallery). Entrance to the village of Petrova Gora. Tver lips
Twilight. Haystacks (1899, Tretyakov Gallery)
Twilight (1900, Tretyakov Gallery)
Lake. Rus. (1899-1900, Russian Museum)

What do other sources write about the painting "Autumn Day. Sokolniki"?

Leaves are falling in the garden
Couple spins after couple -
Lonely I wander
Along the leaves in the old alley,
There is new love in the heart,
And I want to answer
Songs to the heart - and again
Carefree happiness to meet.
Why does my soul hurt?
Who is sad, feeling sorry for me?
The wind moans and dusts
Along the birch alley,
Tears oppress my heart,
And they circle in the gloomy garden,
Yellow leaves are flying
With a sad noise!

I.A. Bunin. "Leaves are falling in the garden..."

Painting Autumn day. Sokolniki (1879, State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow) is evidence of Levitan’s assimilation of the poetic traditions and achievements of Russian and European landscape and the originality of his lyrical gift. Capturing an alley of an old park strewn with fallen leaves, along which an elegant young woman in black walks quietly (Levitan’s college friend Nikolai Chekhov, the writer’s brother, helped him paint it), the artist filled the picture with elegiac and sad feelings of autumn withering and human loneliness. A smoothly curving alley, thin yellowed maples and dark tall coniferous trees framing it, a damp haze of air - everything in the picture “participates” in the creation of a soulful and holistic “musical” figurative structure. The clouds floating across the cloudy sky are wonderfully painted. The painting was noticed by the audience and received, perhaps, the highest possible rating at that time - it was acquired by Pavel Tretyakov, a sensitive lover of landscape painting, who valued above all not “beauty” in it, but the soul, the unity of poetry and truth. Vladimir Petrov.

Autumn rainy, but quiet and thoughtful day. Large pines raised their peaks high into the sky, and next to them on the sides of the alley stand small, recently planted maples in golden autumn attire. The alley goes far into the depths, slightly bending, as if drawing our gaze there. And straight towards us, in the opposite direction, a thoughtful female figure in a dark dress is slowly moving.

Levitan strives to convey the humidity of the air on a stormy autumn day: the distance melts into haze, the air is felt in the sky, and in the bluish tones below, under large trees, and in the blurred outlines of the trunks and crowns of trees. The overall muted color scheme of the painting is based on the combination of the soft dark green of the pine trees with the gray sky, the blue of the tones below them and in contrast with the warm yellow of the maples and their fallen leaves on the path. Airiness, that is, the image of the atmosphere, plays a crucial role in conveying the state and emotional expressiveness of the landscape, its autumn dampness and silence.

Levitan replaces the subject-matter and detailing of his previous landscapes with a broader style of painting. It rather means trees, their trunks, crowns, and maple foliage. The picture is painted with thinly diluted paint; the shapes of objects are given directly by a brush stroke, and not by linear means. This style of painting was a natural desire to convey the general state, so to speak, the “weather” of the landscape, to convey the humidity of the air, which seems to envelop objects and erase their outlines.

The contrast of the vastness of the sky and the height of the pines with the relatively small figure makes her so lonely in this desolation of the park. The image is imbued with dynamics: the path runs into the distance, clouds rush across the sky, the figure moves towards us, the yellow leaves that have just been swept to the edges of the path seem to rustle, and the disheveled tops of the pine trees seem to sway in the sky. A.A. Fedorov-Davydov

An essay based on a painting by student 8A Natalia Kochanova. In his painting Autumn day. Sokolniki Levitan depicted an alley strewn with fallen leaves, along which a young woman in black is walking. In this landscape, Levitan showed all the beauty of Russian autumn. It highlights several main motives. In the painting, the artist combines the shimmer of gold and opal shades of fallen leaves, which turn into the gloomy, dark green colors of pine needles. The gloomy grayish sky contrasts expressively with the road, which contains almost all the variety of shades and colors of the picture. All this creates a brooding, gloomy image. It seems to read the lyrics of Russian poetry. Autumn day. Sokolniki? one of the few paintings by Levitan that contains a deep meaning and image of thoughtfulness and loneliness. And the image of a lonely, sad woman, very expressively combined with the gloomy image of the landscape, enhances the overall impression of the picture. I really liked this picture.

CHEKHOV AND LEVITAN The story of one painting:

In 1879, an unheard-of event occurred at the school on Myasnitskaya: 18-year-old Levitan, the favorite student of the old, picky Savrasov, painted a masterful painting - Autumn Day. Sokolniki. The first to see this painting was his closest friend Nikolai Chekhov.

“I’ll introduce you to my friend someday,” I said to Anton the other day, meaning Levitan. - You should like him. So thin, somewhat sickly-looking, but proud! Ooo! His face is extremely beautiful. The hair is black and curly, and the eyes are so sad and big. His poverty defies description: he spends the night secretly in the school, hiding from the angry guard, or visits acquaintances... And what a talent! The whole school expects a lot from him, unless, of course, he dies of hunger... God knows what he’s always dressed in: a jacket with a patch all over the back, thin leg braces from a crafty market on his feet and, you know, rags only set off his innate artistry. You remind each other in some way... However, you will see for yourself.

So, when I squeezed into Levitan’s closet, he listened with interest to the news about his brother’s arrival, and then began to show his summer work. His success was impressive. Sketches - one better than the other.

Yes, you worked hard, what’s more, unlike me... The sketches are glowing, you’ve definitely caught the sun. It's not fake. Well, you see, friend, isn't it time for you to move on to the nail stuff?

Levitan smiled mysteriously in response to my words, climbed into a dark corner, rummaged around there and placed a rather large canvas in front of me. It was that same autumn day. Sokolniki, where, in fact, the list of Levitan’s famous creations begins. Who doesn’t remember: an alley in Sokolnichesky Park, tall pines, a stormy sky with clouds, fallen leaves... that’s all! I was silent for a long time. How did he manage to get used to the most ordinary landscape with such force and through a deserted alley and a tearful sky to convey the sadness and thoughtfulness of Russian autumn! Witchcraft!

At first I didn’t want to show it... I don’t know if I was able to convey the melancholy feelings of loneliness... In the summer, in Saltykovka, summer residents threw all sorts of offensive words at me, called me a ragamuffin, ordered me not to hang around under the windows... In the evening everyone was having fun, but I didn’t know where to go I mean, I avoided everyone. A woman was singing in the garden. I leaned against the fence and listened. She was probably young, beautiful, how could I approach her and talk to her? This is not for me. I am an outcast... - Levitan fell silent dejectedly.

And it seemed to me that something was missing in his picture...

A woman’s figure, that’s what’s missing! Let her walk alone through the autumn park, slender, attractive, in a long black dress... I managed to convince Levitan, he reluctantly agreed, I drew the woman’s figure.

Painting Autumn day. Sokolniki was shown at the second student exhibition. As usual, all of Moscow came to the vernissage. My brother Anton and I were there (by that time he had become a medical student). And here is Levitan in person, pale and fussy with excitement. He glanced at his landscape, hanging three halls away. Before the Autumn day there were crowds of people all the time. Anton suggested going to the central hall of the exhibition to compare other paintings with Levitan’s canvas, but Isaac was stubborn. We left him, God be with him, let him worry. Soon Savrasov appeared at the exhibition. Shaking his beard and striding so loudly that the floorboards cracked, he walked through the halls like a hurricane.

Disgrace, one! Written with mud, not paint! And it's full of flies! Craft! Academician of painting Savrasov does not understand anything, or he understands a lot, but the artist needs to keep such rubbish under the closet and cover the tubs with cucumbers! You can't drag it into the white light! Shame! And nonsense, nonsense!!!

Clumsy, huge in the shoulders, he moved from hall to hall, accompanied by the hostile glances of offended students, and, moreover, professors, from whose workshops bad things came out. Many in the school did not like Savrasov for his directness and hot temper.

Autumn day. I'll find out. I recognize the alley; wild birds have moved south. Cats scratch at my heart. There are many paintings at the exhibition, but there is only one soul. Here she is, heartfelt. Mmmm... Five! Excuse me, excuse me, with a minus, with two, but where is Isaac?! Why did he slam an unnecessary woman into the landscape?! Where is he?! Where is he?!!!

What is it, Anton? I see that Savrasov has completely charmed you.

Haha, really... Wonderful, wonderful, lively, hot, smart. Well, Isaac, you're in luck. Such a mentor! When I watched The Rooks Arriving, I couldn’t help but think that such a subtle thing could only be written by a remarkable person, a clever one, and I was not mistaken. I'm glad you dragged me to the opening day. Savrasov alone is worth something! How he, how he smashed all sorts of rubbish!

In the evening, when the public had subsided, Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov came to the exhibition. He examined the paintings meticulously, without rushing. The students became silent, watching the great collector of the best national paintings. Even famous artists dreamed of selling a painting to his gallery. When Tretyakov approached Autumn Day, Levitan shuddered. But Tretyakov, after briefly glancing at the canvas, moved on. Isaac did not know how to hide his feelings, he nervously walked around the hall. Well, now I’m even feeling better. Now at least everything is clear. Pavel Mikhailovich knows a lot, he understands, he understands...

Mmmm... Poor guy, he’s completely exhausted, it’s a shame, it’s a shame! I put so many feelings into it, but didn’t make an impression...

Yes-ah... Listen, Nikolai, shall we take him to our place today?

Wonderful!

We'll drink tea, Masha and her friends will cheer you up, the landscape painter will step away a little and believe in himself again.

Very good!

Check this out!

Tretyakov is back again before an autumn day! I think it's biting! The name is Levitan! Need to go! Quicker! Isaac! Isaac!

Well, good luck.

Several years have passed since that happy day when Tretyakov bought the first painting by Isaac Ilyich Levitan. The voices of envious people gradually fell silent, and it became obvious that the incident at the student exhibition was not a misunderstanding, that the exceptional talent of the young landscape painter was growing stronger every day. Levitan worked a lot near Moscow, the everyday world appeared on his canvases and cardboards. Familiar to everyone, the roads that densely intertwined the whole of Russia, forest edges, clouds, slopes, slow rivers, but there was something unusually fresh and personal in all this, and it stopped one’s attention. Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, with whom the artist had an increasingly stronger friendship, even came up with an apt word - “Levitanist”. He wrote in letters: “nature here is much more Levitanistic than yours.” The Artist's fame grew, but life was still difficult for him.

Autumn mood, the mysterious depth of the forest, the harmony of nature and a woman - we see all this in the painting “Autumn Day. Sokolniki" by artist Isaac Levitan. What mood did the famous author want to convey?

How was the picture created?

Levitan painted mainly landscapes. Painting “Autumn day. Sokolniki” he wrote when he lived in the village. At that moment, he felt loneliness and melancholy, which he conveyed in all the colors of autumn. When Isaac Levitan showed the painting to his friend Nikolai Chekhov, he advised the artist to finish painting a woman walking along the road, and not only advised, but also persuaded him to do it. Thus, in Levitan’s beautiful autumn landscape a charming young woman appeared, already painted by Chekhov.

Painting “Autumn day. Sokolniki"

Whether the picture benefited from this is for connoisseurs of this work to judge.

The painting measures 63.5 by 50 cm.

Description of the picture

In his painting “Autumn Day. Sokolniki" Isaac Levitan conveyed the wonderful Russian autumn. The winding path goes into the distance, showered with autumn leaves. Centuries-old trees frame the road, mysteriously bending over it, all whispering the mysterious song of autumn; at the same time, young trees with golden crowns convey the sound of the breeze that drives the clouds hanging over the road. Clouds fly somewhere, driving away sad, anxious thoughts. There is a lonely bench on the side of the road, as if it is waiting for a traveler who wants to sit down and rest, think, maybe reflect on life or dream.

A woman in a black dress walks lonely along the road. It seems to personify sadness, loneliness, sadness, thoughtfulness, and evokes philosophical thoughts. She harmonizes with the deep mood of the landscape itself, complementing it with her image and at the same time dissonating with it. Or maybe she will be the one who stops near the bench, sits down and thinks about how she can continue to walk along the road of life. But we can only guess about this.

With the help of blurred colors, the artist conveyed the silence of the park, autumn dampness, sadness, beauty, melancholy, sadness. Looking at the picture, you can even feel the smell of leaves and the rustle of the wind, catch the movement of clouds that seem to be about to rain.

Painting “Autumn day. Sokolniki" became the calling card of the young artist Levitan. It was exhibited at the student vernissage and attracted the attention of connoisseurs, artists, and spectators. Tretyakov, seeing the painting, was impressed and wanted to buy it. So the painting ended up in his gallery and became its pearl. It was with this painting that Pavel Tretyakov’s gallery began.

In this painting, the author not only depicted an autumn landscape, but conveyed his mood and feelings. And he drew it so skillfully that the viewer could feel it and understand it. She became an inspiration for musicians and writers who wrote poetry, composed melodies, conveying all the colors of mood, range of feelings, and the charm of autumn.

Isaac Ilyich Levitan’s painting “Autumn Day in Sokolniki” from 1879 is one of a kind and happy for the artist!

The fact is that in this picture, for the first and last time in Levitan’s artistic life, a person was depicted at work. The lonely, fragile figure of a woman was not painted by Isaac Ilyich himself. His friend, brother of the writer Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, Nikolai Pavlovich Chekhov, helped him in this.

The history of this particular painting is wonderfully described in Konstantin Paustovsky’s essay “Isaac Levitan.”

Levitan did not graduate from the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. He had no diploma, no money. In addition, according to the royal decree, Jews were forbidden to live in the capital, and he was evicted to Saltykovka, located near Moscow. There, for the first time, Isaac Ilyich, who was eighteen years old at that moment, began to paint in the air, learning, on the advice of Alexei Kondratyevich Savrasov, to convey “air” in a painting.

Since the artist had no income, he was extremely poor and did not consider it possible to communicate with the circle of summer residents who were in the village at that moment.

The young man spent the entire summer in the reeds, on a boat with a sketchbook, trying to convey the summer state of the rural landscape.

Laughter, children running by and a young voice singing romances excited the young man. One day he saw his neighbor at the end of summer, walking quickly past his abode. She carried a small umbrella in her hands, and the sleeves of her elegant dress were trimmed with black lace, emphasizing the whiteness of her hands. The melancholy inspired by the words of the romance and the beauty of the Moscow region gave the artist a reason to paint an autumn landscape. The high, cloudy, bright sky almost meets the horizon with a path strewn with fallen leaves. The forest is still dark and the grass is still green, but the young maples planted along the droshky are already shining with the autumn flames of yellow, orange and red leaves.

Memories of a mysterious neighbor forced Levitan to turn to his fellow student Nikolai Chekhov, who entered the sad silhouette into the landscape.

The fragile female figure seems so lonely, so small in this endless air space framed by the mysterious dark wall of the forest. The woman is dressed in black, as if she is mourning for the summer.

This painting was the first one purchased from Levitan by Tretyakov for his collection.

Throughout the artist’s life, Isaac Ilyich Levitan was under the close attention of Tretyakov, who often bought works from him.

Levitan's creativity is marked by a special ability to “talk” with nature and show the beauty and charm of completely simple, inconspicuous corners of his country.