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Golden autumn

Isaac Levitan • Painting, 1896, 52×84.6 cm
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About the artwork
Art form: Painting
Subject and objects: Landscape
Style of art: Realism
Technique: Oil
Date of creation: 1896
Size: 52×84.6 cm
Artwork in selections: 13 selections

Description of the artwork «Golden autumn»

The title of the painting, Golden Autumn, may not recall the typical Russian autumn landscape. On his canvases, Isaac Levitan captured more than a hundred views of autumn, which was his favourite season. The Levitanian autumn became a chronicle of the painter’s mental and emotional state: the early autumn is playful, sunny, with a slight hint of wilting; the golden one is bright, daring, filled with a colourful whirlpool; the late season is gloomy, rainy, and plunged into sad melancholic reflections. The Golden Autumn landscape of 1896 found itself in the shadow of the
famous textbook painting, which had been painted a year earlier, received a lot of praise and adorned the hall of the Tretyakov Gallery. However, it was the one
that became the artist’s favourite.

A sickly and melancholic Jewish youth and a great lover of Russian nature, Isaac Levitan created a “major” series of picturesque landscapes in the Gorka estate, Tver Governorate. The artist had a two-storey studio on a river bank. The commissioner of the paintings, philanthropist and collector Pavel Tretyakov, as well as the artist's friends and admirers expected quiet, lyrical and atmospheric landscapes. However the picturesque elegy did not happen... Levitan’s personal life was in full swing. Being in closerelations with Sofia Kuvshinnikova, the artist fell madly in love with Anna Turchaninova. His serious passions ran high, there followed romantic confessions, deep anguish, condemnation from friends and an unsuccessful suicide attempt. In anticipation of his personal happiness, in 1895, the artist painted the Golden Autumn. His friends and critics considered the work “bravura, decorative
and flashy”, but the insightful Pavel Tretyakov immediately bought the future pearl of the Tretyakov Gallery. The artist's admirers reassessed the landscape, but Levitan remained unconvinced, the picture was rough and expressive. In 1896, the artist painted “his favourite” autumn, soft, soulful, and melancholic.The Golden Autumn painting, 1896, is half the size of its famous namesake, it shows a sunny landscape in a slightly simplified stylized manner. The canvas conveyed the pacification in the artist’s soul after the violent passions he had experienced. There is no expression or detail in the picture, only a soft combination of pictorial impressionism and realism
elements. The wide panoramic composition is filled with air and is not overloaded with objects or multidimensional plans. The calm river takes up half of the canvas and fills the landscape with fresh coolness. The sun illuminates the tops of the trees,
but the light source itself is located outside the canvas, it enhances the feeling of the “nature sunset” — it is daytime, but the sun is already low. The empty wooden house, yellow foliage, an overturned boat are silent signs of the autumn coming. No people, no animals, no birds — the nature froze. The main feature of the master’s
manner is that the foliage in the Golden Autumn painting is not just yellow or gold: Levitan noticed  and conveyed dozens of shades, from mustard green to brownish yellow. Dozens of muted shades of green create a soft carpet of wilting grass on the river slopes. The colour palette attracts the eye, creates a “live” landscape effect:
air movement, leaves rustle, water ripples. At that, the near and far plan images are schematic.

Isaac Levitan’s Golden Autumn painting, 1896, became the artist’s classic atmospheric autumn landscape, in which the golden leaves and the grey-blue river create that very “philosophical elegy in oil”. Millions of tourists from all over the world visit the Tretyakov Gallery every year to enjoy the unique atmosphere of the landscapes by Levitan, see the magical image of Russian nature and mediate
upon the end of life and the meaning of things with the long-gone author.
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