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March

Isaac Levitan • Painting, 1895, 60×75 cm
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About the artwork
Art form: Painting
Subject and objects: Landscape
Style of art: Realism
Technique: Oil
Materials: Canvas
Date of creation: 1895
Size: 60×75 cm
Artwork in selections: 88 selections

Description of the artwork «March»

Spring 1895. Levitan left to live no more than five years, but he still does not know about it. A short happy respite: severe bouts of depression with a suicide attempt are behind, a fatal heart disease that will be revealed in a couple of years is not yet diagnosed. Levitan goes to the Udomlya region, to the estate of Gorka, belonging to his beloved woman Anna Nikolaevna Turchaninova. Here, in several sessions, “March” will be written - the most major and joyful in spirit product of Levitan.

Levitan 35. He is famous and finally not poor. Now every picture of him becomes an event. He is the idol of novice landscape painters. Artist Yakov Minchenkov recalled how, after a comradely grand dinner, Levitan, usually depressed, unexpectedly enthusiastically said: “We must live and live beautifully! We must overcome and forget our suffering, we must use life, its light, its joy, like the brilliance of a sunny day. We still have time to get off, there's nothing to think about, but now let's drink the last sweet remnants of our life glass, get drunk with all the best that can give us life! .. ”

Six months ago, at the end of the summer of 1894, Anna Turchaninova, who beat off Levitan from "Women of his life" Sofia KuvshinnikovaI did everything so that the artist could work comfortably in Gorka, surrounded him with attention and care. Here it is picturesque and beautiful - the name of the estate was obtained by its location on a small elevation on the southern side of the Ostrovno lake. In the place where the stream flows into the lake, the bathhouse was converted into a convenient workshop for Levitan. Levitan lived here from August to December.

The winter months of 1895 Levitan spent in Moscow, in a cozy mansion in Trekhsvyatitelsky alley with an elegant atmosphere and a convenient workshop. He was comfortable there, but by the end of winter it was so lacking in the sun. He did not like winter, almost never wrote it. As soon as spring came, Levitan was going to go to Gorka again - he knew: they were waiting for him there. And Anna Nikolaevna, the wife of an important St. Petersburg senator, who gave Levitan her heart. And the awakening nature - that Levitan appreciated more than anything else. He rode and recalled the words of his beloved teacher, Alexey Savrasovfamous by "Rooks": “Catch always spring, do not wake up sunny sunrises, early morning. Nature is never more diverse and rich. Write it so that the larks could not be seen in the picture, and the singing of the larks could be heard. ”

Approaching the wooden estate of the Turchaninovs, which he wrote in the fall and remembered gray and gloomyLevitan almost shut his eyes. The walls of the house painted yellow and warmed to the sun seemed to glow, flooding everything around — birch trunks, loose snow that melted and brown sides of Dianka’s horse, so well known to Levitan… to find the right motive - he appeared before his eyes: a wooden house where Levitan is loved and waited, and the spring sun.

"March" is called one of the most significant landscapes of Russian impressionism. All colors are saturated with light, the contrast of yellow and blue hues sounds loudly and joyfully. Golden reflexes from the yellow wall warm even cold colors, give rise to a feeling of rejoicing. Art critics note an interesting compositional solution: symmetrical birch trunks form a kind of backstage behind which pine pine trees that have withered over the winter open up. Especially masterfully written snow under the rays of the spring sun. It is known that Levitan, while working on "March", resorted to a relatively new technical invention - photography: he checked the ratio of light and shade in photographs.


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