In the Alps in the spring. 1897 Isaac Ilyich Levitan (1860-1900)

Description of Isaac Levitan’s painting In the Alps in Spring

Levitan, the famous Russian painter, was born into a poor family, and spent the entire early period of his life restlessly, in constant anxiety about his daily bread. First his childhood, when his large family always lacked everything, then his studies - he was a full-fledged pauper student, stereotypical, and graduated from college without a diploma at all - not because of his grades, but because he had no money.

He traveled a lot, went abroad, was a friend of Chekhov and lived an extremely busy life. His painting "Above Eternal Rest" is called the most Russian of Russian paintings about Russia, and the artist himself is called a "landscape of the mood", because behind each of his works you can see a vibrant rushing soul, deprived of peace.

"In the Alps in Spring" is one of his landscapes, painted in his traditional manner of lightness and vividness. The high mountains seem harsh, propping up the sky with their tops. Above there are snow-capped peaks with sparse patches of greenery, and below - a valley full of greenery with lakes and a tiny village pressed to the mountainside.

Above all this is the sky, white as the snows on the peaks, and only somewhere on the distant slopes you can see drops of gold - the rays of the rising sun. This is spring - alpine, when everything is covered with grasses, when trees sprout leaves, when the thin, cold air is filled with the scents of flowers and juices. It can be drunk like good wine, and the valley is like a bowl full of it.

The whole painting is a mood, as are all of Levitan’s landscapes. The hope for the future, the expectation of better things - like a frozen human soul, the mountains are full of snow, but here is spring, like love or happiness, and the snow melts, exposing the shining greenery.

The colors of the painting are very vibrant and bright - the contrast of white and shining green is striking.

That said, by searching, you can find many shades of green - both dark and light, both warm and cold. Snow runs down from the mountains. Spring.