Summer evening Isaac Ilyich Levitan (1860-1900)
Isaac Ilyich Levitan – Summer evening
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Painter: Isaac Ilyich Levitan
Location: The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow (Государственная Третьяковская галерея).
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Amazing canvases can sometimes be seen in the most famous painters. Vrubel with his mystical canvases, Savrasov, Quindzhi, who conjured up light on his canvases and thereby made people believe that it was not a canvas painting, but a real live picture. That’s what he achieved mastery. And what about Levitan? He was a master of landscapes. His paintings are mostly landscape sketches. And on this canvas, the artist has noticed one detail of a summer evening.
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Description of Isaac Levitan’s painting A Summer Evening
Amazing canvases can sometimes be seen in the most famous painters. Vrubel with his mystical canvases, Savrasov, Quindzhi, who conjured up light on his canvases and thereby made people believe that it was not a canvas painting, but a real live picture. That’s what he achieved mastery. And what about Levitan? He was a master of landscapes.
His paintings are mostly landscape sketches. And on this canvas, the artist has noticed one detail of a summer evening. That’s when the sun has already hidden behind the horizon and the shadow of the night, a dark shadow that descends on the ground and slowly crawls over it blackening everything around. Have you never noticed this phenomenon? Well, you rarely see it in the city, but you see it a lot in places like this one. Yes, almost every summer evening. If you can imagine, it’s as if these gates let out the sun and let in the night, which brings tranquility and coolness.
The gate is open - the day comes out and hello to the night! Even the forest on the horizon is gradually sinking into shade, and small clouds appear in the sky, which are unlikely to bring rain, but a chill pervades. So it will be chilly at night. But it’s okay, because the summer night is short-late darkness and early lightening. So even if it’s cool and chilly, you won’t catch a cold.
And fragrant hay won’t let you get cold. Oh, how it is good to sleep in a pile of hay in a big spacious field in total silence! There is no hay on the road, but one can suppose so. The dusty road, the far road has taken the day away, to bring it to us again. And so it goes from year to year, every day.
Levitan’s canvas evokes neither anxiety nor sadness, perhaps only nostalgia for the summer winter evening. And then you’ll think when you look at the picture: "Goodbye summer! Hello Autumn!". And then, just like that, through this gate, Autumn rained away, and Winter came.
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To the left of the path, a simple wooden fence stretches into the distance, its post and rail construction hinting at a working farm or ranch. Beyond the fence, a dark, dense line of trees forms the horizon, separating the open field from the sky. The field itself is rendered in varying shades of green and dark earth tones, with scattered patches of light suggesting the last rays of sunlight.
The sky is vast and pale, with a subtle gradient of color from near white at the top to hints of soft pink and purple near the horizon. A single, wispy cloud drifts lazily across the upper portion of the sky, adding a touch of ethereal lightness to the scene.
The subtext of this painting lies in its evocation of tranquility, the end of a days work, and the quiet beauty of nature. The archway can be interpreted as a gateway to either sanctuary or rest, a symbol of passage between worlds or states of being. The simplicity of the elements – the fence, the path, the trees, the sky – suggests a connection to the land and a life lived in harmony with the natural cycle. The muted colors and soft light contribute to a feeling of calm and introspection, inviting the viewer to pause and reflect on the peaceful moment captured.