Town. 1884 Isaac Ilyich Levitan (1860-1900)

Description of Isaac Levitan’s drawing "The Village" (1884)

The drawing shows a view of the outskirts of Zvenigorod, sketches for which the artist made when he was in the Savvinskaya Sloboda. The lithograph was printed in the journal Rossiya, illustrating an article about Zvenigorod, but it was published with the author’s signature as an independent work. The print filigreely conveys a three-dimensional impression, the diversity of the log walls of the houses and trees, the play of sunlight and shadow. Even the modest resources of color printing produce a sense of richness and colorfulness. This drawing by the young master refers us to the last years of the artist’s life, when he was fascinated by the subject of the huts.

The lithograph shows with sensitivity, soulfulness and poetry the outskirts of the village with its log cabins, one of which has a half-ruined roof. Just behind the huts is a gentle hill with spruces and sparse shrubs growing on it. A rectangle of land, probably a vegetable garden or a piece of cultivated field, shining through the snow, stands out on the snow that has covered everything around. Beside the house in the right background of the painting we can see the freakish bare bushes with a few dry leaves still on them, which touchingly emphasize their winter condition.

All the details are worked out in detail - from the logs prepared to repair the leaky roof of the hut, to the birds trying to find food on the road, and human footprints on it. The snow is not too dense on everything, it’s barely covered the roofs, the trees, and the road. The artist in this drawing thoroughly reproduces all the nuances and details.

All the techniques of drawing, built mainly on outlines and recreating light and shade through pressing on the graphite pencil, are subject to the task of reliable consolidation of appearance and texture of realities. The drawing is done in a manner typical for that time, based on the development of light and shade images, when the same technique of linear shading is used to depict not only objects, but also touching. The tonal moments of this manner of drawing are also highlighted by the fact that when lithographed, it is given a color texture with gaps. It is noticeable in the drawing that the young artist is well versed in visual plans and is able to build them on the basis of tones.