Isaac Levitan

Valentin Serov, "Levitan, 1893"

Isaac Levitan (1860-1900) was born in a shtetl in what is now Lithuania into a poor Jewish family. When he was 10 the family moved to Moscow. He entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture at 13 and although both of his parents died by 1877 he was given a full scholarship to continue. He was successful at a young age and sold a painting to the famous art collector Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov (whose collection became the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow) at age 19 while still a student. 

He eventually left the school to become a prolific, respected and even famous painter of mostly landscapes. He is particularly remembered for the moodiness of his works. He has been called an impressionist, but his colors were darker and more like the earlier Barbizon artists. His pictures are quiet, still, and most commonly devoid of figures or animals. To my eye they convey what seems a classically somber and very Russian view of the world.

"Birch Forest," 1889

"Vladimirka Highway," 1892

"Over Eternal Rest," 1894

"Dusk," 1900