The painting of Isaac Levitan “Over Eternal Peace” is not only one of the most famous works of the master, but also the most philosophically filled and deep.
The work was carried out in the Tver province, near the town of Vyshny Volochek, and the picturesque church itself moved to the canvas from a previously created etude on Pleso.
Levitan himself had a special attitude to this picture, there is even evidence that the entire period that the master went to work asked his heartfelt friend Sofia Kuvshinnikova to play Beethoven’s Heroic Symphony.
So, we will pass to the description. At first, it is impossible to look away from the wide expanses of water, which are located almost in half of the picture, only later the eye notices a small wooden chapel and crosses sagging from time to time – this is where the whole deep meaning laid down by the author begins to open.
Heavy clouds hang over the expanses of water, the gusting wind shakes the trees – all this brings to mind the impermanence and transience of life, loneliness and transience, the meaning of existence and human purpose.
“Over eternal peace” touches the eternal thoughts about God, nature, the world, about itself. One of the closest friends of artists called the picture a requiem for himself. Never again will Levitan create such a piercing creation.
Despite the philosophical grandiose program of the picture, it is imbued with a love for the great beauty of nature, native spaces, the Motherland.
The Motherland, which drove the masters from their beloved Moscow because of its Jewish origin, the Motherland, which considered the favorite genre of landscape painting by Levitan, the Motherland, which didn’t appreciate the unique talent until the end – Levitan continued to love and praise her, and in vain, the presented picture is considered to be the “most Russian” of all those written.
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