Autumn River 1899 by Isaac Levitan

This landscape painting entitled Autumn River is created by Issac Levitan in 1899, depicting a scenary of a sunny day in autumn. Levitan, a Russian painter, devoted his entire life time to art creation which is the most important thing and meaning of existence to him. Though in his painting career, he was tied to endless doubts, torments and self-dissatisfaction, he still owned faith in his own ability, yielding a series of meditative, thought-provoking landscape paintings with a spiritual dimension.

Isaac Levitan implemented bright color palette to render warm and delighted scene with delicate technique and superb skill. He represented and transformed the commonplace, finding beauty in blue river, vigor in dense grass land, giving the ordinary scenary with new meaning. We can see a broad rich mass of grass which seem to turn yellow in a short time because of autumn. The bright blue river is calm and quiet with no waves and ripples, surrounded by the grass land. White houses standing in far distance can be seen clearly. Though the sky is covered by white walking clouds, its blue color can still be faintly visible. The long slender bars of cloud float like fishes in the sea of blue light, involving viewers in endless imagination in this painting.

Autumn River 1899
Autumn River 1899

Levitan always found inspiration for his landscape paintings arousing resonance of their viewers from serenity and tranquility of rural life in Russia. He painted vivid paintings to allow the viewers to encounter something real in his paintings, creating a truly immersive experience.