ISAAC LEVITAN

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SUNDAY Feature on ART of Architecture by Gautam Shah

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Isaac Ilyich Levitan was a Russian (now Virbalis, Lithuania, 1860-1900) landscape painter. Levitan was taken into apprenticeship by the famous landscape artist Aleksey Savrasov. Levitan taught landscape painting at the Moscow College of Art.

Levitan painted light-filled plein-air, like the French painters of the Barbizon School, but rejected the formalized impressionism of Monet. Levitan favoured the countryside landscapes over the urban scenes. He created his own style, known as ‘the landscape of mood’. He painted many natural landscapes with masses of trees, overcast skies, long shadows and changing weather. ‘He remained essentially a realist'.

His natural and architectural scapes are generally devoid of human presence. His colours are fairly natural and muted. His impressionism is less optic, and more sensual and textural. He was a prolific painter in his short life, but produced more than a thousand paintings. 

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