Tanais Gallery
Isaac Levitan. Golden Autumn.
1895. Oil on canvas. The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia.
Isaac Levitan is the greatest Russian landscape-painter and poet of the end of the 19th century; he is a craftsman of a soulful “landscape-mood”. An unusual seeing of light, which is one in a thousand, advertence to a movement, and imperceptible changes in nature life are peculiar for his dowry. The Levitan's name became symbolical long ago, and his work became the most completed and perfect soul of the Russian lyrical landscape idea.
Leo Tolstoy once said, “The basis of human happiness is the possibility to be together with nature, to see it and to talk to it”. Levitan was granted this happy feeling as hardly any other human being ever was. He also knew the joy of recognition by his contemporaries and of friendship with the best among them. Levitan ranks among the most appreciated and loved of Russian artists.
Sergey Esenin.
1924.
The grove of golden trees has fallen silent,
Shorn of its gay leaves, in mute silhouette,
And so the cranes in sad file past it flying
Have no cause any more to feel regret.
For whom, for what? We are all rovers, starting
Out, coming home awhile, then traveling on.
The hemp field's dreaming of all who departed
And there's a full moon gazing at the pond.
I stand alone, the bare expanses viewing,
While on the wind the cranes are borne away.
Remembrance of my merry youth pursuing,
I find nothing I would relive today.
I don't regret the years that I have wasted,
I don't regret the lilac time of life.
A rowan fire is in the orchard blazing
But none shall from its brightness warmth derive.
Red rowan-berry clusters cannot scorch you,
The grasses will no yellow and decline.
As leaves fall softly from a tree in autumn
So I let fall these mournful words of mine.
And if time with its breezy broom should pile them
Into a heap to burn without regret…
Just say this … that the golden grove fell silent,
Shorn of its leaves, in pensive silhouette.
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Gold Autumn in Russia. Photos.
Russian Seasons - photos
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