Proof of Productivity

Since I have found out that my readership is not actually the college age crowd I imagined, but rather a collection of my mom's friends and relatives, (I have still yet to figure out how this happened)I have decided to redeem my previous posts with proof that I do something more in Russia than complain about the food and drink the vodka. Here is my midterm paper for our Russian culture class in which a chemistry major pretends to be an art major. I apologize for spelling and grammar mistakes both to you and my professor.

Side note to all readers: I encourage you to comment on this or any post. I actually have no idea who is reading.



Aaron Small
July 10th 2009

The Lake: Russia

The second half of the 19th century in Russia was a time of increasing revolutionary spirit, both politically as well as in the art world. Tzar Alexander II emancipated the serfs in 1861 and dealt a powerful blow to the aristocracy’s grip on power. At the same time divisive questions were being asked about Russia’s future. Did it lie with Westernization or a return to Slavic traditions? How would the disparate Russian people be united with a single sense of national purpose? Toward the end of the century the country found itself between two ideals of Russian nationality. On one side Narodism advocated the ability of the common people to lead and unify Russia, while Alexander II was championing a top down vision through the motto of orthodoxy, autocracy and nationality. It was amid this climate that Isaak Levitan lived and painted, and it was exactly at the start of the new century in which his death brought the unfinished work, The Lake: Russia, to its final form. Considered the crowning achievement of the unrivaled talent of Russian landscape painting, Levitan’s work is deeply reflective of the political, social and artistic climate of the time. In the midst of a burgeoning and revolutionary art movement, his painting, The Lake, depicts an idyllic form of Russian nationalism. His idea of what unified the Russian people was more inclusive than what was being advocated by the artistic and political movements of the era and therefore set Levitan, and his work, apart as unique in their time.

A full understanding of The Lake: Russia requires a description of the author’s life and how it fit into the Realist artistic movement. Isaak Levitan was born in 1860 to a poor Jewish family in a shtetl in Lithuania. At the age of thirteen he started his studies at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, where he immediately showed considerable promise. In 1875 Levitan’s mother died, and upon the loss of his father four years later he was given a scholarship in recognition of his achievements that allowed him to continue his education. He was taught by the famous realist and landscape painters Alexei Savrasov, Vasily Perov and Vasily Polenov. The mark of Savrasov’s influence in particular would later become obvious in Levitan’s work. Following an assassination attempt on the Tzar Alexander II, Jews, including Levitan, were deported from Moscow into the surrounding suburbs. However, pressure from the art community brought him back to the city.

Levitan’s work is best understood in relation to the revolutionary Russian artistic group known as The Wanderers. All three of his aforementioned teachers, as well as Levitan himself were members of this society. Formed in 1870, the groundwork for such a group was laid when, in 1863, a group of fourteen students seceded from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg in protest of the annual contest of works. They cited a lack of artistic freedom, but this secession was more than just liberation from the constraints of the Imperial Academy. They were also heavily influenced by the views of Nikolai Chernyshevsky, the founder of Russian populism known as Narodism. He supported the overthrow of autocracy and the creation of a state based on the structure of the idealized peasant commune. Although the Wanderers were not specifically political revolutionaries, they embodied Chernyshevsky’s ideals through the creation of a traveling art exhibition designed to bring art to the people of Russia. The comment by the liberal paper Cause on the first Wanderer exhibition that, “the traveling exhibit is the first step made for the liberation of artists from the serf-like dependence on the academy,” captures the interrelatedness of the political and artistic movements. Over the course of the next fifty years the society organized exhibits in cities all over Russia.

As Realists, The Wanderers depicted everyday Russian subjects. They showed both the poverty and struggle of Russian peasants, but at the same time emphasized the beauty, simplicity and purity of this way of life. Their art criticized the autocracy and worked to contrast urban and rural living. Landscape painting fit in well with this national preoccupation and Levitan as well as his influences and contemporaries Savrasov and Polenov were creating an idyllic and extremely Russian view of the land. Their paintings at the time, such as Savrasov’s The Rooks Have Come Back in 1871, contain plein air views of rural Russia, anchored by cultural themes such as churches and quiet villages. The absence of human subjects in some ways represents a break from The Wanderers in general. While the Wanders specifically established a dichotomy between country and city life, scenic portrayal of the land created a vision of Russia in which the rural and urban spheres share a common bond.

Levitan first participated in a traveling art exhibition with The Wanderers in 1884, but was not initially appreciated within the group. It was not until eight years later in 1891 when he was invited to formally join the society. Levitan, uncommonly for Russian artists, was well traveled. He especially spent time in France where he grew fond of the Barbizon School. He was familiar with Impressionism and it is clear that he occasionally experimented with the style, though he never totally renounced traditional modes and often switched between the two. Despite the fact that his painting was never truly impressionistic, his work laid the foundation for Russian Impressionism. More so than his contemporaries, Levitan rarely painted human figures, but included human references in the form of villages, farms and churches. These references are often overshadowed by the expanse and grandeur of the natural world. Levitan was able to use a very realistic portrayal of the land to express something deeply profound and mystical. This ability put him in a somewhat unique position, between Realism and Mysticism. His paintings, which in the 1870s portrayed a somber Russian countryside, by the 1880s were filled with bright color and picturesque composition. As such his paintings were almost universally appealing. In particular the Russian audience, urban and rural alike, could appreciate the familiarity of the scenes. Levitan painted up until his death in 1900. His final painting and crowning achievement, The Lake: Russia, remained unfinished at his death. Despite Levitan's increasing illness the canvas is remarkably bright and hopeful. In the years after Levitan's death when Realism was belittled by the rising trend of Modernism, Levitan remained as one of the few respected artists of his movement, a testament to his talent.

The story of Levitan's life and career culminates in the The Lake: Russia. The first impression of the painting is one of bright color, expansive space, and picturesque beauty. In fact, the beauty is such that the scene has an unreal quality to it. Indeed, the landscape did not exist in reality, but is a composite of several scenes that Levitan had previously sketched in the Russian countryside. Savrosov and Polenov's influences are extremely visible in the sheer volume of space. The uneven surface of the lake in the foreground extends immediately before us with reeds growing on the side in the foreground. The brush stroke here is loose, giving a muted impressionistic feel. Beyond the lake there is a thin grassy strip of land. Here we find Levitan's characteristic reminder of the human element. The village is calm and pastoral, with a small field in the foreground and a typical white Orthodox church among the houses. Typical of Levitan no human beings are to be found. There is a sense of awe and the religious in the painting, but it does not originate from the church. The dark shadow that seems poised to engulf the small village directs our gaze upwards. There, the horizon gives way to a blue sky, in almost perfect symmetry with the lake. This symmetry and reflection of heaven in earth is not unique to this painting, and is a technique that he used in earlier paintings such as Autumn Day, Sokolniki in 1879 and The Vladimirka in 1892. The light blue sky above the village is dotted with massive clouds. Their white forms are almost geometric and have a very physical presence, as if hanging heavy in the sky. The clouds dominate the painting, in obvious contrast to the insignificance of the village. And yet there is not antagonism between the two. They are both a part of the idyllic landscape, but at the same time Levitan forces us to accept the insignificance of the village and by extension all of humanity in the face of the unsurpassable beauty of nature. Even this obvious message seems to fall short of what Levitan wished to express. In a letter to his friend, the famous writer Anton Chekhov, Levitan wrote: “Can anything be more tragic than to feel the infinite beauty of your surroundings, to read nature's innermost secrets and, conscious of your own helplessness, to be incapable of expressing these powerful emotions?” Nonetheless, the completeness of the landscape is extraordinarily beautiful, inviting and even familiar to the viewer despite it's fictitiousness. It is a romantic and lyrical portrayal of what Levitan saw as the summation of everything that is Russia.

Despite it's peaceful setting, this painting contains a message that was extremely relevant and even pioneering in the context in which it was painted. At the end of the nineteenth century when the Russian empire spanned an entire continent and encompassed dozens of ethnicities and religions the struggle to identify what made everyone a “Russian” was extremely pressing. Even where ethnic homogeneity did exist, the recent emancipation of the serfs had exposed the deep socioeconomic differences between the city and the country and the land owners and the peasants. Realism, and by extension the late nineteenth century art society The Wanders answered these questions by showing all of Russia a portrayal of the Russian peasant. The idea of the purity of country landscapes and peasant life dominated in their paintings. The nationalism that was suggested by this portrayal was one of the common man. And yet, the view they take is inherently that of rich urban onlookers, of which they almost exclusively were. The problem contained in this brand of national unity is that the elevating of a particular part of the population is inherently divisive. Levitan's landscapes and the messages contained in them linked him strongly with these ideas, but subtle differences in his paintings set him apart from the popular movement. Levitan eschews the elevation of the peasant class. The Lake: Russia, contains a reminder of their existence, but simply as a part of the landscape. Levitan's view of the countryside is unique in that it is not a view of the peasants through the eyes of urbanites. Rather, it is a view of the countryside through the eyes of the peasants, or perhaps through the eyes of the nameless Russian. By doing this, Levitan is able to achieve a uniquely inclusive vision of what unifies the Russian people. It is exactly by avoiding any portrayal of culture or specific human characteristics that Levitan's paintings can appeal to all Russians. In The Lake, the vague familiarity of the scene allows Russians from disparate ends of the Empire to feel a sense of shared national identity. The painter even hesitated to add the word Russia to the title, suggesting perhaps his attempt to capture something that went beyond the borders of the empire. He eventually settled on the word русь (rus) in Russian, which actually refers back to the people, region and state between the 9th to 12th centuries from which the Russian Empire of Levitan's day was born. The ancient word choice gives the title a powerful but vague sentiment that is more fitting with the landscape.

This careful portrayal makes perfect sense given the artist's background. As a Lithuanian Jew, whose native land was occupied by the Tzar, and who was once deported from his home in Moscow, his view of that which was (and is) quintessentially Russian could not possibly lie with Alexander II's motto of orthodoxy, autocracy and nationality. Nor could it lie with the peasants, a people who were unfamiliar to his educated and distant background. In his final painting Levitan captured that undefinable quality that united the Russian people. The awe inspiring, religious, peaceful and eternal connection to the land and it's incomprehensible beauty in The Lake: Russia reconciled Levitan's relationship with Russia through it's universality.

Issak Levitan occupies an exclusive place among Russian realist painters. His technical mastery and artistic vision set him apart from his peers as the master of Russian landscape painting. Among his works, The Lake represents the pinnacle of his artistic achievement. However, beyond or perhaps through it's beauty Levitan was able to achieve a unique parsing of the political issues of the time. Although strongly influenced by his contemporaries and their Narodist ideals, Levitan made a subtle distinction in his portrayal of the Russian national spirit. By filling his paintings with a special sense of non-exclusive unity Levitan was able to achieve what his peers where not: an internally consistent and tenable idea of Russian nationality. Although the Empire eventually ended in revolution, and Levitan's view of Russian unity was forgone for more populist or ethnically based versions, the universal feeling it describes is explains why the painting and the artist still remain as favorites in the eyes of the Russian people.