Levitan birch grove description. “Description of a birch grove” essay
Isaac Levitan painted the painting “Birch Grove” for four years. The main characters of the picture are white-trunked birches. Long work above the picture is not accidental. The author knew very well how tenderly the Russian people treat birch. Our ancestors used this tree for numerous rituals. Poets also praised the birch.
Painting " Birch Grove” flooded bright light. The light is so realistic that it not only makes you light, but also warm. I just want to fall on the sunny thawed patches in the grass. Drawn the smallest details groves. It helps to mentally transport yourself into it and feel the smells of grass, the rustle of birch trees, bask in the rays of the sun, and enjoy the buzzing of insects. The grove is full of life. There are no gloomy colors in it.
Levitan's birches look like they're alive. They're about to move and start talking. They enjoy it too sunlight. They walk and communicate with each other. If you listen closely, you can overhear their conversation. Birches are not in a frozen state. Not only their leaves move, but also as if the trunk itself is about to move. Although some birch trees stand alone, they are not alone. They are looking for a companion or a partner for a walk.
The picture shows not only the near perspective, but also the distant one. I want to move further and further through the grove. As you progress, you notice that the birch trees are all very different. Here is a playful birch tree, another is serious, the third is thoughtful. But two chatterboxes are giggling loudly. A little further you can see how one birch tree comforts another. There is so much sincerity in her. Birches are very similar to us people. No one is the same.
The picture is breathtaking. I want to run through the grove with open arms and hug every birch tree. I want to snuggle up to each one and inhale the smell of birch bark. I want to bend down and enjoy the smells of forest flowers. In a birch grove, you want to feel the fullness of life with every cell of your body, you want to soak in the smells and impressions, breathe deeply and preserve these impressions in the fall and winter, so that they warm you with their warmth, the aroma of flowers and leaves.
The painting “Birch Grove” is imbued with the Russian spirit. Levitan awakens in his work such familiar feelings of the Russian people. This picture encourages you to love and appreciate Russian nature. She charges with optimism and energy.
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"Birch Grove"- painting by Russian artist Isaac Levitan (1860-1900), painted in 1885-1889. The painting is part of the collection of the State Tretyakov Gallery. The size of the painting is 28.5 × 50 cm.
History and description
Four years passed from the start of work on the painting to its completion. Levitan conceived this painting and began work on it in the Moscow region, when he spent the summer of 1885 at the Kiselevs' Babkino estate, located on the Istra River, not far from New Jerusalem. And Levitan finished this picture in 1889, while in Plyos - small town, located on the right bank of the Volga, where the artist came during three years, from 1888 to 1890, and where he created many famous paintings. In the 19th century, Plyos belonged to the Kostroma province, and in the 20th century it became part of the Volga region of the Ivanovo region. The Plyos birch grove, which Levitan chose, was located on the outskirts of the city, not far from the cemetery church called Pustynka. The artist came there with a painting begun in the Moscow region, and eventually completed it.
The painting is based on the play of light and shadow on birch trunks, as well as on fresh green grass and tree foliage. This is achieved using a wide range of shades green, as well as the expressive possibilities of texture, so that the impression of radiance and radiation of optimistic energy is created. Depicting sun glare on trees, transitions and vibration of color, the artist partly uses impressionist painting techniques.
Reviews
| It is interesting to compare Levitan’s “Birch Grove” with a similar painting by Arkhip Kuindzhi, which was then widely known among the Russian public (“Birch Grove”, 1879). If Kuindzhi perceives the light of the sun as majestic, incomprehensible, attracting a person to itself physical phenomenon, then Levitan looks at the world, basing his relationship to nature on a certain psychological module of humanity. Birches in his painting are not only clots of light and color, lit by a stream of sunlight, but also the most cheerful and light-loving of the trees, smiling towards the sun and living, like everyone around them, their own life, spiritually close to the artist. |
| The very fact of the possibility of working on a landscape, such a small one, for several years, with interruptions, again returning to this topic and preserving, during such long work, the spontaneity of sensation and such a captivating freshness of the painting itself simply threw me into amazement, and to this day I have not stopped to be amazed at this perfection, this diamond even in Levitan’s work. At first glance, the painting “Birch Grove” does not captivate us with any special composition, some kind of sophistication of the compositional order, but if we look deeper and more carefully, we will see that the composition is unusual, unusual. Everything seems to be seen by chance, but in fact it is a very thoughtful, brilliantly organized and very complex composition... |
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- (HTML). isaak-levitan.ru. Retrieved July 7, 2012. .
Excerpt characterizing Birch Grove (painting by Levitan)
– How did you rest, dear Isidora? I hope your daughter's proximity has not caused any trouble to your sleep?– Thank you for your concern, Your Holiness! I slept surprisingly well! Apparently, it was Anna’s closeness that calmed me down. Will I be able to communicate with my daughter today?
He was radiant and fresh, as if he had already broken me, as if his very life had already come to life. big dream... I hated his confidence in himself and his victory! Even if he had every reason for this... Even if I knew that very soon, by the will of this crazy Pope, I would leave forever... I was not going to give in to him so easily - I wanted to fight. Until my last breath, until last minute, released to me on Earth...
- So what did you decide, Isidora? – Dad asked cheerfully. – As I told you earlier, this determines how soon you will see Anna. I hope you won't force me to take the most brutal measures? Your daughter deserves her life not to end so early, isn’t it? She really is very talented, Isidora. And I sincerely would not want to cause her harm.
– I thought you had known me long enough, Your Holiness, to understand that threats will not change my decision... Even the most terrible ones. I may die without being able to bear the pain. But I will never betray what I live for. Forgive me, Holiness.
Karaffa looked at me with all his eyes, as if he had heard something not entirely reasonable, which surprised him very much.
– And you won’t feel sorry for your beautiful daughter?! Yes, you are more fanatical than me, Madonna!..
Having exclaimed this, Caraffa stood up abruptly and left. And I sat there, completely numb. Not feeling my heart, and not being able to hold back my racing thoughts, as if all my remaining strength was spent on this short negative answer.
I knew that this was the end... That now he would take on Anna. And I wasn’t sure if I could survive to endure all this. I didn’t have the strength to think about revenge... I didn’t have the strength to think about anything at all... My body was tired and didn’t want to resist anymore. Apparently, this was the limit, after which a “different” life began.
I really wanted to see Anna!.. To hug her at least once goodbye!.. To feel her raging strength, and to tell her once again how much I love her...
And then, turning around at the noise at the door, I saw her! My girl stood straight and proud, like a stiff reed that an approaching hurricane is trying to break.
- Well, talk to your daughter, Isidora. Maybe she can bring at least some common sense into your lost mind! I give you one hour to meet. And try to come to your senses, Isidora. Otherwise, this meeting will be your last...
Karaffa did not want to play anymore. His life was put on the scales. Just like the life of my dear Anna. And if the second did not matter to him, then for the first (for his own) he was ready to do anything.
– Mommy!.. – Anna stood at the door, unable to move. “Mom, dear, how can we destroy him?.. We won’t be able to, Mommy!”
Jumping up from the chair, I ran to my only treasure, my girl, and, grabbing her in my arms, squeezed as hard as I could...
“Oh, mommy, you’ll choke me like that!” Anna laughed loudly.
And my soul absorbed this laughter, like a person sentenced to death absorbs the warm farewell rays of the already setting sun...
- Well, mommy, we’re still alive!.. We can still fight!.. You told me yourself that you’ll fight as long as you’re alive... So let’s think about whether we can do something . Can we rid the world of this Evil.
She supported me again with her courage!.. Again she found the right words...
This sweet, brave girl, almost a child, could not even imagine what kind of torture Caraffa could subject her to! In what brutal pain her soul could drown... But I knew... I knew everything that awaited her if I did not meet him halfway. If I don’t agree to give the Pope the only thing he wanted.
- My dear, my heart... I won’t be able to look at your torment... I won’t give you to him, my girl! The North and others like him don’t care who remains in this LIFE... So why should we be different?.. Why should you and I care about someone else’s, someone else’s fate?!.
I myself was frightened by my words... although in my heart I perfectly understood that they were caused simply by the hopelessness of our situation. And, of course, I was not going to betray what I lived for... For which my father and my poor Girolamo died. Simply, just for a moment, I wanted to believe that we could just pick up and leave this terrible, “black” Karaffa world, forgetting about everything... forgetting about other people unfamiliar to us. Forgetting about evil...
It was a momentary weakness of a tired person, but I understood that I had no right to allow even that. And then, to top it all off, apparently unable to withstand the violence any longer, burning angry tears streamed down my face... But I tried so hard not to let this happen!.. I tried not to show my sweet girl into what depths of despair my exhausted, pain-torn soul...
Anna sadly looked at me with her huge gray eyes, in which lived a deep, not at all childish sadness... She quietly stroked my hands, as if wanting to calm me down. And my heart screamed, not wanting to humble myself... Not wanting to lose her. She was the only remaining meaning to my failed life. And I couldn’t allow the nonhumans called the Pope to take it away from me!
“Mommy, don’t worry about me,” Anna whispered, as if reading my thoughts. - I'm not afraid of pain. But even if it was very painful, grandfather promised to pick me up. I spoke to him yesterday. He will wait for me if you and I fail... And dad too. They will both be there waiting for me. But it will be very painful to leave you... I love you so much, mommy!..
The painting “Birch Grove” was started by I. Levitan in 1885 in Babkino, and completed in 1889 in Plyos on the Volga.
This canvas fully reflects Levitan’s great ability to put into simple natural landscape the richest range human feelings and experiences.
Before us is an image of a corner of a birch forest on a bright sunny day. The artist perfectly conveys the movement of sun glare on the white trunks of birches, the play of shades of green grass and tree leaves, the radiance of sparkles of white and lilac-blue flowers in the grass. The play of light and shadows in the picture makes it lively, reverent, and creates a “mood.”
Birches are endlessly happy with life, and it even seems to us that they smile cheerfully at the sun and grass. Everything around is blooming, radiating a feeling of joy and involvement in the energy of life. The viewer seems to find himself in the middle of a fragrant, sun-warmed forest, under the canopy of rustling green birch trees.
In the painting “Birch Grove,” Levitan came closer than ever to impressionism. The composition of the canvas is impressionistic, as if leading us deep into the grove, and the dynamics of the image, and “ technical solution", and the style of writing. With the help of a rich palette of colors, overlaying spots of light and shadow, Levitan achieves perfection in conveying the light-air environment. The picture seems to be penetrated by the sun, it seems to radiate a magical emerald light.
The painting “Birch Grove” is distinguished by spontaneity and freshness of feelings. It was about this painting that A.P. Chekhov said that it “has a smile.” The canvas “Birch Grove” is loved by many generations of people and is perceived by us as a national image of our native nature.
In addition to the description of the painting by I. I. Levitan “Birch Grove”, our website contains many other descriptions of paintings by various artists, which can be used both in preparation for writing an essay on the painting, and simply for a more complete acquaintance with the work of famous masters of the past.
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Birch Grove
In the birch forest,
where the birds sing,
Where in the silk grass
rays shine through the shadow...
I.A.Bunin
I feel good and carefree
On the grass, among the green birches,
In a quiet and unknown side!
I.A.Bunin
“The forest rustles with an indistinct, even noise”
Such a masterpiece by Levitan as Birch Grove (1885-1889) was started in Babkino and completed a few years later in Plyos on the Volga. In this image of a fertile corner of a birch forest, everything shines, radiating a feeling of cheerfulness, participation in the bright energy of living life. Skillfully using expressive possibilities textures, the artist conveys the play of sun rays on white trunks, the play of green foliage of birch trees and sunny grass, among which blue sparkles of flowers are visible. Birches in Levitan's painting are the most cheerful and light-loving of the trees, smiling towards the sun and living, like everything around them, their own life, spiritually close to the artist.
Vladimir Petrov
“Birch Grove,” begun in Babkino in 1885, was completed only in the summer of 1889. In this image of a birch grove with shadows from the swaying leaves of the trees seemingly moving across the light grass, Levitan again builds the picture on movement, on the play of lighting. And here this play of light, this movement of shadows serves as the basis and means of expressing “mood”. Spots of light and shadow invite the viewer to delve deeper into the image, where the clarity of the outlines of objects is lost and the birch grove merges into common green spots. The play of light on the trunks of birch trees makes them not only vibrant and alive, but seemingly transparent. This transparency and tenderness is given to them by the rich color, which conveys the play of light and shadows on the trunks. We see here, along with white, pasty spots, smaller pink, brown and additional bluish-green colors. They find support in the image of small purple flowers and yellow reflections of light in the grass and above in the foliage.
The shadows were interpreted there as either bluish or pearly. In the painting “Birch Grove”, permeated by the sun, shining, as if emitting emerald light, the color rendering of the relationships between light and dark acquired remarkable purity and spontaneity. The picture seems to emanate the freshness and smells of summer sunny day in the forest.
Never before has Levitan come so close to impressionism in his painting; he approached it independently, not yet knowing the works French artists and not seeing any other manifestations of impressionism other than the sketches of his peer and comrade K. Korovin. In fact, the composition itself is impressionistic with its cut of birch tree trunks and their tops at the edge of the picture, a composition that immediately leads us into the depths of the image, onto this grass under the canopy of birches, plunging us into the air filled with the fragrance of sun-warmed greenery, permeated with light . The dynamics of the image are also impressionistic, manifested in the seeming “randomness” of the choice of point of view and the location of the trunks and in that lung the rhythm of movement that permeates everything in the picture. This is a movement that does not have a specific direction, but seems to “flutter”.
Polenov himself, in a response letter about this painting, expressed joy “that Levitan has stepped forward.” Perhaps the paintings created as a result of the third trip to the Volga include the review attributed to Chekhov by Kuvshinnikova: “You know,” he remarked to Levitan, “a smile even appeared in your paintings.” She really was in them - and in “Birch Grove” in particular.
A.A. Fedorov-Davydov
Essay based on a painting by student 6B Sergeev Oleg
Today I will introduce you to the painting “Birch Grove” by the 19th century Russian painter Isaac Ilyich Levitan, which takes us to warm summer days. It was started in Babkino and completed a few years later in Ples.
On this canvas, birches are shown in unusually bright, rich, vibrant and warm colors. The sun's rays fall on the bark of birches. And due to this, a contrast is created between the illuminated corners of the trees and dark green leaves. The dark pieces of birch bark also emphasize this. Birch trees with leaves are depicted very naturally; Levitan seems to let us hear their whispers.
More on this painting radiant grass is visible. It contributes well to the selection of birch trees. Various wildflowers grow among it. This meadow is full of freshness. It seems to expand, increase the size of the grove depicted here.
This grass spreads unusually smoothly across the canvas. Looking at it, you just want to run along it, lie down, think about something lofty and look through the rustling leaves at the azure sky.
This picture lifts your spirits, gives you vigor and reminds you that winter does not last forever.
Isaac Ilyich Levitan is an artist who has rightfully gained a reputation as the creator of a “mood landscape.” Nature in his paintings shines with the gentle light of love. Such is Levitan’s painting “Birch Grove,” which the master created at the age of twenty-nine.
Origins
The artist’s biography is shrouded in mystery - he did not like to talk about his childhood and family, and during his lifetime he destroyed his entire archive. A bundle of letters found after his death contained the warning: “Burn without reading,” which was done. From the few recollections of his contemporaries, it can be established that Levitan showed the gift of a draftsman very early and became familiar with this type of art. At the age of 13, he became a student at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. His teachers were Polenov and Savrasov - the most famous at that time Russian artists. Levitan's painting "Birch Grove" reminds us of the inextricable and deep connection that unites our landscape painters, who so keenly felt the nature of the wonderful
A landscape painter without equal
The teachers' paintings captured the imagination of young Levitan. He was especially fascinated by the idea of embodying on canvas the very soul of nature, its multifaceted moods. Isaac Ilyich spoke of his teacher A. Savrasov as a painter who knew how to find deeply intimate, unusually touching features in the ordinary, which are so strongly felt in the Russian landscape. The first works of the young Levitan were a little reminiscent of the teacher’s style. Elegiac moods, twilight shades, gloomy and brooding objects - swamps, whirlpools, abandoned rural churchyards - everything demonstrated the closeness of the aesthetics of Levitan's canvases in a creative manner Savrasova.
But very soon the student demonstrated his own pictorial “language”, by which everyone now unmistakably recognizes him.
Levitan's painting “Birch Grove”: history of creation
These were the years of rapprochement with the wonderful Russian writer Anton Chekhov. Together with the Chekhov family, Levitan vacationed near the village of Babkino. It was there that I was born magnificent picture Levitan "Birch Grove". The master created it for four years, finishing work on the Volga. Today this masterpiece is exhibited in the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.
Breath of the Russian forest
Isaac Levitan's "Birch Grove" should begin with the fact that the real object from which the artist painted trees shining with pearls and emeralds was the Plyos Grove.
This small but expressive painting exudes a mood of unaccountable joy, freshness and optimism. How does Levitan achieve such emotional power? Of course, there is a fusion of skill and harmony here, which formed the basis inner world artist.
Play of light and shadow
Why is Levitan’s painting “Birch Grove” attractive to a specialist? Analysis of the techniques and techniques used by the artist allows us to restore the unique features of the master’s brush. The entire space of the picture is filled only with grass, in which blue and yellow sparkles of flowers sparkle, trunks, shiny green crowns: the sky is not visible, neither an animal nor a bird flashes anywhere. Nevertheless, the forest lives! We feel it fresh breath, we hear the cheerful rustling of leaves. The artist skillfully conveys the movement of warm rays, spiritualizing the landscape with reverent tenderness and joy. Two birch trees in the foreground amaze with their lyricism and verisimilitude. Pink and warm brown spots lay softly on the trunks. The painting is reminiscent of the spontaneity and light, clean rhythm of impressionism.
Contemporaries claim that Levitan's friend Anton Pavlovich Chekhov told the author that in this picture, like in no other, one can feel the smile of a brilliant artist.
