The work Overgrown Pond is a confirmation of the close relationship of the work of Isaac Levitan with the traditions of Russian realist landscapes. The painting was begun under the influence of the work of the same name byVasily Polenov, Levitan s teacher and old friend, likely during one of the young artist s trips to the Polenovs dacha Zhukovka during the summer of 1887. In the corner of the rustic landscape captured here, the artist united its natural uniqueness with the typical recognizable characteristics of Russian nature.

Levitan Isaac

Levitan, Isaac Ilich (1860, Kibarty (Lithuania) - 1900, Moscow)
Painter, graphic artist, teacher. Studied under Alexei Savrasov and Vasily Polenov at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (1873-1885). Academician of painting (1898). Member of the Society of Travelling Art Exhibitions (1891) and the Munich Sezession (1897), Contributed to exhibitions (from 1880). Contributed to the exhibitions of the Society of Travelling Art Exhibitions (1884-1900), periodical exhibitions of the Moscow Society of Lovers of the Arts (1887-1900), Fellowship of South Russian Artists (1892), Moscow Fellowship of Artists (1893), Munich Sezession (1896, 1898, 1899), Exhibition of Russian and Finnish Artists (1898), World of Art (1899, 1900), Pan-Russian Exhibition in Nizhny Novgorod (1896), International Exhibition in Munich (1898) and the World Exhibitions in Chicago (1893) and Paris (1900). Taught at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (1898-1900).