The motif of Russian autumn is often encountered throughout the career of Isaac Levitan, a master of the lyrical landscape.
The traditional gathering of autumn leaves, the special transparency of the air and the feeling of sorrow at the passage of summer found a lively response in the artist’s soul. Animating the world of nature with subtle emotions, Levitan creates a mood landscape, expressing the beauty of nature with the help of rich and complex paintwork. Growing among the peasant allotments divided by a narrow, stooping hedge, the young birch tree shows off its still magnificent foliage. This is the most active patch of paint in the entire canvas, uniting the slightly muffled tones of the rest of the colour orchestra. Mikhail Nesterov wrote that Levitan managed to convey the “modest and innermost concealed in each Russian landscape — its soul and charm.” Golden Autumn. Slobodka was shown at the Sezession exhibition of 1898.

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).