"Golden Autumn", Levitan. A painting from the collection of the Tretyakov Gallery

Remember Tyutchev's words: "There is an initial in the fall ..." What is there in it that many and many creative personalities sang of it in their works?

Golden autumn! Each year it is new, unknown, but always infinitely beautiful by the unique riot of colors, touching the transparent sadness of the heavens, the delicate play of sunlight on the gold of the foliage. How to reflect on the canvas the freshness of the autumn morning, the warm colors of yellow and crimson crowns, the beauty of Russian nature? Autumn, the time of Indian summer, caused admiration of many writers, musicians and, of course, artists.

The story of one masterpiece

Here is the "Golden Autumn" before us, Levitan. The painting was painted by an artist in the Tver province, not far from the Gorki estate, in 1895. The canvas depicts the nature of the Central Russian strip, painfully native and familiar to every Russian landscape. All its simplicity, the artist gave a bright lyrical mood. That is why later Levitan's painting "Golden Autumn" together with other landscapes brought to the Russian painting such a concept as "landscape of mood".

Variability and immediacy of the state of nature finds a response in the soul of the artist. The variety of colors and forms of the surrounding world he carries with great sensitivity to the canvas and, like a great sorcerer, conveys to the viewer that sacred and intimate that is hidden in every corner of nature. Looking at the landscape, you understand the depth of the artist's love for the autumn colors, you realize how inseparable is the connection: the golden autumn-Levitan. The painting impresses with the simplicity of the motive and execution and at the same time impeccable taste and high skill. How much new is shown in what was seen by all the landscape, what had escaped attention.

About the landscape "Golden Autumn", Levitan

The painting takes us to the autumn birch grove, which grows along a narrow, winding rivulet. She has not yet lost her yellow lace outfit, only two aspen in the foreground almost dropped the leaves. Dark, as in the pool, the water reflects the coastal grass and wild flowers. The reddish-pink bush on the dark background of the river seems an elegant wreath, ready to swim away. As the distance to the horizon, the water in the river brightens, the contrast of its calm blue-blue surface with gold birches evokes a festive mood, the joy of contemplating the landscape.

The sun is not visible, but its bright rays illuminate nature - eternally beautiful, eternally alive. The shadows from the trees are dark brown, short, the day is in full swing, and every spectator is clear: a warm, dry and sunny day was captured by Levitan. Golden autumn is rich in such days, when multicolored colors caress the eye, and the quiet glow of the day makes one forget that this beauty is fleeting, because soon the thieves-cold will take all the gold from the trees. But while the air in the picture is fresh and transparent, you can easily see on the horizon and easily floating clouds in the sky, and the outlines of the distant forest, buildings and winter fields with green shoots.

Levitan managed to convey a sense of airy lightness, space, amazing joy from communicating with nature, and all this is just the colors of the landscape. Possessing a sharp instinct and genuine love for Russian nature, the artist created his own style - the style of Russian landscape, which is rightly called Levitan.

The fate of the picture

In 1896, at the exhibition of the Wanderers in the northern capital - Petersburg - and in other Russian cities, the landscape "Golden Autumn", Levitan was successfully exhibited. The painting was then bought by P. Tretyakov, and now it is exhibited in the Tretyakov Gallery.