Isaac Levitan, 'Above the Eternal Tranquility', 1894

 

Like a bird soaring across the landscape, the viewer's eye surveys a desolate, empty scene by Levitan, painted on the shore of Lake Udomlia. Colouration is blocky and the palette limited, yet the landscape remains expansive and recessional, sublime and awe-inspiring. Nature is monumental and dominates here, with no human in sight. Instead, this is 'eternal tranquility', a frozen moment captured in a blissfully peaceful landscape. 

Levitan was captivated by the potentiality of the Russian landscape throughout his life. Earlier works show the percolation of French Impressionism into Russian art, where a quickness of brushstroke and dappled sunlight produce landscapes including Birch Forest (1885). Equally, Levitan's final painting depicting a lake of 1900 is almost a homage to Monet with its impasto paint application and shimmering, reflective waters, far from the stillness he presents here. The painting in question, however, suggests a move towards the forms of Russian Symbolism, with a mystical and otherworldly quality. Certainly, the work becomes an 'expression of the highly spiritualised Russian landscape' as Louise Hardiman comments. 

Despite the evocation of 'tranquility', the piece is also unsettling. On the lone hilltop of green, partly shielded by the trees that lean wearily over it, is a church, recognisable by its domed structure. More unnerving still is the abandoned graveyard beside it, wonky crosses starkly reflected against the milky grey waters below. There is in fact a human presence here, or there was - no longer is it a living presence. Not only does the churchyard look unkept but the winding path leading up to the structure seems unused and neglected, slowly being reclaimed by the grass that grows over the top of its fading outline. In taking a darker turn more akin to the landscapes of Friedrich, perhaps there is a social comment to be uncovered in Levitan's work. As a member of the Peredvizhniki, mobile art exhibitions in Russia beginning in the 1880s, art historians have often focused on the polemical priorities of these artists and their works, instead of aesthetic choices. Or, perhaps the 'tranquility' that Levitan presents here is the release of death, as the spirit takes off, floats across the expansive waters, and journeys beyond.