Breaking down Isaac Levitan's famous painting "The Vladimirka Road"

Hey guys, Don Hamilton here. In the next few weeks and months, I'm going to be bringing you a series of videos where I'm going to take paintings by well-known artists, either masters of the past or contemporary masters of today. I'm going to take one of their paintings and I'm going to break it down and tell you why I think it works as a great painting. Now of course, this isn't necessarily what they believe or what they thought when they were painting it, but I'll tell you what I see in their paintings and why I think it works as a great painting. So stay tuned, and I'll be showing you more videos as well in the next few weeks and months. If you like what you see, let me know. Drop me a note at www.donhamiltonart.com or on my Facebook page, Don Hamilton Fine Art. So take a look, enjoy, and I'll talk to you soon. Isaac Leviton was born in 1860 in a part of the Russian Empire which is present-day Lithuania. In September of 1873, he entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture. In 1877, his works were first publicly exhibited. During his study in the Moscow School, Leviton befriended Nikolai Chekhov, whose famous brother, playwright and author Anton Chekhov, became the artist's closest friend. In 1897, Leviton was elected to the Imperial Academy of Arts, and in 1898, he was named the head of the landscape studio at the Moscow School. In poor health from a heart condition, Leviton spent the last year of his life at Chekhov's home in the Crimea. In spite of the effects of a terminal illness, his works were filled with light and color, beautiful works reflecting the tranquility of the beauty of the Russian landscape. Isaac Leviton died in 1900, but his legacy and influence are still felt today. He left behind more than a thousand works, including watercolors, pastels, graphics, and illustrations. So join me now as I take a look at one of his most popular paintings, The Vladimirka Road. I'll dissect it and tell you why I believe it works as a great piece of art. The Vladimirka Road was painted in 1892 by Isaac Leviton. This painting had a very significant message that Leviton wanted to send. He often combined his realistic visions with strong messages. And in this case, it's the desolation of the landscape and the message conveyed by the road itself. This road is very significant because this road is the road taken by the exiles to reach Siberia. So you can see the road appears to have no end, which is a message, again, that rings true with where this road is at. Leviton was likely making a reference to his own exile, which occurred during this same period. Because he was Jewish, he was evicted from Moscow, and this experience would leave a profound mark on him for the rest of his life. You can see in the painting that the colors are fairly dull. Kind of dull greens and blues. Not a lot of strong color here at all. In fact, some of it may be a little unattractive. The clouds are very heavy and foreboding. There's no real sun peeking through. And it's been said that Leviton is indicating that the prisoners are forever itinerants, or that Russia is so vast that human beings vanish in its unlimited space. And in the case of Siberia, that's very possible. So let's just take a look at it from a compositional standpoint. You can see right here, he's got a long horizontal all the way across here that really creates a sense of distance, a sense of vastness and openness, and really kind of emptiness in a lot of ways because there's not a lot in here. There's a few little subjects here and there, a few little things that identify it, but overall it's pretty vast and pretty quiet here. If you look at the road here, it goes all the way back to the horizon and just basically disappears. Great lead-in, great composition in terms of creating lead-ins. He's got these angles coming here that help to create those angles, and then he carries it on with this one here. He leaves a lot of cool colors back in the background here to create some distance and create a feeling of receding into the distance. The sky you can see is fairly muted, not a lot of sky, a very big, very vast sky, which adds to that openness and to that sense of being out in nowhere. In my mind, the simpleness of this painting is what makes it so strong. Masterly painted in a way that wasn't overstated, great composition here. Probably that's the strongest part of this along with the somberness of the color. I think it really carries the feeling that you're out in the middle of nowhere. Again, The Vladimirka Road by Isaac Leviton.