The Lyrical Landscape Paintings by Alexei Savrasov

Alexei Kondratyevich Savrasov (Russian: Алексе́й Кондра́тьевич Савра́сов; May 24, 1830 – October 8, 1897) was a Russian landscape painter and creator of the lyrical landscape style. Alexei Savrasov, one of Russia’s most remarkable landscape painters, who proceeded from romantic traditions in his never ending searchings, was first to produce what one could term the mood landscape. Although this is an outstanding achievement of Russian realist landscape painting, the actual scope and depth of Saurasov’s work is far greater. As early as the 1850s, Savrasov was seen as one of the leading Russian landscape painters. By his mid-twenties, he had produced many wonderful works, most of which played an important part in the development of Russian painting as a whole. Isaak Levitan, Savrasov’s favourite pupil and follower, called his teacher “the creator of the Russian landscape”, claiming that Savrasov’s art brought out the “lyrical quality of landscape painting”, being filled with “boundless love for his homeland”. At that time, Russian and European landscape artists sought to capture the particular traits of their native countryside, to highlight the link between man and his native land. Without losing their sense of nature as a single and beautiful phenomenon, developed over previous periods, artists strove to explore man's everyday life and history in its connection to a specific landscape.
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