Russian landscape artists

The founders of Russian landscape painting: Semyon Fedorovich Shchedrin, Fedor Yakovlevich Alekseev.

Throughout the 18th century, the landscape genre gradually formed in Russian art. And only towards the end of the 18th century landscape became an independent genre. Painters strive to express the poetic essence of the landscape. The founder of Russian landscape painting is Semyon Fedorovich Shchedrin. He is attracted by the outskirts of St. Petersburg and parks. He creates a number of types of parks: Gatchina, Peterhof: "View of the Bolshaya Nevka and the Stroganovs' dacha." Fyodor Yakovlevich Alekseev is one of the founders of Russian landscape painting. Its main theme is the urban landscape. The artist's best paintings are dedicated to St. Petersburg. “View of the Palace Embankment from the Peter and Paul Fortress” refers to the early period of Alekseev’s work, when the artist, who was destined to become a theater decorator, first achieved recognition as a landscape painter. For some time before this, he lived in Venice, where he carefully studied the art of the famous Venetian A. Canaletto, who had a significant influence on the formation of his creative image. Alekseev is a prospectist. For him, the most important thing in an urban landscape is the perspective-spatial construction, and of course, the “strict, harmonious view of St. Petersburg” perfectly suited Alekseev’s artistic tastes. The artist lovingly and carefully drew out the harmonious perspectives of St. Petersburg squares and streets with their magnificent palaces and granite embankments, while perceiving the city vividly, imaginatively, and emotionally. Alekseev’s favorite motif of landscapes is the Neva and its embankments. By introducing the vibration of the air, the play of light on the water and the walls of buildings, Alekseev imparted a unique lyrical coloring to the views of St. Petersburg, strengthening it by introducing human figures, enlivening the silent desertion of slender and majestic buildings.

Romantic landscapes of Silivestor Feodoseevich Shchedrin and I.K. Aivazovsky.

Sylvester Feodoseevich Shchedrin is the nephew of S.F. Shchedrin. S.F. Shchedrin is rightfully considered the founder of plein-air romantic painting in Russian art. He is known as the author of a number of small paintings with views of Rome, Naples and Sorrento, attracting with the light of silvery tones, soft airiness and a special perception of the life of nature and man in it. In comparison with the conventionally decorative classic landscapes of the 17th century that preceded them, they seem to be living “portraits” of nature, copied from life by an artist absurdly in love with it. Sylvester Shchedrin lived most of his life in Italy, where he died. Once a diligent student of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, Shchedrin in the 1820s completely turned away from classicism, which was still very influential in Italy. Very soon the favorite type of Shchedrin landscape of the southern coastal city takes shape. The obligatory coastal rocks, closing the spaces, give it lyrical intimacy and tranquility: “View of Sorrento near Naples” (1828). A significant contribution to the further development of the romantic landscape was made by I.K. Aivazovsky. A painting depicting the sea is called a marina, and an artist who paints the sea element is called a marine painter. The most famous marine painter is Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky. Wise people said that a person will never get tired of looking at water and fire. The ever-changing sea, sometimes calm, sometimes agitated, its changing color, unbridled elements - all this became the main theme in Aivazovsky’s work. The name of Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky is one of the most popular in Russian art. The famous marine painter left a truly enormous legacy. Most of Aivazovsky’s paintings are dedicated to the sea, sometimes calm and quiet in the bright rays of the setting sun or in the radiance of moonlight, sometimes stormy and furious. In the painting "Seashore" the image of the sea appears in its lyrical and romantic interpretation. The landscape clearly demonstrates the artist’s creative method. “The Seashore” was clearly composed and written without nature, but the artist’s imagination accurately recreated the typical character of the seashore, the state of nature before an approaching thunderstorm.

Poetry of Russian nature in the painting of A.G. Venetsianova.

Alexey Gavrilovich Venetsianov (1780-1847) was not a landscape artist. He painted pictures of the everyday genre, portraits of ordinary people. But in his works the landscape plays a huge role: “In the arable land. Spring”, “At the harvest. Summer”, “Sleeping shepherd”. An artist of Pushkin's era, he made an artistic discovery of peasant Russia. Genre and portrait painter A.G. Venetsianov made a significant contribution to the development of the National Russian landscape. This is the first true depiction in Russian painting of the characteristic motifs of the Central Russian rural landscape - golden fields of rye, soft dense grasses, village hedges. All this makes Venetsianov one of the founders of Russian lyrical landscape.

Landscape painting by Itinerant artists: A.K. Savrasov, I.I. Shishkin, F.A. Vasiliev, A.I. Kuindzhi.

In the 2nd half of the 19th century (1870), a significant event occurred in Russian art: the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions was created, headed by the artist I.N. Kramskoy. The Peredvizhniki were united by the desire to popularize art and directly influence real life through art, enlightening and educating the people. The Wanderers denounced social injustice and were adherents of realism in art (the truth of life). Among the Peredvizhniki, many artists painted landscape paintings and made a significant contribution to the development of this genre, creating the aesthetics of a new realistic landscape. One of the first places in this process belongs to A.K. Savrasov (1830-1897).A.K. Savrasov decisively takes a new path in the film “The Rooks Have Arrived” (1871). “Savrasov’s landscape “The Rooks Have Arrived” is the best, and it is truly beautiful, although there are Bogolyubov and Baron Klodt, and Shishkin. But all these trees, water and then the air, and the soul is only in the rooks,” - this is how I.N described . Kramskoy’s impressions of the exhibition of the Association of Itinerants in 1871, where the then famous painting by Alexei Kondratievich Savrasov was first shown. It was this landscape by Savrasov that was destined to play an outstanding role in the history of the development of Russian landscape painting. He ushered in the era of lyrical exploration by artists of Russian nature. With “Rooks,” as Kramskoy aptly put it, the search for the “soul” of Russian nature in painting began. Contemporaries were struck by the poetic insight of the landscape coupled with the exceptional simplicity and modesty of the motif. This was the discovery and conquest of Savrasov, continued and developed subsequently by his student I.I. Levitan and A.A. Korovin. In this the artist saw the specificity and originality of Russian nature. One more very important point should be noted in Savrasov’s perception of the image of Russian nature: the landscape in the painting “The Rooks Have Arrived” is inextricably linked with the life of the Russian people, inspired by their invisible presence. The way of life of the people determines the specifics of the landscape motif; in turn, nature shapes the artistic and aesthetic tastes of the people. In this, the deep nationality and true nationality of the popular landscape painter A.K. Savrasova.

If A.K. Savrasov was a prominent representative of the lyrical landscape in Russian art, then at the other pole is the landscape creativity of Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin. He painted large canvases with panoramic views. Shishkin's Russian nature is nature intended for the heroic people. His ideal is a sublime image of Russian nature. "Singer of the Russian Forest" I.I. Shishkin showed through his canvases the glory, power, and strength of Russian nature.

In the history of Russian landscape painting I.I. Shishkin became an artist who sang the greatness and richness of Russian nature, the mighty peace of Russian forests. Shishkin's name and paintings are extremely popular. Viewers are invariably attracted by the accessibility of Shishkin’s poetic images, the simplicity and clarity of his artistic language. All graphic and pictorial works are based on a strong and precise drawing and a clear compositional design. Shishkin drew a lot and constantly studied nature. He was meticulous to the point of pedantry in detail. Shishkin's favorite motif is that of a forest landscape. The artist had no equal in depicting forests. Forest subjects are developed in Shishkin's works in a very diverse manner. A true masterpiece among forest landscapes is “Pines illuminated by the sun.” The forest edge depicted by the artist seems truly filled with sunlight. Looking at this picture, the viewer seems to feel the dry, resinous smell of pine needles, the summer warmth and freshness of a young pine forest that has not yet been scorched by the heat. The painting is rich in shades and soft tonal transitions.

Fyodor Aleksandrovich Vasiliev left a bright mark in the history of the development of landscape painting. His artist friends called him “The Wonder Boy” for his exceptional artistic talent. Vasiliev did not live long, he died at the age of 23, but he managed to leave a very extensive artistic legacy. Vasiliev’s work celebrates a romantic perception of natural life.

A.I. occupies a somewhat special place in the landscape of the second half of the 19th century. Kuindzhi (1842-1910). His first works were demonstrated at traveling exhibitions. "Forgotten Village", "Chumatsky Tract"; show abandoned corners of impoverished Russia. But then he breaks with the Wanderers and embarks on the path of romantic landscape (late romantic landscape, this is how his work can be defined). Kuindzhi showed pure and modern nature as it exists without human intervention. How beautiful this endless summer day is! Non-interference in this world is the only gift that a person can give to nature. In his works, the artist, first of all, sought to convey lighting, contrasts of light and shadow.

I.I. Levitan and his significance in Russian landscape painting.

The continuer of the lyrical trend in Russian landscape painting of the late 19th century was the student A.K. Savrasova Isaac Ilyich Levitan (1860-1900). He ends his work with the search for landscape painters and Itinerants. Already his first work, “Autumn Day. Sokolniki,” was bought by P.M. Tretyakov. In his early works he appears as a master of chamber lyrical landscape. But he is also a realist. At the turn of the 80-90s. Levitan's creativity reaches maturity. An impressionistic interpretation appears in his landscapes. In the early 90s, when Levitan was working on the painting “Vladimirka,” the fate of freedom fighters imprisoned in tsarist prisons and exiled to hard labor became a pressing topic for a number of leading writers and artists. Almost simultaneously with Levitan, genre artists worked on it: S.V. Ivanov, S.V. Malyutin and L.E. Arkhipov. Never before has the social orientation in Levitan’s art been so clearly expressed. Never before had an artist in his works risen to such a broad ideological generalization of the image of the landscape he created.

In the fall of 1898, Levitan was invited to head a landscape class at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. Despite his extremely difficult health condition, he agreed. He considered teaching landscape painting at school especially important. In St. Petersburg, at the Academy of Arts, doubts arose among the professors about whether it was necessary to teach landscape. Levitan was against this opinion. “I went,” he told his students, because I feel that landscape can and should be taught.” With the inspired and tireless work of his entire creative life, Levitan continued the enormously important work begun by the glorious galaxy of Russian landscape painters, whose efforts created the national realistic landscape. Moreover, in Levitan’s landscapes, the emotional power of the lyrical landscape and the skill of its spiritualization were revealed more subtly and deeply than in the work of his contemporaries. Levitan's landscapes awaken in the viewer's soul that "boundless love for his native land", which the artist carried throughout his life.

M. K. Klodt. On the arable land. 1871

Landscape painting by Russian artists of the 19th century

In the early 1820s, Venetsianov became interested in the problems of lighting in painting. The artist was prompted to resolve these issues by his acquaintance in 1820 with the painting by F. Granet “Internal view of the Capuchin monastery in Rome.” For more than a month, every day, the artist sat in front of her in the Hermitage, comprehending how the effect of illusion was achieved in the painting. Subsequently, Venetsianov recalled that everyone was then struck by the feeling of the materiality of objects.

In the village, Venetsianov painted two amazing paintings - “The Threshing Barn” (1821 - 1823) and “Morning of the Landowner” (1823). For the first time in Russian painting, the images and life of peasants were conveyed with impressive authenticity. For the first time, the artist tried to recreate the atmosphere of the environment in which people operate. Venetsianov was perhaps one of the first to recognize the painting as a synthesis of genres. In the future, such a combination of different genres into one whole will become the most important achievement of 19th-century painting.
In “The Threshing Barn”, as in “The Morning of the Landowner,” light helps not only to reveal the relief of objects - “animate” and “material,” as Venetsianov said, but, acting in real interaction with them, serves as a means of embodying figurative content. In “The Morning of the Landowner,” the artist felt the complexity of the relationship between light and color, but so far he only felt it. Its relationship to color still does not go beyond traditional ideas, at least in theoretical considerations. Vorobyov also held similar views. He explained to his students: “To better see the superiority of an idealist over a naturalist, one must see engravings from Poussin and Ruizdael, when both appear before us without paint.”

This attitude towards color was traditional and originated from the masters of the Renaissance. In their minds, color occupied an intermediate place between light and shadow. Leonardo da Vinci argued that the beauty of colors without shadows brings fame to artists only among the ignorant mob. These judgments do not at all indicate that Renaissance artists were bad colorists or unobservant people. The presence of reflexes was indicated by L.-B. Alberti, Leonardo also has a famous theorem about reflexes. But the main thing for them was to identify the constant qualities of reality. This attitude towards the world corresponded to the views of that time.
In the same 1827, A.V. Tyranov painted a summer landscape “View of the Tosno River near the village of Nikolskoye.” The picture was created as if in tandem with “Russian Winter”. The view opens from the high bank and covers vast distances. Just like in Krylov’s painting, people here do not play the role of staff, but form a genre group. Both paintings are, as they say, pure landscapes.
The fate of Tyranov is in many ways close to the fate of Krylov. He also painted, helping his older brother, an icon painter. In 1824, thanks to Venetsianov’s efforts, he came to St. Petersburg, and a year later received help from the Society for the Encouragement of Artists. The painting “View of the Tosno River near the village of Nikolskoye” was created by a nineteen-year-old boy who was only taking his first steps in mastering professional painting techniques. Unfortunately, the experience of turning to landscape painting was not developed in the work of both artists. Krylov died four years later during a cholera epidemic, and Tyranov devoted himself to the genres of “in rooms”, perspective painting, successfully painted commissioned portraits and gained fame along the way.
In the second half of the 1820s, Sylvester Shchedrin's talent gained strength. After the “New Rome” cycle, he painted landscapes full of life, in which he managed to convey the natural existence of nature on terraces and verandas. In these landscapes, Shchedrin finally abandoned the tradition of staff distribution of figures. People live in inextricable unity with nature, giving it a new meaning. Boldly developing the achievements of his predecessors, Shchedrin poeticized the everyday life of the Italian people.
The embodiment of new content of art, the novelty of figurative tasks inevitably involve the artist in the search for appropriate artistic means. In the first half of the 1820s, Shchedrin overcame the convention of a “museum” coloring and abandoned the backstage construction of space. He switches to a cold color scheme and builds a space with gradual development in depth, rejecting repoussoirs and plans. When depicting large spaces, Shchedrin prefers such atmospheric conditions when distant plans are painted “with fog.” This was a significant step in approaching the problems of plein air painting, but there was a long way to go before plein air painting.
Much has been written about plein air painting. Most often, plein air is associated with the image of a light-air environment, but this is only one of its elements. A. A. Fedorov-Davydov, analyzing the “New Rome” cycle, wrote: “Shchedrin is not interested in the variability of lighting, but in the problem of light and air that he discovered for the first time. He conveys not his sensations, but objective reality and seeks it in the fidelity of lighting and transmission of the air environment.” The work of Shchedrin and Levitan brings together a certain democratic outlook, but is separated by a half-century period of development of art. During this time, there was a significant expansion in the possibilities of painting. In addition to solving the problems of the light-air environment, the color plastic value of the depicted objects themselves is affirmed.
Based on this, V. S. Turchin rightly correlates the landscape painting of romanticism with the plein air: “Romanticism, approaching the plein air, wanted to find and express the picturesque coloring of the air, but this is only part of the plein air, if the plein air itself is understood as a certain system, which includes the problem of the “optical medium”, where everything is reflected and penetrates each other.”

There were observations, but there was no knowledge. F. Engels wrote in “Dialectics of Nature”: “Not only other senses are added to our eye, but also the activity of our thinking.” Newton published Optics in 1704. Summing up the results of many years of research, he came to the conclusion that the phenomenon of colors occurs when ordinary white (sun) light is split. Somewhat earlier, in 1667, Robert Boyle, a famous physicist, tried to apply the optical theory of light to the theory of paints, publishing in London the book “Experiments and Reasonings Concerning Colors, originally written by chance among other experiments to a friend, and then published as the beginning of the experimental history of paints."
First of all, landscape painters paid attention to the problems of constructing space. In the 1820-1830s, many artists studied perspective, among them Vorobiev and Venetsianov should be mentioned first. The impression of naturalness when conveying space in their works takes on paramount importance. Before Vorobyov left for the Middle East, the President of the Academy of Arts A. N. Olenin handed him a lengthy “instruction” dated March 14, 1820. Among other practical instructions, you can read the following: “You will surely begin to avoid everything that a mediocre talent is sometimes forced to invent in order to give more power to works of art. I say this about repoussoirs that exist only in the imagination, and not in nature, and are used by painters who do not know how to depict nature as it is, with that striking truth that, in my opinion, makes works of art charming.” Olenin more than once affirmed the idea of ​​bringing together a work of art and nature. In 1831, for example, he wrote: “If the choice of an object in nature is made with taste (a feeling which is as difficult to define as the most elegant in the arts), then, I say, the object will be elegant in its own way, according to the true expression nature itself." Taste is a romantic category, and finding the elegant in nature itself, without introducing it from the outside, is a thought that contains criticism of the classicist concept of imitation.

In the 1820-1830s, within the walls of the Academy of Arts, the attitude towards working from life was more positive than negative. F. G. Solntsev, who graduated from the portrait class in 1824, recalled that the Savior on the cross was usually painted from a sitter: “After 5 minutes, the sitter began to turn pale and then they removed him, already exhausted.” After 1830, the head of the landscape class, Vorobiev, was given equal rights with the professors of historical painting, and the students of the landscape class were allowed to replace class drawing classes with work on location.
All this speaks of certain processes taking place in the teaching system of the Academy of Arts.
For example, V.I. Grigorovich wrote in the article “Sciences and Arts” (1823): “The distinctive feature of the fine arts is the depiction of everything graceful and pleasant.” And further: “A portrait of a person, painted from life, is an image, and a historical picture, arranged and executed according to the rules of taste, is an imitation.” If we consider that a landscape “should be a portrait,” then the landscape should also be considered as an image, and not an imitation. This position, formulated by Grigorovich in relation to the portrait, does not diverge from I.F. Urvanov’s thoughts on the landscape, set out in the treatise “A Brief Guide to the Knowledge of Drawing and Painting of the Historical Kind, Based on Speculation and Experiments” (1793): “Landscape art consists in the ability to combine several objects of a place into one view and draw them correctly in order to give pleasure to the eye and so that those looking at such a view imagine that they see it in reality.” Thus, Russian classicist theory, in a certain sense, demanded that landscapes and portraits resemble nature. This partly explains the conflict-free proximity of classicism with romantic searches in the landscape and portrait genres. In romantic art, the question of how to achieve this similarity was only more acute. The feeling of nature, colored by human attitude, manifested itself in the work of the founder of Russian landscape painting, Semyon Shchedrin. Although the views of Gatchina, Pavlovsk, Peterhof, painted by him, bear the features of a certain composition, they are imbued with a feeling of a very definite relationship to nature.

In the obituary of Semyon Shchedrin, I. A. Akimov wrote: “He painted the first underpainting of his paintings, especially air and distance, with great skill and success, which was desirable so that the same hardness and art would be preserved during finishing.” Later, Sylvester Shchedrin, in the paintings of the master of classic landscape F. M. Matveev, noted the “most important advantage”, which “consists in the art of painting long-range plans.”
At the end of the 1820s, Shchedrin turned to depicting landscapes with the moon. At first glance, this may seem like an appeal to traditional romantic motifs. Romantics loved the “languorous tale of the night.”
By the mid-1820s, many romantic accessories in poetry had become a template, while in painting the figurative and emotional qualities of the landscape, and in particular the poetics of night and fog, were just being discovered.
Shchedrin painted night landscapes, without leaving work on other Italian views. During these years, he created wonderful paintings: “Terrace on the Seashore” and “Mergellina Promenade in Naples” (1827), views of Vico and Sorrento. It is no coincidence that moonlight landscapes appeared at the same time as the famous terraces. They became a natural continuation of the search for an in-depth image of nature, its multifaceted connections with man. This connection is felt not only thanks to the people whom Shchedrin often and willingly includes in his landscapes, but is also enriched by the feelings of the artist himself, which animate each canvas.

Very often in night landscapes Shchedrin uses double lighting. The painting “Naples on a Moonlit Night” (1829), known in several versions, also has two light sources - the moon and a fire. In these cases, the light itself carries different coloristic possibilities - colder light from the moon and warmer from the fire, while the local color is significantly weakened since it happens at night. The image of two light sources has attracted many artists. This motif was developed by A. A. Ivanov in the watercolor “Ave Maria” (1839), I. K. Aivazovsky in the painting “Moonlit Night” (1849), K. I. Rabus in the painting “Spassky Gate in Moscow” (1854). In solving painting problems, the motif of double lighting confronted the artist with the problem of the direct relationship between light and the objective world.
However, in order to fully embody all the richness of the color picture of the world, its immediate beauty, landscape painters had to leave the workshops for the open air. After Venetsianov, Krylov was one of the first to make such an attempt in Russian painting, working on the painting “Winter Landscape” (Russian Winter). However, it is unlikely that the young artist was fully aware of the task facing him.
The most important discoveries in the landscape genre were marked by the 1830s. Artists increasingly turned to everyday motifs. Thus, in 1832, M. I. Lebedev and I. D. Skorikov received silver medals from the Academy of Arts for paintings of Petrovsky Island, the following year Lebedev for the painting “View in the vicinity of Lake Ladoga”, and Skorikov for the work “View in Pargolovo from Shuvalovsky Park" received gold medals. In 1834, A. Ya. Kukharevsky for the painting “View in Pargolovo” and L. K. Plakhov for the painting “View in the vicinity of Oranienbaum” also received gold medals. In 1838, K.V. Krugovikhin was awarded a silver medal for the painting “Night”. Vorobyov's students write Pargolovo (where Vorobyov's dacha was located), the environs of Oranienbaum and Lake Ladoga, Petrovsky Island. Essay programs are no longer offered to competitors. Topics are chosen by them independently. The samples for copying included paintings by Sylvester Shchedrin.

Vorobyov, who taught a class in landscape painting at the Academy of Arts, also continues to work on revealing emotional content and nature. He chooses subjects in the spirit of romantic poetics, associated with a certain state of atmosphere or lighting, but remains alien to introducing features of philosophical meditation into the landscape. The mood of the landscape “Sunset in the vicinity of St. Petersburg” (1832) is created by the juxtaposition of the luminous space of the northern sky and its reflection in the water. The clear silhouette of a longboat pulled ashore emphasizes the boundless distance in which the water element imperceptibly merges with the “air”. The landscape with the image of a boat standing on the shore carries a poetic intonation - separated from the water element, the boat seems to become an elegiac metaphor for an interrupted voyage, a symbol of some unfulfilled hopes and intentions. This motif became widespread in the painting of the Romantic era.
Landscape, which aims to study the nature of atmospheric conditions, has always attracted Vorobyov. For many years he kept a diary of meteorological observations. In the mid-1830s, he created a series of views of the new pier in front of the Academy of Arts, significant in its artistic merit, which was decorated with sphinxes brought from ancient Thebes. Vorobyov depicted her at different times of the day and year.
The painting “Neva Embankment near the Academy of Arts” (1835) is based on the motif of an early summer morning. The white night disappears imperceptibly, and the light of the low sun, as if in contact with the air above the Neva, imparts a mood of lightness to the landscape. Laundresses rinse clothes on rafts at the pier. The proximity of ancient sphinxes to this prosaic scene testifies to the freshness of the artist’s view of the phenomena of life. Vorobyov deliberately removes representativeness from the character of the image, emphasizing the beauty of the naturalness of existence. Therefore, the main attention is focused on the coloristic solution of the landscape, on the expression of a unique, but very specific mood.

In the mid-1830s, Vorobyov was at the zenith of his fame, and nevertheless, after a series of views of the pier with sphinxes, he almost abandoned work on St. Petersburg landscapes - he wrote mainly commissioned works documenting the stages of construction of St. Isaac's Cathedral, a view of Constantinople and for himself a view of the Neva on a summer night. From 1838 to 1842, in addition to the official order “Raising columns on St. Isaac's Cathedral,” Vorobiev painted exclusively views of Pargolov. This indicates that the venerable artist felt the need to deepen his knowledge by working on location. Unfortunately, the results of these observations were not reflected in his work. In 1842, under the impression of the death of his wife, Vorobyov painted the symbolic painting “An Oak Broken by Lightning.” This painting remained the only example of symbolic romanticism in his work.
Among the graduates of the landscape workshop, gold medalists M.I. Lebedev and I.K. Aivazovsky played a significant role in the development of Russian painting; V.I. Sternberg, who died at twenty-seven years old, six years after graduating from the Academy of Arts, showed great hope.
Lebedev, undoubtedly, was to become one of the outstanding landscape painters of his time. Enrolled in the Academy of Arts at the age of eighteen, within six months he received a small gold medal, and the next year a large one. Already during this period, Lebedev carefully observed Nature and people. The landscape “Vasilkovo” (1833) contains a certain mood of nature and carries a feeling of spaciousness. The small canvas “In Windy Weather” (1830s) is endowed with those qualities that would later become fundamental in the artist’s work. Lebedev is not interested in depicting a certain view, but in conveying the feeling of bad weather, a gust of stormy wind. He depicts breaks in the clouds and the flight of disturbed birds. Trees bent by the wind are given as a generalized mass. The first plan is written impasto, with energetic strokes.

In Italy, Lebedev proved himself to be an extraordinary colorist and attentive researcher of nature. From Italy he wrote: “I tried as much as I could to copy nature, paying attention to the comments you always made to me: distance, sky light, relief - to throw off your pleasant, stupid manners. Claude Lorrain, Ruisdael, examples will remain eternal.
Lebedev was definitely focused on working from life, not only at the stage of sketches, but also in the process of creating the paintings themselves. In the 1830s, landscape painting expanded the range of its subjects, and artists’ sense of nature deepened. Not only events in the natural world: sunset, sunrise, wind, storm and the like, but also everyday conditions are increasingly attracting the attention of landscape painters.
In the above excerpt from the letter, Lebedev’s inherent close look at nature and spontaneity in its perception are clearly felt. His landscapes are much closer to the viewer and rarely cover large spaces. The artist sees his creative task in clarifying the structure of space, the state of lighting, their connections with the subject volume - “distance, sky light, relief.” This judgment of Lebedev dates back to the autumn of 1835, when he wrote “Ariccia”.
As an artist, Lebedev developed very quickly, and it is difficult to imagine what success he could have achieved if not for his untimely death. In his paintings, he followed the path of complicating coloristic tasks, the color harmony of nature, and did not avoid painting subjects in the “open sun.” Lebedev painted more freely and boldly than Vorobyov; he already belonged to a new generation of painters.

Another famous student of Vorobyov, Aivazovsky, also strove to paint from life since his apprenticeship. He considered Sylvester Shchedrin a model for himself. As a student at the Academy, he made a copy of Shchedrin’s painting “View of Amalfi near Naples,” and when he arrived in Italy, he twice began to paint from life in Sorrento and Amalfi motifs known to him from Shchedrin’s paintings, but without much success.
Aivazovsky’s attitude towards nature comes from the poetics of the romantic landscape. But it should be noted that Aivazovsky had a keen color memory and constantly replenished it with observations from nature. The famous marine painter, perhaps more than Vorobyov’s other students, was close to his teacher. But times changed, and if Vorobyov’s works deserved constant praise in all reviews, then Aivazovsky, along with praise, also received reproaches.
While allowing effects in painting, Gogol does not accept them at all in literature. But in painting, too, the process of moving from external effects to depicting everyday states of nature has already begun.
V. I. Sternberg worked simultaneously with Lebedev. He graduated from the landscape class of the Academy of Arts in 1838 with a large gold medal for the painting “Illumination of Easter Gardens in a Little Russian Village,” not composed, but painted from life. Although Sternberg painted a number of interesting landscapes, in his work he felt a strong pull towards genre painting. Already in the competition work he combined landscape with genre painting. Such syncretism brings him closer both to the Venetian tradition and to the problems that were solved in Russian painting in the second half of the 19th century.

An extremely attractive small painting-sketch by Sternberg “In Kachanovka, the estate of G. S. Tarnovsky.” It depicts the composer M. I. Glinka, the historian N. A. Markevich, the owner of Kachanovka G. S. Tarnovsky and the artist himself at his easel. This genre composition “in the rooms” is written freely and vividly, the light and colors are conveyed sharply and convincingly. A huge space opens up outside the window. In his finished works, Sternberg is more restrained; they only reveal the artist’s inherent gift of generalized vision and talent as a colorist.
Among the many problems that were in the center of attention of Alexander Ivanov, an important place was occupied by the issues of the relationship between genres, new discoveries of the coloristic possibilities of painting, and, finally, the very method of working on a painting. Landscape sketches by Alexander Ivanov became the discovery of plein air for Russian painting. Around 1840, Ivanov realized the dependence of the color of objects and space on sunlight. Landscape watercolors of this time and oil studies for “The Appearance of the Messiah” testify to the artist’s close attention to color. Ivanov very much and diligently copied the old masters and, presumably, at the same time felt even more clearly the difference in the worldview of the Renaissance and the 19th century. The natural consequence of such a conclusion could only be a thorough study of nature. In the work of Alexander Ivanov, the evolution that Russian painting went through from the classicist system to the plein air conquests received practical completion. Ivanov explored the dialectical relationships of light and color in numerous studies made from life, each time focusing on a specific task. In the first half of the 19th century, such work required titanic efforts from the artist. Nevertheless, Alexander Ivanov solved almost the entire complex of problems associated with plein air painting in sketches of the 1840s. None of his contemporaries solved such problems with such consistency. Ivanov explored the color relationships of earth, stones and water, the naked body against the background of the earth, and in other sketches - against the background of the sky and vast space, the relationship between the greenery of near and distant plans, and the like. Time in Ivanov’s landscape studies takes on a specific meaning: it is not time in general, but a specific time, characterized by a given lighting.

Ivanov’s method of work was not clear to all his contemporaries. Even in 1876, Jordan, writing his memoirs, probably did not fully understand that Ivanov was busy studying a new method of reproducing reality and that the most pressing problem of this method was working in the open air. Nature in Ivanov’s eyes had an objective aesthetic value, which is a source of deeper imagery than side associations and far-fetched allegories.
Romantic artists, as a rule, did not set out to reproduce nature in all the diversity of its objective existence. As we see in the example of Vorobyov’s work, the preparatory material from nature was limited to pencil drawings, black watercolors or sepia, in which only the tonal characteristics of the landscape were given. Sometimes a full-scale sketch was a drawing, slightly colored with watercolor to determine warm-cold relationships. The color characteristics of the landscape in the eyes of the romantics, and this corresponded to the classicist tradition of painting, had to be determined itself as a consequence of general coloristic searches. The romantics were limited primarily by the fact that the focus of their attention remained on light-tonal relationships. This is how Vorobyov saw nature, and this is how he taught his pets to see nature. For the first half of the nineteenth century, such a view was quite natural, because it was sanctified by tradition.
In the mid-1850s, young A.K. Savrasov focused his searches on a similar method of work. He was close to Vorobyov's school thanks to his teacher Rabus, who studied with Vorobyov. In 1848, Savrasov copied Aivazovsky and was interested in the works of Lebedev and Sternberg. The direction in landscape painting, started by Sylvester Shchedrin and continued by Lebedev, became widespread by the middle of the 19th century. At this time, theoretically comprehensive, but practically limited romanticism could no longer retain its role as a leading movement in art.

The foundation laid by the romantics was strong, but the attitude of the romantics to nature required a certain evolution. One of the artists who developed Venetsianov’s ideas about the primacy of nature was G. V. Soroka. In the winter landscape “Outhouse in Ostrovki” (first half of the 1840s), Soroka confidently paints colored shadows on the snow. This talented artist was distinguished by his love for the color white; he often included people in white clothes in landscapes, and saw the ability of achromatic color to be colored depending on the lighting. The fact that Soroka consciously set himself coloristic goals and carefully observed color changes is evidenced by landscapes depicting different times of the day. For example, the painting “View of Lake Moldino” (no later than 1847) represents the state of nature in morning light. The artist observes colored shadows and complex coloristic play of light on the white clothes of the peasants. In the painting “Fishermen” (second half of the 1840s), Soroka very accurately conveys double lighting - warm light from the setting sun and cold light from the blue sky.
The artist's sincerity and subtle sense of the beauty of everyday manifestations of nature give Soroka's works charm and poetry.
The work of Sylvester Shchedrin, M. I. Lebedev, G. B. Soroka indicates that A. A. Ivanov’s turn to working in the open air was not an exceptional feat of a loner, but a natural stage in the development of Russian painting.
In St. Petersburg, Ivanov exhibited the painting along with preparatory sketches. This was a time when Ivanov’s many years of work, which created, as the artist himself said, a “school,” could not yet be fully appreciated by everyone. Ivanov’s example was difficult, especially after the “dark seven years,” when everything that went beyond the boundaries of the generally accepted system was persecuted. Landscape painting was no exception. According to B.F. Egorov, the censorship deleted this passage, “for fear of a complex theoretical understanding of nature and society - you never know how such dialectics can be interpreted!”

In the late 1840s and 1850s, the Academy of Arts, which was under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Imperial Household and with members of the royal family as presidents, completely turned into a bureaucratic organization. The Academy had a monopoly on awarding silver and gold medals to artists for the implementation of competitive programs. Attempts to obtain such a right for the Moscow School of Painting and Sculpture were firmly rejected. The traditions of academic art jealously guarded the historical genre, in which subjects from history were offered to competitors much less frequently than subjects from mythology or scripture. In addition, the paintings were proposed to be executed in accordance with certain standards: the plot was embodied according to predetermined rules of composition, the facial expressions and gestures of the characters were distinguished by deliberate expression, and the ability to effectively paint draperies and fabrics was required.
Meanwhile, already in the mid-1840s, the “natural school” clearly declared itself in literature, which fought for the honor and dignity of the individual. During these years, Belinsky developed his view of nationality in art and came closer to understanding nationality as a phenomenon that unites the folk, national and universal into one whole. Ideas are ripening, fueled by the conviction of the need for fundamental social transformations in Russia. The turn of the 1850-1860s opened a new, raznochinsky stage in the history of the domestic intelligentsia.
Under his influence, a certain aesthetic program of Russian art was developed. Its foundations were laid by Belinsky, and further developed in the works of N. G. Chernyshevsky and N. A. Dobrolyubov. The struggle was waged for ideological art, for its aesthetic content, which would be inseparable from democratic “moral and political” ideals. Belinsky saw the main task of literature in depicting life. Developing Belinsky's views, Chernyshevsky in his famous dissertation defines the main features of democratic art somewhat more broadly: reproduction of life, explanation of life, judgment on life. The “verdict” required from the author not only a certain civic position and knowledge of life, but also a sense of historical perspective.
Savrasov played a special role in the fate of Russian landscape painting in the second half of the century: he was not only a talented artist, but also a teacher. From 1857, Savrasov headed the landscape painting class at a Moscow school for twenty-five years. He persistently oriented his students to work from life, demanded that they paint sketches in oil, and taught them to look for beauty in the simplest motif.
A new attitude to the landscape is embodied in the painting by V. G. Schwartz “The Tsarina’s Spring Train on a pilgrimage under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich” (1868). The artist fits a genre historical scene into a vast landscape. Aivazovsky came to a similar decision in the historical picture in 1848 in the canvas “Brig Mercury” after the victory over two Turkish ships he meets with the Russian squadron.” The plot of the film was based not on the image of the battle, but on the actions that followed it, unfolding in the background. The landscape and the depicted event appear in an indissoluble unity, which the historical picture did not know before.

Landscape in Russian painting is gradually gaining more and more importance, and the most insightful people guessed the ways of its further development.
By 1870, the internal processes taking place in painting intensified. One of the most important manifestations of new trends was the formation of the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions.
The works brought by Repin and Vasiliev from the Volga made a strong impression on him, and Polenov wrote to his family: “We need to write more sketches from life, landscapes.”
During a retirement trip to Italy, Polenov especially notes: “Mountains in paintings and photographs are not as impressive as in real air.” About the painting of Guido Reni, he writes: “The painting of Guido Reni seems to us only a raw selection of colors, which has nothing to do with light, air, or matter.” These remarks do not yet form a definite program, but in them one senses an awareness of new ways of painting. The young artist saw them in the deepening of pictorial possibilities, in a sincere dialogue with reality.
At the beginning of 1874, which entered the history of art with the opening of the first exhibition of impressionists in Nadar’s studio on the Boulevard des Capucines, the experienced and insightful Kramskoy, reflecting on the fate of Russian painting, on its immediate tasks, wrote to the young Repin: “How far are we still from the real thing, when we should according to the figurative evangelical expression, “the stones will speak.” The last phrase is important for Repin, because traditionally the role of drawing in Russian painting has always been high. And the artist was convinced that when moving towards the plein air one should not lose sight of the drawing.
Returning from his retirement trip, Polenov settled in Moscow, where he created excellent plein air sketches for the unrealized painting “The Tonsuring of the Worthless Princess” and the painting “Moscow Courtyard” (1878). Adjacent to the “Moscow Courtyard” in terms of figurative and picturesque design is the painting “Grandma’s Garden” (1878). Polenov exhibited it, as well as two other works, “Anglermen” and “Summer” (both 1878), at the VII exhibition of the Association of Itinerants in 1879.
At the end of 1881, Polenov travels to the Middle East in order to collect material for the painting. His oriental and Mediterranean studies are distinguished by coloristic boldness and skill.
Since 1882, Polenov replaced Savrasov as a teacher at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. Polenov largely influenced the work of his contemporaries, primarily the landscape painters I. I. Levitan, I. S. Ostroukhov, S. I. Svetoslavsky, and others.

In the early 1870s, Shishkin continued to work. Mastering the art of painting, he, without sparing himself, painted a lot from life, two or three sketches a day. Shishkin Kramskoy highly valued his knowledge of the forest.
The image of a foggy morning, when the rays of the sun hardly break through the foliage of the trees, became the motif of one of Shishkin’s most famous paintings, “Morning in a Pine Forest” (1889). The forest occupies the entire space of the picture. The trees are painted large and on a large scale. Among them, bears settled on a fallen pine tree. In such an approach to depicting a landscape one can discern something romantic, BUT THIS IS NOT A REPEAT OF THE PAST ypOKOB not an artificial emphasis
the color of unusual states of nature, but a sharpened view of ordinary natural phenomena. All these legends testify to how unusual Kuindzhi’s painting was for its time.
Kuindzhi's creativity evolved quickly. To a certain extent, it reflected the stages of development that contemporary landscape painting went through. Kuindzhi had a keen color vision: contrasts of color relationships and a refined sense of gradations of color tone gave his paintings a certain expressiveness. The artist’s paintings are filled with a sense of the life-giving power of nature, air, and light. It is no coincidence that Repin called Kuindzhi an artist of light. Unremarkable motifs - the endless desert steppe, an unknown Ukrainian village, illuminated by the setting sun or moon - suddenly became a focus of beauty under his brush.
Many of Kuindzhi's students made a significant contribution to the development of Russian art. K. F. Bogaevsky, A. A. Rylov, V. Yu. Purvit, N. K. Roerich and other artists took their first steps in art under the guidance of a master.
At a time when Kuindzhi’s fame reached its apogee, with the painting “Autumn Day. Sokolniki" (1879) made its debut by I. I. Levitan. It was acquired by P. M. Tretyakov for the gallery. Levitan began to paint his first landscape works under the guidance of Savrasov at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. He had a gift for generalization, which can be seen in the small sketch “Autumn Day. Sokolniki". It attracts primarily with its color scheme. But not only autumn motifs, which made it possible to convey the feeling of damp air, interested the young artist. In subsequent years, he painted a number of sunny landscapes - “Oak” (1880), “Bridge” (1884), “The Last Snow” (1884). Levitan masters the possibilities of color that correspond to the states of nature at different times of the year and at different times of the day. Polenov, with whom Levitan studied for almost two years, drew the artist’s attention to solving plein air problems. Recalling Polenov’s lessons at the Moscow School, Korovin wrote: “He was the first to talk about pure painting, as it is written, he spoke about the variety of colors.” Without a developed sense of color, it was impossible to convey the mood and beauty of a landscape motif. Without knowledge of the achievements of plein air painting, its experience in using the possibilities of color, it was difficult to convey a direct sense of nature.

In 1886, Levitan made a trip to Crimea. A different nature, a different lighting allowed the artist to more clearly feel the peculiarities of the nature of the Moscow region, where he often painted from life, and deepened his ideas about the possibilities of light and color. Levitan was always driven by a desire beyond his control to convey his love for the vast world around him to people. In one of his letters, he bitterly admitted his powerlessness to convey the endless beauty of his surroundings, the innermost secret of nature.
Old man Aivazovsky continued to paint the elements of the sea. In 1881, he created one of his best works, “The Black Sea,” which amazed viewers with the concentrated power of the image. This painting, according to the first plan, was supposed to depict the beginning of a storm on the Black Sea, but in the course of work, Aivazovsky changed the thematic solution, creating a “portrait” of a rebellious sea, on which storms of crushing force are played out.
A special place is occupied by Aivazovsky’s paintings, painted during the Russian-Turkish War of 1877-1878. Aivazovsky becomes a chronicler of modern events taking place in the sea. But if earlier he painted the glorious deeds of sailing ships, now they have been replaced by images of steamships.
They are based on certain historical events. And although these works are not essentially landscapes, they could only be painted by an artist who is fluent in the art of the marina. Polenov was also at the theater of military operations in 1877-1878, but did not paint battle paintings, limiting himself to full-scale sketches depicting the life of the army and the main apartment. At the exhibition of the Association of Itinerants, held in 1878 in Moscow, Polenov exhibited only landscape works.
Strong romantic tendencies persisted in the work of landscape painter L. F. Lagorio. Like Aivazovsky, he painted the sea, but his works are less passionate. An artist of the older generation, Lagorio could not refuse the skills and techniques acquired during his years of study at the Academy of Arts with M. N. Vorobyov and B. P. Villevalde. His paintings often suffer from an abundance of details and lack artistic integrity. Color is not so much related to identifying real color relationships as it is decorative. These were echoes of the romantic effects of the first half of the 19th century. Lagorio's paintings are executed with skill. In the paintings “Batum” (1881), “Alushta” (1889), he conscientiously depicts the Black Sea ports. Unfortunately, the artist failed to develop those painterly qualities that are noticeable in the works of the 1850s. In 1891, Lagorio painted a number of paintings about the events of the Russian-Turkish War of 1877-1878, but these works are completely far from the problems of modern landscape painting.

The last decade of the 19th century was marked by new trends in painting. Yesterday's youth are gaining recognition. In the competitions of the Society of Art Lovers, V. A. Serov received the first prize for the portrait “Girl with Peaches” (1887), in the next competition for the genre group portrait “At the Tea Table” (1888), the second “prize was received by K. A. Korovin (first the prize was not awarded), then the first prize for the landscape “Evening” was received by I. I. Levitan, and the second - again by K. A. Korovin for the landscape “Golden Autumn”. Polenov was characterized by a heightened sense of color, which he used not only as a decorative element, but primarily as a means of emotional impact on the viewer.
In 1896, the All-Russian Art and Industrial Exhibition was organized in Nizhny Novgorod. The exhibition jury rejected the panels ordered by Mamontov to Vrubel. Upset, Vrubel refused to continue working on the panels “Mikula Selyaninovich” and “Princess Dreams”. Mamontov, who loved to see things through to the end, found a way out. He decided to build a special pavilion and display the panels as exhibits: in this case, the permission of the art jury was not required. But someone had to finish the panel, and that someone, at Mamontov’s insistent request, was Polenov. “They (the panels - V.P.) are so talented and interesting that I couldn’t resist,” wrote Polenov. With Vrubel’s consent, Polenov completed work on the panel together with Konstantin Korovin. At the same exhibition, Korovin and Serov exhibited many beautiful sketches written from the mesmerizing beauty of the northern nature of the then unknown Murmansk region, where they traveled at Mamontov’s request. Among Korovin’s northern landscapes, “Stream of St. Tryphon in Pechenga" (1894), "Hammerfest. Northern Lights" (1894 - 1895). The theme of the North did not remain an episode in Korovin’s work. In Nizhny Novgorod they exhibited decorative panels based on their impressions from the trip. Korovin returned to the theme of the North again in a large cycle of decorative panels created for the 1900 World Exhibition in Paris. For these panels, which also included Central Asian motifs, Korovin was awarded a silver medal. Landscape played a significant role in Korovin’s work. A major perception of color and an optimistic worldview were characteristic of the artist. Korovin was always looking for new topics, he loved to write them in a way that no one had ever written before. In 1894, he created two landscapes: “Winter in Lapland” and the Russian winter landscape “Winter”. In the first landscape we feel the harshness of the nature of the polar region, the boundless snow, bound by the cold. The second depicts a horse harnessed to a sleigh. The rider was away somewhere, and with this Korovin emphasizes the short duration of the event, its brevity. After winter landscapes, the artist turns to summer motifs.
In their youth, Korovin and Serov, diametrically different in character, were inseparable, for which in the Abramtsevo art circle they were called “Korov and Serovin.” When Serov wrote “Girl with Peaches,” he was twenty-two years old, but he had already taken painting lessons from Repin and studied at the Academy of Arts in Chistyakov’s studio. As a subtle colorist, Serov could not help but have a special interest in the genre of landscape, which was present in one way or another in many of his works. Repin, recalling classes with nine-year-old Tonya (as Serov’s relatives were called) in Paris, wrote: “I admired the emerging Hercules and art. Yes, it was nature!
From these works it is clear that the nineties were a time of searching for new ways in the development of painting. It is no coincidence that Levitan and Shishkin created their best landscapes at approximately the same time, and talented young artists also made their mark in art.

In November 1891, two personal exhibitions of works by Repin and Shishkin opened in the halls of the Academy of Arts. Landscape artist Shishkin included in the exhibition, in addition to paintings, about six hundred drawings representing his work over forty years. Also, along with paintings, Repin exhibited sketches and drawings. The exhibitions seemed to invite the viewer to look into the artists’ studio, to understand and feel the work of the artist’s creative thought, usually hidden from the viewer. In the autumn of 1892, Shishkin exhibited summer sketches. This once again confirmed the special artistic role of sketches. There was a period when the sketch and the painting came closer - the sketch turned into a painting, and the painting was sometimes painted as a sketch in the open air. Careful study of nature, going out into the open air to convey the immediate sensation of a passing moment in the life of nature were an important stage in the development of painting.
The solution to this problem was not within everyone's power. At the beginning of 1892, an exhibition of Yu. Yu. Klever was held in Moscow - an artist notable in his time, unforgotten even now. The exhibition space was decorated with felled trees and stuffed birds. It seemed that the entire forest did not fit into the paintings and continued in reality. Is it possible to imagine the landscapes of Levitan, Kuindzhi, Polenov or Shishkin surrounded by this forest panopticon? These artists set out to convey the non-visual properties of objects. They perceived the landscape in the interaction of sensory sensations and generalized thoughts about nature. B. Astafiev called this “smart vision.”
A different image, a different relationship between man and nature is presented in the painting “Vladimirka” (1892). The artist wrote the sorrowful journey to Siberia not only under the impression of the Vladimir road. He recalled songs about hard life in hard labor, heard in these places. The coloring of the picture is strict and sad. Submitting to the creative will of the artist, it is not just sad, but evokes a feeling of inner strength that is hidden in the widely spread earth. The landscape “Vladimirka” with its entire artistic structure encourages the viewer to think about the fate of the people, about their future, becomes a landscape that contains a historical generalization.
“Above Eternal Peace” is not just a philosophical landscape painting. In it, Levitan wanted to express all his inner content, the disturbing world of the artist. This intentionality of the plan was reflected both in the composition of the picture and in the color scheme - everything is very restrained and laconic. The wide landscape panorama gives the picture the sound of high drama. It is no coincidence that Levitan associated the idea of ​​the painting with Beethoven's Heroic Symphony. The approaching thunderstorm will pass and clear the distant horizons. This idea can be read in the compositional structure of the picture. A comparison of the sketch and the final version of the painting allows us to some extent imagine the artist’s train of thought. The place of the chapel and graveyard was found immediately in the lower left corner of the canvas - the starting point of the composition. Further, obeying the whimsical movement of the coastline, which in the sketch closes the space of the lake within the canvas, our gaze is directed to the distant horizon. Another feature distinguishes the sketch: the trees near the chapel are projected with their tops onto the opposite shore, and this gives a certain meaning to the entire composition - an equivalent comparison arises between an abandoned cemetery and the part of the lake closed by the shore. But Levitan apparently did not want this equivalent comparison. In the final version, he separates the chapel and graveyard from the general panorama of the landscape, placing them on a cape jutting into the lake: now the cemetery motif becomes only the starting point of the composition, the beginning of reflection, then our attention switches to the contemplation of the lake overflow, the distant shore and the stormy movement of clouds above them.
In general, the composition is not a natural image. It was born from the imagination of the artist. But this is not an abstract construction of a beautiful view, but a search for the most accurate artistic image. In this work, Levitan used his deep knowledge of the landscape, sketches performed directly from life. The artist created a synthetic landscape in the same way as was customary in classic painting. But this is not a return: Levitan set himself completely different tasks, solving them on different pictorial principles. The famous Soviet art critic A. A. Fedorov-Davydov wrote about this landscape: “Thus, its synthetic universality is presented as the natural existence of nature, and the “philosophical” content does not come from the landscape painter, as if given to the viewer by nature itself. Here, as in “Vladimirka,” Levitan happily avoided any precedence of the idea to figurative perception, that is, any kind of “illustrativeness.” Philosophical reflection appears in a purely emotional form, as natural life, as a “state” of nature, as a “landscape of mood.” One day Levitan, who had been teaching at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture since 1898, suggested that one of his students remove a bright green bush from the sketch. To the question: “So it’s possible to correct nature?” Levitan replied that nature should not be corrected, but rather thought through.
The juxtaposition of a large expanse of sky and a large expanse of water gave the artist the opportunity to use a wide range of color and tonal relationships. He often and with satisfaction depicted the water surface.
A major role in the epic figurative tone of these landscapes was played by the artist’s work on the scenery for M. P. Mussorgsky’s opera “Khovanshchina” for the theater of S. I. Mamontov. “Old Moscow. A street in Kitai-Gorod of the early 17th century”, “At dawn at the Resurrection Gate” (both 1900) and many other works are distinguished by their truthful depiction of the landscape, which is not surprising, since their author is a landscape painter. For many years Vasnetsov taught landscape painting at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture.

Born in Yoshkar-Ola in 1964. He graduated from the Kazan Aviation Institute, while studying there he continued to be interested in painting - a favorite pastime since childhood.

There is no impressionistic transience or avant-garde delights in his works. There is only one charming simplicity, understandable and valuable at all times. Critics consider Basov one of the best representatives of modern Russian realism.

His landscapes are called “picturesque elegies.” In the most ordinary and simplest subjects - a lake lost in the forests, a nameless river, a grove on the edge of a field - he is able to open up to the viewer a whole world, rich in emotions and sensory sensations. Sergei Basov, at the same time, has long established himself as a mature painter, with an individual, original style of painting and an attentive, interested look at the world, observations of which he generously shares with others.

“...One of the best representatives of modern Russian realism, Sergei Basov has been actively working since the early 90s of the last century. Perfectly mastering painting technique, possessing impeccable taste and sense of style, he creates amazingly poetic works that invariably find a heartfelt response in the hearts of grateful viewers - people of very different tastes and views, very different from each other in their worldview and character. The pictorial world that the artist creates and in which he lives is, first of all, the nature that surrounds us. Ingenuous and even ordinary motifs chosen by the artist, such as forest lakes and streams, ravines, forest paths and country roads, are transformed into very subtle, reverent works, a kind of picturesque elegies. At numerous art exhibitions in capital and provincial cities you can see beautiful works in a realistic, academic manner. And, of course, there is a deep internal relationship between positive phenomena in contemporary Russian art and the revival of the country. Artist Sergei Basov makes his worthy contribution to this noble cause. The master’s landscapes are valuable exhibits in many private and corporate collections in Russia and abroad...” Many of our compatriots, going abroad for a long time, take away a piece of Russia captured in Basov’s landscapes as a gift to foreign friends or simply as a souvenir. The artist conveys the inexplicable beauty of the corners of Russian nature in the middle zone on his canvases in a subtle, lyrical manner, with amazing warmth and love.

We know that there are many humble and unknown, but passionate photographers in the world who travel across endless continents, sacrificing their vacation to capture new landscapes. Below we present the works of just some talented artists, whose photographs arouse interest and admiration.

You can check out another publication that also contains beautiful inspiring pictures from different photographers:
Beautiful landscapes for your inspiration

Aaron Groen

The trails of stars and galaxies merge into a beautiful synchronized singing in the photographs of Aaron Groen. This photographer from the United States has a fantastic talent, and he is a worthy addition to our selection.

Alex Noriega

His images are filled with captivating twilight light. Endless deserts, mountains, forests, meadows and objects seem unpredictable in Alex Noriega's photographs. He has a wonderful portfolio.

Angus Clyne

Mood and enchanting atmosphere are two of the most important definitions for Angus Klein's work. Because they are difficult to separate from his images, Angus tries to get as much drama, capture the meaning, and convey the feeling that is inherent in the scene.

Atomic Zen

The name of this photographer is consonant with his paintings, which are reminiscent of Zen. There is so much mystical silence and a vivid state of trance in the frame. These phenomenal landscapes take us beyond reality and arouse even more interest in the beauty of our planet.

Atif Saeed

Atif Saeed is a fantastic photographer from Pakistan. He shows us the hidden beauty of his majestic country. Beautiful landscapes with surreal mountains filled with fog and snow will captivate every lover of landscape photography.

Daniel Rericha

Daniel Rericha is a very humble, self-taught photographer from a small town in the foothills of the Ore Mountains. He loves to capture the beautiful Czech mountains.

David Keochkerian

Through the mystical colors of stars and waves, David seems to very easily convey the essence and true history of the universe. Take a look at his fantastic photographs for yourself.

Dylan Toh

Dylan Toh takes us on an unforgettable journey through amazing places. With it we can save time and through pictures get acquainted with the breathtaking waterfalls of Iceland or explore the Munros ranges in Scotland. We can go on a virtual trek along the Annapurna mountain range or witness indescribably colorful sunsets and sunrises in the state of South Australia.

Erik Stensland

Erik Stensland often rises long before dawn to hike to the remote lakes or high peaks of Rocky Mountain National Park. He captures the unparalleled beauty of the park in the warm morning light, and also builds a photographic collection in the desert southwest, the Pacific northwest and the UK. Eric makes it his mission to reveal natural beauty by capturing amazing moments that will take your breath away.

Gregory Boratyn

Brilliant dynamic landscapes and wonderful artistic images of Mother Earth belong to photographer Grigory Boratin. Over the years, he has captivated us with his magnificent creations. Beautiful paintings.

Jay Patel

Jay Patel's ability to perceive and appreciate beautiful places emerged early in his childhood during numerous trips to the most breathtaking places on the Indian subcontinent. His passion for such magnificence now manifests itself in his constant quest to capture the majesty of nature with his camera.

Jay's photography career began in the summer of 2001 when he purchased his first digital SLR camera. In subsequent years, he spent a lot of time reading photography magazines and articles on the Internet, studying the styles of the great landscape photographers. He has no formal education and no professional training in photography.

Joseph Rossbach

Joseph Rossbach has been photographing landscapes for over fifteen years. His photographs and articles have been published in a number of books, calendars and magazines, including Outdoor Photographer, The Nature Conservancy, Digital Photo, Photo Techniques, Popular Photography, Blue Ridge Country, Mountain Connections and many more. etc. He still travels a lot and creates new and interesting images of the natural world.

Lincoln Harrison

Phenomenal shots of star trails, seascapes and night scenes characterize Lincoln Harrison's quality work. All his majestic photographs add up to a brilliant portfolio.

Luke Austin

Australian landscape photographer Luke Austin currently resides in Perth, Western Australia. He spends his time filming and traveling in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States of America. The constant search for new compositions, angles and objects leads to the continuous improvement and development of his photographic skills.

Marcin Sobas

He also specializes in landscape photography. The author's favorite themes are dynamic fields, foggy mornings in the mountains and lakes. He does everything possible to ensure that each individual photograph tells a new story, where the main characters are light and circumstances. These two factors give the world an extreme and unreal appearance at different times of the year and at different times of the day. In the future, Marcin Sobas plans to try his hand at photographing birds and wildlife, which he finds extremely fascinating.

Martin Rak

Looking at his paintings, you can’t help but wonder where on earth such landscapes with flickering lights exist? It seems that Martin Ruck has no difficulty at all in capturing these beautiful landscapes, full of life and light.

Rafael Rojas

Rafael Rojas considers photography to be a special philosophy of life, based on observation, understanding and respect for the world in which we live. It is his voice and means of conveying his own vision of the world, as well as the opportunity to share with other people the feelings that overcome him when he presses the shutter.

Photography for Rafael Rojas is the same creative tool for mixing emotions as a brush is for an artist or a pen for a writer. In his work, he combines personal feelings with an external image, showing who he is and how he feels. In a sense, through photographing the world he represents himself.

This list of famous landscape painters was compiled by our editor Neil Collins, MFA, LL.B. It represents his personal opinion of the ten best representatives of genre art. Like any such compilation, it reveals more about the personal tastes of the compiler than about the place of landscape painters. So, the top ten landscape painters and their landscapes.

http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/best-landscape-artists.htm

No. 10 Thomas Cole (1801-1848) and Frederic Edwin Church (1826-1900)

There are two American artists in tenth place.

Thomas Cole: The greatest American landscape painter of the early 19th century and founder of the Hudson River School, Thomas Cole was born in England, where he worked as an apprentice engraver before emigrating to the United States in 1818, where he quickly achieved recognition as a landscape painter, settling in the Catskill village of the Hudson Valley. An admirer of Claude Lorraine and Turner, he visited England and Italy from 1829 to 1832, after which (thanks in part to the encouragement he received from John Martyn and Turner) he began to focus less on natural landscapes and more on grand allegorical and historical themes. . Largely impressed by the natural beauty of the American landscape, Cole imbued much of his landscape art with great feeling and an obvious romantic splendor.

Famous landscapes of Thomas Cole:

- “View of the Catskills - Early Autumn” (1837), oil on canvas, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

- “American Lake” (1844), oil on canvas, Detroit Institute of Arts

Frederic Edwin Church

- “Niagara Falls” (1857), Corcoran, Washington

- “The Heart of the Andes” (1859), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

- "Cotopaxi" (1862), Detroit Institute of Arts

No. 9 Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840)

Thoughtful, melancholy and a bit of a recluse, Caspar David Friedrich is the greatest landscape painter of the Romantic tradition. Born near the Baltic Sea, he settled in Dresden, where he focused exclusively on spiritual connections and the meaning of landscape, inspired by the silent silence of the forest, as well as light (sunrise, sunset, moonlight) and the seasons. His genius lay in his ability to capture a hitherto unknown spiritual dimension in nature, which gives the landscape an emotional, never-before-matched mysticism.

Famous landscapes of Caspar David Friedrich:

- “Winter Landscape” (1811), oil on canvas, National Gallery, London

- “Landscape in Riesengebirge” (1830), oil on canvas, Pushkin Museum, Moscow

- “Man and Woman Looking at the Moon” (1830-1835), oil, National Gallery, Berlin

No. 8 Alfred Sisley (1839-1899)

Often called the “forgotten impressionist,” the Anglo-French Alfred Sisley was second only to Monet in his devotion to spontaneous plein airism: he was the only Impressionist to devote himself exclusively to landscape painting. His seriously underrated reputation rests on his ability to capture the unique effects of light and the seasons in sweeping landscapes and sea and river scenes. His image of dawn and an unclear day is especially memorable. Nowadays he is not very popular, but is still considered one of the greatest representatives of impressionist landscape painting. Might well be overrated since, unlike Monet, his work never suffered from a lack of form.

Famous landscapes of Alfred Sisley:

- “Foggy Morning” (1874), oil on canvas, Orsay Museum

- “Snow at Louveciennes” (1878), oil on canvas, Orsay Museum, Paris

- “Morette Bridge in the Sun” (1892), oil on canvas, private collection

No. 7 Albert Cuyp (1620-1691)

Dutch realist painter, Aelbert Kuip is one of the most famous Dutch landscape painters. His magnificent scenic views, river scenes and landscapes of calm cattle, show a majestic serenity and a masterful handling of bright light (early morning or evening sun) in the Italian style is a sign of Klodeev's great influence. This golden light often catches only the sides and edges of plants, clouds or animals through impasto lighting effects. Thus, Cuyp turned his native Dordrecht into an imaginary world, reflecting it at the beginning or end of an ideal day, with an all-encompassing sense of stillness and security, and the harmony of everything with nature. Popular in Holland, it was highly prized and collected in England.

Famous landscapes of Albert Cuyp:

- “View of Dordrecht from the north” (1650), oil on canvas, collection of Anthony de Rothschild

- “River Landscape with Horseman and Peasants” (1658), oil, National Gallery, London

No. 6 Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot (1796-1875)

Jean-Baptiste Corot, one of the greatest landscape painters of the Romantic style, is famous for his unforgettable picturesque depictions of nature. His particularly subtle approach to distance, light and form depended on tone rather than on drawing and color, giving the finished composition the atmosphere of an endless romance. Less constrained by pictorial theory, Korot's work nevertheless ranks among the world's most popular landscapes. A regular participant in the Paris Salon since 1827 and a member of the Barbizon School led by Théodore Rousseau (1812-1867), he had a huge influence on other plein air artists such as Charles-François Daubigny (1817-1878), Camille Pissarro (1830-1903). ) and Alfred Sisley (1839-1899). He was also an extraordinarily generous man who spent much of his money on artists in need.

Famous landscapes of Jean-Baptiste Corot:

- “Bridge at Narni” (1826), oil on canvas, Louvre

- “Ville d'Avrey” (ca. 1867), oil on canvas, Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York

- “Rural Landscape” (1875), oil on canvas, Toulouse-Lautrec Museum, Albi, France

No. 5 Jacob van Ruisdael (1628-1682)

- “Mill in Wijk near Duarsted” (1670), oil on canvas, Rijksmuseum

- “Jewish cemetery in Ouderkerk” (1670), Gallery of Old Masters, Dresden

No. 4 Claude Lorrain (1600-1682)

French painter, draughtsman and engraver, active in Rome, who is considered by many art historians to be the greatest painter of the idyllic landscape in the history of art. Since pure (that is, secular and non-classical) landscape, like ordinary still life or genre painting, lacked moral gravity (in 17th century Rome), Claude Lorrain introduced classical elements and mythological themes into his compositions, including gods, heroes and saints. Moreover, his chosen environment, the countryside around Rome, was rich in ancient ruins. These classic Italian pastoral landscapes were also imbued with a poetic light that represents his unique contribution to the art of landscape painting. Claude Lorraine particularly influenced English artists, both during his lifetime and for two centuries after it: John Constable called him "the finest landscape painter the world has ever seen."

Famous landscapes of Claude Lorrain:

- “Modern Rome - Campo Vaccino” (1636), oil on canvas, Louvre

- “Landscape with the Wedding of Isaac and Rebecca” (1648), oil, National Gallery

- “Landscape with Tobias and the Angel” (1663), oil, Hermitage, St. Petersburg

- "Building a Boat at Flatward" (1815), oil, Victoria and Albert Museum, London

- “Hay Wagon” (1821), oil on canvas, National Gallery, London

No. 2 Claude Monet (1840-1926)

The greatest modern landscape painter and a giant of French painting, Monet was a leading figure in the incredibly influential Impressionist movement, whose principles of spontaneous plein air painting he remained faithful to for the rest of his life. A close friend of the Impressionist artists Renoir and Pissarro, his pursuit of optical truth, primarily in the depiction of light, is represented by a series of canvases depicting the same object in different lighting conditions, and at different times of day, such as Haystacks (1888). ), Poplars (1891), Rouen Cathedral (1892) and The River Thames (1899). This method culminated in the famous Water Lilies series (among all the most famous landscapes), created from 1883 in his garden at Giverny. His final series of monumental drawings of water lilies with shimmering flowers have been interpreted by several art historians and painters as an important precursor to abstract art, and by others as the supreme example of Monet's search for spontaneous naturalism.