The first greens. May Isaac Ilyich Levitan (1860-1900)

Description of Isaac Levitan’s painting "The First Green. May."

The painting was painted between 1883 and 1888 in oil on canvas.

Levitan’s landscapes are deep, color-filled canvases. Only he has the ability to combine contrasts of dark and light shades.

The canvas "First Green. May" demonstrates this. The painter is using only several primary colors, but the riot of colors can’t help impressing. You want to stare into the landscape endlessly. It calms and gives mental contemplation. Makes you stop and think, pay attention to such beautiful and simple things that surround us. It is nature in all its manifestations.

The painting depicts trees that have spread their leaves into lush crowns, among them is almost invisible the roof of the old wooden house in the background. The artist’s ability to betray the movement of the sun’s glare is striking. The house seems to grow into the ground together with the trees and get lost among this beauty.

Through the play of light and shadow the artist gave the picture a vitality and realism. The gray hue of the roof harmonizes with the greenery. All of Levitan’s paintings evoke unforgettable emotions in the soul. Looking at this landscape, as if you find yourself in front of this wicket, on the path.

You want to walk through it, to go into the yard, to stay there, enjoying and contemplating the beauty of those places. Sometimes you don’t even need to read the descriptions of the painting, you just have to look and then you understand how the picture completely transports the consciousness to the era of that time. Everything becomes clear, and you just think and think.

Levitan had a special unity with nature. The artist has left us a great heritage, which makes you stop and think, feel all the power and beauty of the Russian land.

The painting is in the State Tretyakov Gallery. Moscow.