oak. 1880 Isaac Ilyich Levitan (1860-1900)

Description of Isaac Levitan’s painting "The Oak"

Levitan’s landscape painting entitled "The Oak" is very close in its compositional construction to the same painting of the same title by Savrasov. The painting is very rich in color variety, which can also be compared with Polenov’s works.

Having painted a very powerful and large oak tree growing on the edge of the forest, the shimmering light slides down its leaves, illuminating them with colors and shimmering in the heated air. Thus Levitan was able to perfectly convey the delicate tone of the still young grass at the base of the oak, along with the golden yellow and in places orange color that emanates from the resinous pines that stand around the oak, and the inimitable play of shadows on the branches and trunks of the trees.

When a viewer sees this work of art for the first time, he immediately understands the essence of the art and its striking depth of possibility. It’s no secret that Levitan most preferred autumn landscapes, much less common to find paintings dedicated to the spring season, and quite rare to find a landscape caught in the midst of summer.

Naturally, the main character of the landscape is an oak tree, which stands on the edge of the forest surrounded by conifers. The oak spreads its branches wide, and its bark simply shimmers and golden in the sunlight because of its thick and lush crown, only in some places the sunlight is able to penetrate through the dark green foliage. Because of this, you can see a kind of halo of golden color underneath. And this dry branch gives this picture and the oak tree in particular an even more realistic appearance.

With its natural beauty, the oak outshines all the other trees, even if it were not in the foreground. The mightiness of the oak is also given by such small pines and the flowery tree, which is at the very foot. The oak is always associated with mightiness, resilience and strength.