That final painting of Levitan's, the one with the church, the one he finished shortly before he died but which he started long before, the one he struggled with, tweaking it and tweaking it until he got it right, not looking like the landscape in real life but looking like the landscape he needed, I was thinking what a statement it is.
Because Levitan's own life was a dance between the raindrops. A penniless orphan, he only got two years of art school. Immensely talented, he found a mentor who championed him and he studied with a scholarship, until that mentor died and the little Jew was thrown out of school. To his regret, he never got really good with the figure. He turned his disadvantage into an advantage and became the best landscape painter ever, but still.
Think how when he was living, Jews were being decimated by pogroms, expelled from their homes. They were in no position to help him. What help he received was from non-Jews. He painted at their dachas, they put him up. Purely from merit he attracted the great collector Tretyakov as a patron, so he showed alongside the best painters of the day. It was only through the help of non-Jewish friends that he avoided being sent to Siberia. Expulsion was always hanging over his head. I think of his Vladimirka Road (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/44/Vladimirka_%28Levitan%29.jpg/640px-Vladimirka_%28Levitan%29.jpg), the road to Siberia, as bleak as bleak gets.
It's like he spent his whole life with a go-bag, depending on the kindness of friends and strangers who forgave him for being a Jew because of his excellence at painting.
He had a heart condition and had been sick for years when he painted "Over Eternal Rest." He could have painted something with the dread of "The Vladimirka Road" as he was struggling in vain to heal, but he didn't. "Over Eternal Rest" is a profoundly optimistic piece. Never mind that he paints a church and not a synagogue — he was painting for a Christian audience, after all, and painting in their visual language. The grandeur, the conceptual abstraction, and the optimism make "Over Eternal Rest" a profoundly Jewish piece. He had a lot of reasons for despair, but he refused despair.
What a lovely essay. I saved it off.
That final painting of Levitan's, the one with the church, the one he finished shortly before he died but which he started long before, the one he struggled with, tweaking it and tweaking it until he got it right, not looking like the landscape in real life but looking like the landscape he needed, I was thinking what a statement it is.
Because Levitan's own life was a dance between the raindrops. A penniless orphan, he only got two years of art school. Immensely talented, he found a mentor who championed him and he studied with a scholarship, until that mentor died and the little Jew was thrown out of school. To his regret, he never got really good with the figure. He turned his disadvantage into an advantage and became the best landscape painter ever, but still.
Think how when he was living, Jews were being decimated by pogroms, expelled from their homes. They were in no position to help him. What help he received was from non-Jews. He painted at their dachas, they put him up. Purely from merit he attracted the great collector Tretyakov as a patron, so he showed alongside the best painters of the day. It was only through the help of non-Jewish friends that he avoided being sent to Siberia. Expulsion was always hanging over his head. I think of his Vladimirka Road (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/44/Vladimirka_%28Levitan%29.jpg/640px-Vladimirka_%28Levitan%29.jpg), the road to Siberia, as bleak as bleak gets.
It's like he spent his whole life with a go-bag, depending on the kindness of friends and strangers who forgave him for being a Jew because of his excellence at painting.
He had a heart condition and had been sick for years when he painted "Over Eternal Rest." He could have painted something with the dread of "The Vladimirka Road" as he was struggling in vain to heal, but he didn't. "Over Eternal Rest" is a profoundly optimistic piece. Never mind that he paints a church and not a synagogue — he was painting for a Christian audience, after all, and painting in their visual language. The grandeur, the conceptual abstraction, and the optimism make "Over Eternal Rest" a profoundly Jewish piece. He had a lot of reasons for despair, but he refused despair.
He's one of my heroes.
What a beautiful comment, Shelah! I enjoyed reading it very much. Thank you for your knowledge and insights.