Evening. Golden Ples – Levitan, 1889 
- Posted by Isaac Ilyich Levitan
- Museum: Tretyakov Gallery
- Year: 1889
Overview of the painting :
Evening. Golden Ples – Levitan. 1889. Oil on canvas. 84.5×142
The picture belongs to the famous “Volga” period of the artist’s work. A year later, after the end of work, she was bought by Tretyakov for her gallery. The usual Volga coast with a city visible in the distance has extraordinary attractiveness, fabulousness and inexplicable optimism.
Twilight is approaching the shore. The opposite coast is already the whole threshold of the night in power, shrouded in haze, sleepy evening translucent cover.
The city on the shore is still quite well visible. Two dominants – a fire kalanch and a church – bring into the landscape that feeling of peace and reliability that many art historians noted. The author seems to be trying to convey some information about the portrayed city.
The artist’s special attention is paid to a detached house under the red roof. It is known that the author himself stayed in this house whenever he visited the Volga.
The variety of shades of green color used by the author to transfer the lush greenery of a steep coast very accurately and reliably reflect the diversity and juiciness of coastal vegetation.
But the author himself was especially good at Volga. Evening light turned the great Russian river into a shining, thick stream of golden color. A light pink shade gives this stream a gold, precious plume. The barely marked evening sky, almost white, fills the picture with ease, cool and silence. Peace is the main thing in the picture, it was the image of peace and majestic silence that the author devoted his work to.