Eternal Peace, 1894, by Isaac Levitan (1860– 1900), 5ft by 6¾ft, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia.
Theresa Tollemache says: All Levitan’s majestic paintings are so evocative of the landscape I love and am so familiar with from my travels to and from linen factories in the heart of Russia. This one seems to evoke everything for me about the country in which my grandmother was born. It’s a huge canvas and, when standing in front of it, one feels the boundless expanse, the endless horizon. For me, it’s a very spiritual picture, rather melancholic, but also ethereal as it gives one the sense of hovering weightlessly above the little church like a bird in flight. From the window of the church comes the glow of a flickering candle, a reminder of how transitory human life is.
Theresa Tollemache runs Volga Linen, which she founded in 1995.
John McEwen comments on Eternal Peace: The much missed Brian Sewell wrote: ‘What marks out Levitan’s work... is the sheer melancholy... landscape seems to have been simply a vehicle for the most absolutely tragic and convincing personal expression imaginable... this sort of universalism—this ability, as with the best of Russian literature and music, to speak out clearly across national and temporal boundaries—signals a kind of greatness.’
Isaac Levitan was born in Lithuania (then part of imperial Russia) into a poor but educated Jewish family; his father taught German and French and worked as a translator for a French building company. In 1870, the family moved to Moscow where, aged 13, Levitan entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture.
The deaths of his mother (1875) and father (1877) left him destitute, but Levitan won a scholarship to complete his studies. It also earned him a rapid recall when Jews were temporarily banished from major cities after an assassination attempt on the Tsar.
In 1879, he met the similarly struggling Anton Chekhov, also born in 1860. The friendship deepened through the next decade when he stayed several summers with the Chekhovs in the country. On occasion, Chekhov had to ‘rescue’ the depressive Levitan ‘from his own self’, languid days hunting being one remedy. Travel opened Levitan’s eyes to the immensity of the Russian landscape: ‘Is there anything more tragic than... seeing God in everything and being unable to express these sublime emotions, aware of your powerlessness.’ he considered Eternal Peace his masterpiece: ‘In this picture all of my self, all of my psyche, all that I consist of is laid bare.’
My favourite painting: Nicholas Cronk
'I like the fact that the painter, Huber, has cheekily seated himself on the great man’s left.'
My favourite painting: Amy Meyers
'Stubbs’s portrayal is one of the subtlest and most poignant commentaries on the troubling displacements that were accruing from the
-
Game, set, match: 12 of the world’s most beautiful tennis courtsFrom Italy to Indonesia, when it comes to hotel amenities, a picturesque tennis court will always trump a 24-hour gym. So, before you book your next holiday, take a look at our pick of the 12 best.
-
Five frankly enormous mansions, including one with its own private swimming lake, as seen in Country LifeSometimes bigger really is better.
-
'As a child I wanted to snuggle up with the dogs and be part of it': Alexia Robinson chooses her favourite paintingAlexia Robinson, founder of Love British Food, chooses an Edwin Landseer classic.
-
The Pre-Raphaelite painter who swapped 'willowy, nubile women' for stained glass — and created some of the best examples in BritainThe painter Edward Burne-Jones turned from paint to glass for much of his career. James Hughes, director of the Victorian Society, chooses a glass masterpiece by Burne-Jones as his favourite 'painting'.
-
'I can’t look away. I’m captivated': The painter who takes years over each portrait, with the only guarantee being that it won't look like the subjectFor Country Life's My Favourite Painting slot, the writer Emily Howes chooses a work by a daring and challenging artist: Frank Auerbach.
-
My Favourite Painting: Rob HouchenThe actor Rob Houchen chooses a bold and challenging Egon Schiele work.
-
My Favourite Painting: Jeremy Clarkson'That's why this is my favourite painting. Because it invites you to imagine'
-
The chair of the National Gallery names his favourite from among the 2,300 masterpieces — and it will come as a bit of a shockAs the National Gallery turns 200, the chair of its board of trustees, John Booth, chooses his favourite painting.
-
'A wonderful reminder of what the countryside could and should be': The 200-year-old watercolour of a world fast disappearingChristopher Price of the Rare Breed Survival Trust on the bucolic beauty of The Magic Apple Tree by Samuel Palmer, which he nominates as his favourite painting.
-
My favourite painting: Andrew Graham-Dixon'Lesson Number One: it’s the pictures that baffle and tantalise you that stay in the mind forever .'
