Field 1885

Curator: It’s quite understated, almost ghostly. All that delicate pencil work suggesting form, barely there... what do you make of it? Editor: Understated indeed. I see endless, hand-applied, labor rendered visible through the modest material of pencil on paper. You feel the repetitive movements used to conjure this vision of open space. Curator: This is Isaac Levitan's "Field," a pencil drawing from 1885. Levitan, of course, was a key figure in the Russian landscape tradition, and a founding member of the Peredvizhniki movement, artists focused on depicting Russian life, nature and history in realistic fashion. Editor: So, a challenge to academic art? I can see the clear turn away from idealization in favor of capturing a landscape seemingly untouched, devoid of grand narrative. Is the landscape supposed to communicate some implicit idea or narrative? Curator: That’s an interesting question. The Peredvizhniki were explicitly interested in using art as a social tool, to expose injustices and portray Russian identity, or folk life…But with Levitan's landscapes, I feel something else is also at play here, there's not necessarily the kind of political edge we can find in his contemporaries, such as Ilya Repin. Here it appears to simply convey nature, even if it is a kind of ideal. Editor: I keep being drawn back to the labor, the materiality. What kind of pencil did he use? What paper was he working on? This simple composition contains traces of real manual labor…the repetitive hand. How did this piece circulate, and who was this work ultimately for? What kind of collector in 1885 Moscow would acquire such a landscape and what status would that work obtain? Curator: I imagine it appealed to the rising merchant classes in Russia, patrons who connected with this vision of nature and rural identity without necessarily seeing the work as revolutionary or overt criticism, more a sign of the times. Editor: It gives us much to consider still in terms of Russia, its people, and history. Thanks for sharing these observations with me, it certainly casts the piece in a different light for me now. Curator: The pleasure was all mine.