Explore the Reception of this artwork, Vladimirka (painting).
In his book Long Days, artist Mikhail Nesterov recalled how much he admired Levitan's Vladimirka. He stated that one could "boldly call this painting the Russian historical landscape, of which there is little in our art". Nesterov wrote that Vladimirka successfully combined "historical fiction with a complete, finished workmanship" and that it is "one of the most mature creations" of the artist in a letter he sent to the art historian Vladimir Kemenov on 10 October 1938.Art historian Aleksei Fedorov-Davydov stated that Vladimirka is one of Levitan's best works and his "universally recognised masterpiece" in his monograph on the artist. He thought that this painting's "deep social content is expressed organically and directly in the landscape". Fedorov-Davydov states that Levitan portrays nature in this painting in a conventional manner while revealing the rich inner content of even the most commonplace objects through the "most simple and ordinary motive of the plain with the road going away". According to him, the road that forms the foundation of the image motif successfully draws the viewer into the complexity of the landscape and progressively reveals its inner meaning.According to art historian Faina Maltseva, Vladimirka's significance in Russian realist art of the 1890s can not be overstated. Maltseva believed that Levitan was able to capture the sorrow and pathos of citizenship in his works "without undermining the beauty of Russian nature, without diminishing the poetic beauty and grandeur of its image". Art historian Vladimir Petrov noted that Vladimirka is a rare instance of a polyphonic historical landscape.Poet Korney Chukovsky, after visiting Levitan's exhibition, wrote: "admire his Vladimirka. What a greedy distance, what a frenzy of its scope! Inspirational, intoxicating, beckoning breadth...". Drawing a parallel with the infamous Vladimir Highway, Chukovsky questioned whether it could represent all of the great artist's creations, with his calm and reconciled awareness of the hopelessness of all Faustian impulses of the human spirit.
Vladimir Kemenov Russian Vladimir Highway polyphonic Vladimir Faust Aleksei Fedorov-Davydov Faina Maltseva exhibition Vladimir Petrov Faustian Korney Chukovsky Mikhail Nesterov