Focus on Evening Bells (painting) and analyze the Reception.
When discussing the direction of Levitan's work in the late 1880s–early 1890s, Fedorov-Davydov noted that the constant search for "more and more new generalising images" was based on reflection. Following a holiday along the Volga River in 1889, Levitan created a number of the most literary and philosophical of his paintings in 1892—Evening Bells, By the Pool, Vladimirka and, finally, as a kind of synthesis, the painting Over Eternal Peace (1894). Calling Evening Bells a variation of Quiet Abode, Feodorov-Davydov acknowledged that the painting in 1892 Levitan made a decisive step towards the composed landscape: "This is his first landscape, which did not exist as such in nature". The landscape was created by the artist "from the combination of two natural images", according to Fedorov-Davydov, and Levitan was able to "masterfully combine these two motifs in his painting and achieve the impression of commonality and unity of image, the harmony of the parts as a whole".
Evening Bells, according to art historian Serafim Druzhinin, has "a light and peaceful feeling". Druzhinin wrote that Levitan succeeded in conveying "the feelings that one who subtly perceives nature might have, listening to the evening chime melting in the air" and feeling sad because life does not have the same harmony as nature does through the painting's harmonious combination of cool and warm tones.Evening Bells, along with Levitan's earlier paintings Evening. Golden Plyos (1889) and Quiet Abode, were ranked by art historian Gleb Pospelov as important works representing the concept of an abode in the landscape art of Russian artists of the late 19th century. Pospelov defined abode as "a serene land, sheltered from storms, where the human soul not only thaws, but also germinates", and the motif of abode also included "a sense of the path to be crossed in order to reach a visible in the depths abode". According to Pospelov, the theme of approaching the abode is less prominent in Evening Bells, but the "impression of achieved silence" is more prominent than in the previous two paintings.According to art historian Vladimir Petrov, the canvas Evening Bells, which "found soulful embodiment of deepest strings of poetic aspirations of the artist and his contemporaries", is "one of the most musical and perfect in its artistic structure" of Levitan works. Despite the fact that the painting Evening Bells is similar to the motif of Quiet Abode, Petrov noted that it is "nevertheless devoid of secondary character, has its own, unique charm". According to Petrov, Levitan achieves "even greater poetic scale than in Quiet Abode" in Evening Bells, owing primarily to the successful spatial solution.
By the Pool Volga River Russian Vladimirka Evening. Golden Plyos Volga Over Eternal Peace Plyos Quiet Abode ru Gleb Pospelov