Friendship With Ilya Repin (1844-1930)
Rafail Sergeevich Levitsky was classmate and close friends with fellow Itinerant artist Ilya Repin. Repin sketched Rafail's image and painted his portrait in 1878 showing early Repin's ability to not just paint faces, but rather to paint people fully, revealing his models in their natural state and how they communicated.
When Repin settled in Moscow in 1876, he and Levitsky would travel to the Abramtsevo Colony, the country estate of Savva Mamontov located north of Moscow. Savva was one of the most famous Russian patrons of art of the late 19th century who founded an artist's union in Ambratsevo.
Repin's "On a Bridge in Abramtsevo" (1879) and Levitsky's "The Bridge in the Woods" (1885–1886) are remarkable achievements showing different approaches of these two great artists painting the same subject matter (a bridge) in the same location (Abramtsevo).
In 1920, Ilya Repin donated his portrait of Rafail Sergeevich Levitsky along with a collection of other works by him to the Finnish National Gallery.
Today, Rafail Sergeevich Levitsky's portrait by Ilya Repin is on permanent display at the Finnish National Gallery, Ateneum Art Gallery, Helsinki, Finland.
Read more about this topic: Rafail Levitsky
Famous quotes containing the word friendship:
“[Convey to your child] that you understand how hard it can be to lose a friend, that under the circumstances feeling sad, angry, hurt or rejected is perfectly normal, that the friendship had some good things and some bad things to it and that neither aspect should be overlooked. . . . Children should be helped to realize that in time they’ll find other friends—but they mustn’t expect a new friend to “replace” a former one.”
—Myron Brenton (20th century)