It seemed that the cathedral was not built of stone. Page title. Russian language and culture of speech

In the south, Levitan felt with complete clarity that only the sun
It rules over colors. The greatest pictorial force behind
turned on in the sunlight, and all the apparent grayness of the Russian
nature is good only because it is the same solar
light, but muted, passing through layers of moist air
spirit and a thin veil of clouds.

The sun and black light are incompatible. Black color is not
paint is the corpse of paint. Levitan was aware of this even after the trip
in Crimea he decided to banish dark tones from his canvases. Right
Yes, he didn’t always succeed.

Thus began the struggle for light that lasted many years.

At this time in France, Van Gogh was working on a transfer to
canvas of solar fire, turning wine into crimson gold
towns of Arles. Around the same time, Monet was studying the solar
bright light on the walls of Reims Cathedral. He was amazed that the light
The heavy haze gave the bulk of the cathedral a weightlessness. It seemed
that the cathedral was built not from stone, but from various and bright
bottom of colored air masses. I should have approached him
closely and run your hand over the stone to return to action
Reality.

Levitan worked still timidly. The French worked bravely,
persistently. They were helped by a sense of personal freedom, cultural
diction, smart friendly environment. Levitan was deprived of everything
this.

Since the trip to the south, Levitan’s usual melancholy has been supplemented by a constant memory of dry and clear
colors, about the sun, which turned every unknown
significant day of human life.

There was no sun in Moscow. Levitan lived in furnished
rooms "England" on Tverskaya. The city became so thick overnight
lapped by the cold fog that during the short winter day he had not
managed to thin out. A kerosene lamp was burning in the room. Yellow
the light mixed with the darkness of the chilly day and covered the dirty
people's faces and unfinished canvases with dark spots.

Again, but not for long, the need returned. To the hostess for the room
Nat had to pay not in money, but in sketches.

Levitan was overcome with heavy shame when the hostess hoped
shaft pince-nez and looked at the “pictures” to choose the most
the most striking thing was that the hostess's grumbling
coincided with articles by newspaper critics.

Monsieur Levitan,” said the hostess, “why don’t you
draw a purebred cow in this meadow, and here under the linden tree
won't you put a couple of lovers in jail? It would be nice for
eyes.

Critics wrote much the same thing. They demanded that Le-
Witan enlivened the landscape with herds of geese, horses, figures of
Tukhs and women.

Critics demanded geese, but Levitan thought about the magnificent
nom the sun, which sooner or later had to flood
Russia on his canvases and give weight to each birch
and the shine of precious metal.

After Crimea, Levitan entered into life for a long time and firmly
Volga.

The first trip to the Volga was unsuccessful. It was drizzling,
The Volga water became cloudy. The wind blew short, boring
waves The windows of a hut in the village were watering from the annoying rain
on the banks of the Volga, where Levitan settled, the distances were foggy, everything
The gray paint around was eaten away.

Levitan suffered from the cold, from the slippery clay of the Volga
shores, from the inability to write in the air.

Insomnia began. The old housewife was snoring while talking
family, and Levitan envied her and wrote about this envy to Chekhov.

The rain drummed on the roof, and every half hour Levitan
lit a match and looked at the clock.

Dawn was lost in the impenetrable wasteland of the night, where
an inhospitable wind yawned. Levitan was overcome with fear. To him
it seemed that the night would last for weeks, that he was exiled to this
dirty village and doomed to listen to being whipped all his life
There are wet birch branches along the log wall.

Sometimes he walked out onto the threshold at night, and the branches hit him painfully
on the face and hands. Levitan got angry and lit a cigarette, but immediately
but he threw it away—the sour tobacco smoke set his jaws.

On the Volga the persistent clatter of steamship wheels could be heard -
the tugboat, blinking yellow lights, pulled up to Rybinsk,
smelly barges.

The great river seemed to Levitan the threshold of a gloomy hell.
The dawn did not bring relief. The clouds crowded stupidly, not
poured in from the northwest, dragging the watery hems of the rain along the ground.
The wind whistled through the crooked windows, it made people blush and freeze
hands. Cockroaches scattered from the paint box.

Levitan did not have mental stamina. He comes
was in despair at the discrepancy between what he expected,

Current page: 6 (book has 29 pages in total)

Levitan suffered the most. He was constantly accused of all sorts of ridiculous crimes and, finally, a trial was held against him. Anton Chekhov, disguised as a prosecutor, delivered an indictment. The listeners fell from their chairs with laughter. Nikolai Chekhov played the fool-witness. He gave inconsistent testimony, was confused, frightened and looked like Chekhov’s peasant from the story “The Intruder” - the one who unscrewed the nut from the rails to make a sinker for the shelesper. Alexander Chekhov - the defender - sang a stilted actor's speech.

Levitan was especially targeted for his handsome Arab face. In his letters, Chekhov often mentioned Levitan's beauty. “I will come to you, handsome as Levitan,” he wrote. “He was languid, like Levitan.”

But the name Levitan became an exponent of not only male beauty, but also the special charm of the Russian landscape. Chekhov coined the word “Levitanist” and used it very aptly.

“Nature here is much more Levitanistic than here,” he wrote in one of his letters. Even Levitan's paintings varied - some were more Levitanistic than others.

At first it seemed like a joke, but over time it became clear that this cheerful word contained a precise meaning - it expressed that special charm of the landscape of central Russia, which of all the artists of that time, only Levitan was able to convey on canvas.

Sometimes strange things happened in the meadow near Grandma's house. At sunset, Levitan, dressed as a Bedouin, rode out into the meadow on an old donkey. He got off the donkey, squatted down and began to pray to the east. He raised his hands up, sang pitifully and bowed towards Mecca. It was a Muslim prayer.

Anton Chekhov was sitting in the bushes with an old Berdanka loaded with paper and rags. He predatorily aimed at Levitan and pulled the trigger. Clouds of smoke scattered over the meadow. Frogs croaked desperately in the river. Levitan fell to the ground with a piercing scream, pretending to be killed. They put him on a stretcher, put old felt boots on his hands and began to carry him around the park. The Chekhov choir sang every nonsense that came to mind to accompany the sad funeral chants. Levitan shook with laughter, then could not stand it, jumped up and ran into the house.

At dawn, Levitan left with Anton Pavlovich to fish on Istra. For fishing, they chose steep banks overgrown with bushes, quiet pools where water lilies bloomed and rudd walked in flocks in the warm water. Levitan read Tyutchev's poems in a whisper. Chekhov made scary eyes and swore in a whisper too - he was biting, and his poems frightened the cautious fish.

What Levitan dreamed of back in Saltykovka happened - games of burners, twilight, when a thin moon hangs over the thickets of the village garden, fierce arguments over evening tea, smiles and embarrassment of young women, their kind words, sweet quarrels, the trembling of the stars above groves, the cries of birds, the creaking of carts in the night fields, the proximity of talented friends, the proximity of well-deserved fame, a feeling of lightness in the body and heart.

Despite a life full of summer charm, Levitan worked a lot. The walls of his barn - a former chicken coop - were covered from top to bottom with sketches. At first glance, there was nothing new about them - the same familiar winding roads that are lost behind the slopes, copses, distances, a bright moon over the outskirts of the villages, paths trampled by bast shoes among the fields, clouds and lazy rivers.

A familiar world appeared on the canvases, but there was something of its own in it that could not be conveyed in meager, human words. Levitan's paintings caused the same pain as memories of a terribly distant, but always tempting childhood.

Levitan was an artist of sad landscapes. The landscape is always sad when a person is sad. For centuries, Russian literature and painting spoke of a boring sky, skinny fields, and lopsided huts. “Russia, poor Russia, your black huts are to me, your songs are windy to me, like the first tears of love.”

From generation to generation, man looked at nature with eyes clouded from hunger. She seemed to him as bitter as his fate, like a crust of black wet bread. To a hungry person, even the brilliant sky of the tropics will seem inhospitable.

This is how a stable poison of despondency was developed. He muffled everything, deprived the colors of their light, play, and elegance. The gentle, varied nature of Russia has been slandered for hundreds of years, considered tearful and gloomy. Artists and writers have lied to her without realizing it.

Levitan came from a ghetto, deprived of rights and a future, a native of the Western Region - a country of small towns, consumptive artisans, black synagogues, cramped conditions and poverty.

Lawlessness haunted Levitan all his life. In 1892, he was evicted from Moscow for the second time, despite the fact that he was already an artist with all-Russian fame. He had to hide in the Vladimir province until his friends managed to cancel the deportation.

Levitan was joyless, just as the history of his people, his ancestors, was joyless. He fooled around in Babkino, was carried away by girls and colors, but somewhere in the depths of his brain lived the thought that he was a pariah, an outcast, the son of a race that had experienced humiliating persecution.

Sometimes this thought completely took over Levitan. Then attacks of painful blues came. It intensified from dissatisfaction with his work, from the consciousness that his hand was unable to convey in paint what his free imagination had long ago created.

When the blues came, Levitan ran away from people. They seemed like enemies to him. He became rude, impudent, intolerant. He angrily scraped paint from his paintings, hid, went hunting with his dog Vesta, but did not hunt, but wandered through the forests without a goal. On such days, only nature replaced him with a loved one - she consoled him, passed the wind across his forehead, like a mother’s hand. At night the fields were silent - Levitan rested on such nights from human stupidity and curiosity.

Twice during a fit of blues, Levitan shot himself, but remained alive. Both times Chekhov saved him.

The blues passed. Levitan returned to people, wrote again, loved, believed, became entangled in the complexity of human relationships, until a new blow of the blues overtook him.

Chekhov believed that Levitan's melancholy was the beginning of mental illness. But it was, perhaps, an incurable disease of every great person who was demanding of himself and of life.

Everything written seemed helpless. Behind the colors applied to the canvas, Levitan saw others - cleaner and thicker. From these paints, and not from factory-made cinnabar, cobalt and cadmium, he wanted to create a landscape of Russia - transparent, like the September air, festive, like a grove during leaf fall.

But spiritual sullenness held his hands while he worked. Levitan could not write for a long time; he did not know how to write lightly and transparently. Dim light lay on the canvases, the colors frowned. He couldn't make them smile.

In 1886, Levitan left Moscow for the first time to the south, to Crimea.

In Moscow, he painted scenery for the opera house all winter, and this work did not pass without a trace for him. He began to use paints more boldly. The stroke became freer. The first signs of another trait inherent in a true master appeared - signs of audacity in handling materials. This property is necessary for everyone who works on the embodiment of their thoughts and images. A writer needs courage in handling words and his store of observations, a sculptor - with clay and marble, an artist - with colors and lines.

The most valuable thing Levitan learned in the south was pure paint. The time spent in the Crimea seemed to him like continuous mornings, when the air, settled overnight, like water in giant reservoirs of mountain valleys, is so pure that from afar one can see the dew flowing from the leaves, and tens of miles away the foam of the waves reaching the rocky shores is white. .

Large expanses of air lay over the southern land, giving the colors sharpness and convexity.

In the south, Levitan felt with complete clarity that only the sun rules over colors. The greatest pictorial power lies in sunlight, and all the grayness of Russian nature is good only because it is the same sunlight, but muted, passing through layers of humid air and a thin veil of clouds.

The sun and black light are incompatible. Black is not paint, it is the corpse of paint. Levitan was aware of this and after a trip to Crimea he decided to banish dark tones from his canvases. True, he did not always succeed.

Thus began the struggle for light that lasted many years.

At this time in France, Van Gogh was working on conveying on canvas the solar fire that turned the vineyards of Arles into crimson gold. Around the same time, Monet studied sunlight on the walls of Reims Cathedral. He was amazed that the haze of light gave the bulk of the cathedral weightlessness. It seemed that the cathedral was built not of stone, but of variously and palely colored air masses. You had to come close to it and run your hand over the stone to return to reality.

Levitan worked still timidly. The French worked bravely and persistently. They were helped by a sense of personal freedom, cultural traditions, and a smart, friendly environment. Levitan was deprived of this. He did not know the feeling of personal freedom. He could only dream about her, but dream powerlessly, with irritation at the dullness and melancholy of Russian life of that time. There was no smart, friendly environment either.

Since the trip to the south, Levitan’s usual melancholy has been supplemented by a constant memory of dry and clear colors, of the sun, which turned every insignificant day of human life into a holiday.

There was no sun in Moscow. Levitan lived in furnished rooms “England” on Tverskaya. During the night the city was so thickly shrouded in cold fog that it did not have time to thin out during the short winter day. A kerosene lamp was burning in the room. The yellow light mixed with the darkness of the chilly day and covered people's faces and painted canvases with dirty spots.

Again, but not for long, the need returned. The landlady had to pay for the room not in money, but in sketches.

Levitan felt a heavy sense of shame when the hostess put on her pince-nez and looked at the “pictures” to choose the most popular one. The most striking thing was that the landlady's grumbling coincided with the articles of newspaper critics.

“Monsieur Levitan,” said the hostess, “why don’t you draw a thoroughbred cow in this meadow, and here under the linden tree plant a couple of lovers?” It would be pleasing to the eye.

Critics wrote much the same thing. They demanded that Levitan enliven the landscape with herds of geese, horses, figures of shepherds and women.

Critics demanded geese, but Levitan thought about the magnificent sun, which sooner or later would flood Russia on his canvases and give each birch the weight and shine of a precious metal.

After Crimea, the Volga entered Levitan’s life for a long time and firmly.

The first trip to the Volga was unsuccessful. It was drizzling, the Volga water became cloudy. The wind blew short, boring waves along it. The annoying rain made the windows of the hut in the village on the banks of the Volga water, where Levitan settled, the distances became foggy, and everything around was eaten away by gray paint.

Levitan suffered from the cold, from the slippery clay of the Volga banks, from the inability to write in the air.

Insomnia began. The old housewife snored behind the partition, and Levitan envied her and wrote about this envy to Chekhov. The rain drummed on the roof, and every half hour Levitan lit a match and looked at his watch.

Dawn was lost in the impenetrable night wastelands, where an inhospitable wind ruled. Levitan was overcome with fear. It seemed to him that the night would last for weeks, that he was exiled to this dirty village and doomed all his life to listen to wet birch branches whipping against the log wall.

Sometimes he would go out on the threshold at night, and the branches would hit him painfully in the face and hands. Levitan got angry, lit a cigarette, but immediately threw it away - the sour tobacco smoke set his jaws.

On the Volga, the persistent slavish clatter of steamship wheels could be heard - the tug, blinking yellow lights, was dragging stinking barges up to Rybinsk.

The great river seemed to Levitan the threshold of a gloomy hell. Dawn did not bring relief. Clouds, stupidly crowding, rushed from the northwest, dragging watery hems of rain along the ground. The wind whistled through the crooked windows, and it made our hands turn red. Cockroaches scattered from the paint box.

Levitan did not have mental stamina. He despaired at the discrepancy between what he expected and what he actually saw. He wanted the sun, but the sun did not appear; Levitan was blind from rabies and at first did not even notice the beautiful shades of gray and bluish color characteristic of bad weather.

But in the end the artist defeated the neurasthenic. Levitan saw the beauty of the rains and created his famous “rainy works”: “After the Rain” and “Above Eternal Peace.”

Levitan painted the painting “After the Rain” in four hours. Clouds and the pewter color of the Volga water created soft lighting. It could disappear any minute. Levitan was in a hurry.

Levitan's paintings require slow viewing. They are not overwhelming to the eye. They are modest and precise, like Chekhov's stories, but the longer you look at them, the more lovely the silence of provincial towns, familiar rivers and country roads becomes.

The painting “After the Rain” contains all the charm of rainy twilight in a Volga town. The puddles sparkle. The clouds go beyond the Volga like low smoke. Steam from steamship pipes falls on the water. Barges near the shore turned black from dampness.

In such summer twilight, it is good to enter dry hallways, low rooms with freshly washed floors, where lamps are already burning and outside the open windows there is a noise from drops and the wild smell of an abandoned garden. It's good to listen to an old piano being played. Its weakened strings ring like a guitar. A dark ficus stands in a tub next to the piano. A high school student sits in a chair with her legs crossed and reads Turgenev. The old cat wanders around the rooms, and his ear twitches nervously - he listens for the knocking of knives in the kitchen.

The street smells like matting. Tomorrow is a fair, and carts are coming to Cathedral Square. The steamer goes down the river and catches up with a rain cloud that covered half the sky. The schoolgirl looks after the ship, and her eyes become misty and large. The steamer goes to the lower towns, where there are theaters, books, and tempting meetings.

Around the town, disheveled rye fields are wet day and night.

In the painting “Above Eternal Peace” the poetry of a stormy day is expressed with even greater force. The painting was painted on the shore of Lake Udomli in the Tver province.

From the slope, where dark birch trees bend under the gusty wind and a rotten log church stands among these birches, the distance of a remote river, meadows darkened by bad weather, and a huge cloudy sky opens up. Heavy clouds, filled with cold moisture, hang above the ground. Slanting sheets of rain cover the open spaces.

None of the artists before Levitan conveyed with such sad force the immeasurable distances of Russian bad weather. It is so calm and solemn that it feels like greatness.

The second trip to the Volga was more successful than the first. Levitan did not go alone, but with the artist Kuvshinnikova. This naive woman, who touchingly loved Levitan, was described by Chekhov in the story “The Jumper”. Levitan was severely offended by Chekhov for this story. Friendship was disrupted, and reconciliation was difficult and painful. Until the end of his life, Levitan could not forgive Chekhov for this story.

Levitan left with Kuvshinnikova for Ryazan, and from there he took a boat down the Oka River to the settlement of Chulkovo. In the settlement he decided to stop.

The sun was setting in the fields behind the clay slope. The boys chased pigeons red from the sunset. Bonfires burned on the left bank, and bitterns hummed gloomily in the swamps.

In Chulkovo everything that the Oka was famous for was united - all the charm of this river, “flowing, oak forest, flowing royally, brilliantly and smoothly in the expanse of the Murom sands, in sight of the venerable banks.”

Nothing better than these poems by Yazykov conveys the charm of the lazy Oka.

At the pier in Chulkovo, a short old man with a leaky eye approached Levitan. He impatiently pulled Levitan by the sleeve of his scalloped jacket and for a long time kneaded the material with his rough fingers.

-What do you want, grandfather? – Levitan asked.

“It’s over,” said the grandfather and hiccupped. - I want to admire the cloth. Look, it creaks like a woman’s voice. And who, God forgive me, is this wife, or what? – Grandfather pointed to Kuvshinnikova. His eyes became angry.

“Wife,” answered Levitan.

“So-so,” the grandfather said ominously and walked away. “The goblin will figure you out what’s what, why you’re wandering around the world.”

The meeting did not bode well. When the next morning Levitan and Kuvshinnikova sat down on a slope and opened the boxes of paints, confusion began in the village. The women shuffled from hut to hut. The men, gloomy, with straw in their hair and belts, slowly gathered on the slope, sat down at a distance, and silently looked at the artists. The boys snorted behind their backs, pushed each other and quarreled.

The toothless woman came up from the side, looked at Levitan for a long time and suddenly gasped:

“Lord Sous Christ, what are you doing, you cheeky guy?”

The men made a noise, Levitan sat pale, but restrained himself and decided to laugh it off.

“Don’t look, old man,” he said to the woman, “your eyes will burst.”

“Uh-oh, shameless,” the woman shouted, blew her nose into her hem and went to the men. There was already shaking, leaning on his staff, a tearful monk who, out of nowhere, had wandered into Chulkovo and taken root at the local church.

- Gathering! - shouted the old man with a bleeding eye. - We don’t have an establishment to draw pictures with women! Gathering!

I had to pack up my paints and leave.

On the same day, Levitan and Kuvshinnikova left the settlement. When they walked to the pier, a stupid gathering was buzzing near the church and the shrill cries of a nun were heard:

- Dashing people. Unbaptized. The woman walks with her head open.

Kuvshinnikova wore neither a hat nor a headscarf.

Levitan went down the Oka to Nizhny and there boarded a ship to Rybinsk. All the days he and Kuvshinnikova sat on the deck and looked at the banks - looking for places for sketches.

But there were no good places, Levitan frowned more and more often and complained of fatigue. The shores flowed slowly, monotonously, not pleasing the eye with either picturesque villages or thoughtful and smooth turns.

Finally, in Plyos, Levitan saw from the deck an old small church, cut from pine ridges. It turned black against the green sky, and the first star burned above it, shimmering and shining.

In this church, in the silence of the evening, in the melodious voices of the women selling milk on the pier, Levitan felt so much peace that he immediately decided to stay in Plyos.

From that time on, a bright period began in his life.

The small town was silent and deserted. The silence was broken only by the ringing of bells and the lowing of the herd, and at night by the beaters of the guards. Along the street slopes and ravines, burdocks bloomed and quinoa grew. In houses behind muslin curtains, linden blossoms were drying on the windowsills.

The days were sunny, steady, and dry. Russian summer, the closer to autumn, the more it is painted in ripe colors. Already in August, the foliage of the apple orchards turns pink, the fields glisten with gray hair, and in the evenings there are clouds covered with a hot blush over the Volga.

The blues have passed. It was embarrassing to even think about her.

Every day brought touching surprises - either a blind old woman, mistaking Levitan for a beggar, would put a worn-out nickel on his box of paints, then the children, pushing each other in the back, would ask to draw them, then they would burst out laughing and run away, then a young woman would come secretly the neighbor is an Old Believer and will complain melodiously about her hard lot. Levitan nicknamed her Katerina from Ostrovsky’s “The Thunderstorm.” He decided, together with Kuvshinnikova, to help Katerina escape from Plyos, from her hateful family. Flight was discussed in a grove outside the city. Kuvshinnikova whispered to Katerina, and Levitan lay on the edge of the grove and warned the women of the danger with a quiet whistle. Katerina managed to escape.

Before his trip to Ples, Levitan loved only the Russian landscape, but the people who inhabited this large country were incomprehensible to him. Who did he know? The rude school watchman “Evil Spirit”, the tavern floor guards, the arrogant bellhops from the furnished rooms, the wild Chulkov peasants. He often saw anger, dirt, dull submission, contempt for himself, for the Jew.

Before living in Plyos, he did not believe in the kindness of the people, in their intelligence, in their ability to understand a lot. After Plyos, Levitan felt his closeness not only to the landscape of Russia, but also to its people - talented, disadvantaged and, as it were, silent either before a new misfortune, or before a great liberation.

On this second trip to the Volga, Levitan painted many canvases. About these things Chekhov told him: “There is already a smile in your paintings.”

Light and brilliance first appeared in Levitan’s “Volga” works – in “Golden Reach”, “Fresh Wind”, “Evening Bells”.

Almost every one of us has in our childhood memories forest glades covered with leaves, lush and sad corners of our homeland that shine under the cool sun in the blue, in the silence of windless waters, in the cries of nomadic birds.

In adulthood, these memories arise with amazing force for the most insignificant reason - even from a fleeting landscape flashed outside the windows of the carriage - and evoke a feeling of excitement and happiness that is incomprehensible to us, a desire to leave all the cities, worries, the usual circle of people - and leave to this wilderness, to the shores of unknown lakes, to forest roads, where every sound is heard as clearly and for a long time, as on mountain peaks - be it the whistle of a steam locomotive or the whistle of a bird fluttering in the rowan bushes.

Such a feeling of lovely places seen long ago remains from Levitan’s “Volga” and “autumn” paintings.

Levitan's life was uneventful. He traveled little. He loved only central Russia. He considered trips to other places a waste of time. This is how his trip abroad seemed to him.

He was in Finland, France, Switzerland and Italy.

The granites of Finland, its black river water, icy sky and gloomy sea made me sad. “Once again I was moping beyond measure and bounds,” Levitan wrote to Chekhov from Finland. “There is no nature here.”

In Switzerland, he was amazed by the Alps, but for Levitan the view of these mountains was no different from the views of cardboard models painted with loud colors.

In Italy, he liked only Venice, where the air is full of silvery shades born of dim lagoons.

In Paris, Levitan saw Monet's paintings, but did not remember them. Only before his death did he appreciate the painting of the Impressionists, realized that he was partly their Russian predecessor, and for the first time mentioned their names with recognition.

In the last years of his life, Levitan spent a lot of time near Vyshny Volochek on the shores of Lake Udomlya. There, in the family of landowners the Panafidins, he again fell into the confusion of human relationships, shot himself, but was saved...

The closer he got to old age, the more often Levitan’s thoughts stopped at autumn.

True, Levitan wrote several excellent spring works, but it was almost always spring, similar to autumn.

In “Big Water”, the grove flooded by the flood is naked, as in late autumn, and is not even covered with the greenish smoke of the first leaves. In “Early Spring,” a deep black river stands dead among the ravines, still covered with loose snow, and only in the painting “March” is the real spring brightness of the sky above the melting snowdrifts, yellow sunlight and the glassy shine of melt water dripping from the porch of a plank house conveyed.

The softest and most touching poems, books and paintings were written by Russian poets, writers and artists about autumn.

Levitan, like Pushkin and Tyutchev and many others, waited for autumn as the most precious and fleeting time of the year.

Autumn removed the rich colors from the forests, from the fields, from all over nature, and washed away the greenery with the rains. The groves were made through. The dark colors of summer gave way to timid gold, purple and silver. Not only the color of the earth changed, but also the air itself. It was cleaner, colder, and the distances were much deeper than in summer. Thus, among the great masters of literature and painting, the youthful splendor of colors and elegance of language is replaced in adulthood by severity and nobility.

Autumn in Levitan's paintings is very diverse. It is impossible to list all the autumn days he painted on the canvas. Levitan left about a hundred “autumn” paintings, not counting sketches.

They depicted things familiar from childhood: haystacks, blackened by dampness; small rivers swirling fallen leaves in slow whirlpools; lonely golden birches, not yet blown by the wind; a sky like thin ice; shaggy rains over forest clearings. But in all these landscapes, no matter what they depict, the sadness of farewell days, falling leaves, rotting grass, the quiet hum of bees before the cold and the pre-winter sun, barely noticeably warming the earth, is best conveyed.

Little by little, from year to year, Levitan developed severe heart disease, but neither he nor the people close to him knew about it until it gave its first violent outbreak.

Levitan was not treated. He was afraid to go to the doctors, afraid to hear the death sentence. Doctors, of course, would have forbidden Levitan to communicate with nature, and this for him was tantamount to death.

Levitan was even more sad than in his younger years. More and more often he went into the forests - he lived in the summer before his death near Zvenigorod - and there he was found crying and confused. He knew that nothing - neither doctors, nor a quiet life, nor the nature he loved so ecstatically - could delay the approaching end.

In the winter of 1899, doctors sent Levitan to Yalta.

At that time Chekhov lived in Yalta. Old friends met aged, alienated. Levitan walked, leaning heavily on a stick, gasping for breath, telling everyone about his imminent death. He was afraid of her and did not hide it. My heart ached almost continuously.

Chekhov yearned for Moscow, for the north. Despite the fact that the sea, in his own words, was “big,” it narrowed the world. Apart from the sea and quiet winter Yalta, it seemed that there was nothing left in life. Somewhere very far beyond Kharkov, beyond Kursk and Orel, there was snow, the lights of poor villages blinked blindly in the gray snowstorm; she seemed sweet and close to the heart, much closer to the Beklin cypress trees and the sweet seaside air. This air often gave me headaches. Everything seemed sweet: forests, rivulets - all sorts of Pekhorki and Vertushinki, and haystacks in deserted evening fields, lonely, illuminated by the dim moon, as if forever forgotten by man.

The sick Levitan asked Chekhov for a piece of cardboard and in half an hour he sketched an evening field with haystacks on it in oil paints. Chekhov inserted this sketch into the fireplace near his desk and often looked at it while working.

Winter in Yalta was dry, sunny, and warm winds blew from the sea. Levitan remembered his first trip to Crimea, and he wanted to go to the mountains. He was haunted by the memory of this trip, when from the top of Ai-Petri he saw a deserted cloudy sky at his feet. The sun hung overhead - here it seemed much closer to the ground, and its yellowish light cast precise shadows. The cloudy sky smoked in the abysses below and slowly crawled towards Levitan’s feet, covering the pine forests.

The sky was moving from below, and this frightened Levitan just as the never-heard-of mountain silence frightened him. Occasionally it was disturbed only by the rustle of scree. The slate slid down the slope and shook the dry, prickly grass.

Levitan wanted to go to the mountains, he asked to be taken to Ai-Petri, but he was refused - the rarefied mountain air could be fatal for him.

Yalta didn't help. Levitan returned to Moscow. He almost never left his house in Trekhsvyatitelsky Lane.

On July 22, 1900, he died. It was late twilight, when the first star appears above Moscow at a terrible height and the foliage of the trees is immersed in yellow dust and in the reflections of the dying sun.

Summer was very late. In July the lilacs were still blooming. Its heavy thickets filled the entire front garden near the house. The smell of leaves, lilacs and oil paints stood in the studio where Levitan was dying, a smell that haunted the entire life of the artist, who conveyed on canvas the sadness of Russian nature - that nature that, just like man, seemed to be waiting for other, joyful days.

These days came very soon after Levitan's death, and his students were able to see what the teacher did not see - a new country, whose landscape became different because man became different, our generous sun, the grandeur of our open spaces, the purity of the sky and the brilliance of those unfamiliar to Levitan festive colors.

Levitan did not see this because the landscape is joyful only when a person is free and cheerful.

Levitan wanted to laugh, but he could not transfer even a faint smile onto his canvases.

He was too honest not to see the people's suffering. He became the singer of a huge poor country, the singer of its nature. He looked at this nature through the eyes of a tormented people - this is his artistic strength, and this is partly the key to his charm.

St. Petersburg State University of Telecommunications named after. prof. Bonch-Bruevich

Faculty of Evening and Correspondence Studies

Russian language and culture of speech

Topic: Basic concepts of syntax

2nd year AB-19s

№ 119155 Gorlyshev E.S.

Plan

Basic concepts of syntax.

Syntactic norms of the modern Russian literary language.

2.1. Collocations. Difficult cases of their construction.

2.2. Simple sentence. Difficulties in using them in speech.

2.3. Complex sentences. Difficulties in using them in speech.

1. Literature.

Basic syntax concepts

Syntax(from Old Greekσύνταξις - “construction, order, composition”) - section linguistics, studying the structure proposals And phrases.

Syntax includes:

connection of words in phrases and sentences;

consideration of types of syntactic connections;

identifying types of phrases and sentences;

determining the meaning of phrases and sentences;

combining simple sentences into complex ones.

A phrase is a combination of two or more significant words, related in meaning and grammatically, which serves to denote a single concept (object, quality, action, etc.). For example: "Evening came".

A phrase is considered as a unit of syntax that performs a communicative function (enters into speech) only as part of a sentence.

It is generally accepted that phrases include combinations of words based on a subordinating relationship (connection of the main and dependent members). Some researchers also recognize coordinating phrases - combinations of homogeneous members of a sentence.

The construction of phrases in speech often causes difficulties, because in the Russian language there are words that can only be agreed with a certain preposition and case, for example. run headlong, show interest in something, a girl with a cheeky tongue, did not receive an answer, does not make concessions, received a reward - demands a reward).

A sentence is a minimal unit of language, which is a grammatically organized combination of words (or a word) that has semantic and intonation completeness. From the point of view of punctuation, a sentence as a complete unit of speech is formalized at the end with a period, exclamation or question marks - or an ellipsis.

Sentence members are grammatically significant parts into which a sentence is divided during syntactic analysis. They can consist of either individual words or phrases. There are two main members of a sentence: the subject and the predicate, which are in a predicative relationship, forming a predicative unit, and play the most important role. Predicativeness is the correlation of the content of what is expressed to reality. Predicativeness manifests itself in the grammatical categories of modality, tense, and person. The secondary members of the sentence include the addition, circumstance, and definition.

The subject composition is the subject and all minor members of the sentence that relate to the subject (common and non-common definitions).

Similarly, the composition of the predicate is the predicate and all minor members of the sentence that relate to the predicate (adverbials and complements with dependent words).

For example: “A fair teacher gave the student a well-deserved pass in the exam.” Fair - definition, teacher - subject, on the exam - circumstance, put - predicate, test - addition, student - indirect object.

A simple sentence is a syntactic unit formed by one syntactic connection between the subject and the predicate or one main member.

A two-part sentence is a simple sentence with a subject and predicate as necessary components. : “She laughed. He was smart."

A one-part sentence is a simple sentence that has only one main clause (with or without dependent words).

There are one-part sentences:

Vaguely personal

Generalized-personal

Impersonal

Definitely personal

Nominal

Incomplete

The following situation may cause difficulties in determining the main member of a sentence: the predicate may include a phraseological phrase, or the phraseological phrase itself may act as a predicate. For example, Having said this, he touched her to the quick; He agreed to see me tomorrow.

Incomplete sentences occupy a special place in the use of simple sentences in speech. In incomplete sentences, some members are omitted, but they can be restored from the context or situation. Most often in our speech we use incomplete sentences, because... the situation presented in the speech is clear to us from the context.

Difficulties of use in speech are cases of use with a subject, in which there is a collective noun with a quantitative meaning (majority, minority, row, part, etc.) or a numeral; the predicate can have both a singular and a plural form (The majority was against, the minority - for; The vast majority of the intelligentsia lives a dream of a different level of life; Some of the builders are sent to the site; Five students are absent; A couple of runners have pulled ahead; A lot of problems have captured him).

Particularly difficult is the use of gerunds and participial phrases in speech. They give the statement a bookish character and are distinguished by conciseness. If necessary, they can be replaced with synonymous constructions - subordinate, case forms of nouns, verbs: Deep in thought, she wandered around the garden - Deep in thought, she wandered around the garden - She was deep in thought and wandered around the garden, etc. You cannot use gerunds (gerund turnover) in an impersonal sentence, the main member of which does not contain an infinitive form, for example: After reading this book, I felt sad.

A complex sentence is a sentence with two or more predicative stems, and simple sentences within a complex sentence form a semantic and intonational whole.

According to the method of connecting simple sentences, complex sentences are divided into conjunction and non-conjunction. Conjunctive sentences are divided into complex (sentences are connected by coordinating conjunctions and a coordinating connection) and complex (sentences are connected by subordinating conjunctions or relative words and a subordinating connection). The connection in non-conjunctive complex sentences is called non-conjunctive; it is not associated with either subordination or composition).

I came home, my mother was already asleep, (non-union complex sentence)

I came home, and my mother was already asleep, (compound sentence)

When I came home, my mother was already asleep, (complex sentence)

A complex sentence allows you to describe several events and express the relationships between them. The use of certain means of communication (conjunctions and allied words) between simple sentences as part of a complex sentence makes it possible to accurately determine the semantic relationships (causal, temporal, target, etc.) that are established between the individual parts of a detailed statement. Complex sentences are widely used in book writing.

However, often the construction of such sentences causes great difficulties, and incorrect construction of a complex sentence leads to a violation of the syntactic norms of the modern Russian language and causes gross speech errors. The most common mistakes made when constructing a complex sentence include the following.

1. Incorrect or inaccurate use of conjunctions and allied words.

For example: New methods of organizing production will become widespread only if the results of the economic activity of the enterprise are sufficiently high. - New methods of organizing production will become widespread only when the results of the economic activity of the enterprise are sufficiently high. Or: New methods of organizing production will become widespread only if the results of the economic activity of the enterprise are sufficiently high.

2. Using identical conjunctions and allied words between parts of one complex sentence, stringing together parts of a complex sentence.

For example: The discussion has taken such a turn that we can safely say that its participants will not be able to reach a compromise. - The ongoing discussion suggests that its participants will not be able to reach a compromise.

3. Setting a series of unambiguous conjunctions.

For example: The teacher made comments to the students several times, but his words had no effect. - The teacher made comments to the students several times, but his words had no effect. Or: The teacher made comments to the students several times, but his words had no effect.

4. Incorrect word order in a sentence with a subordinate clause.

Between the conjunction word which and the noun to which it refers, there should not be another noun of the same number.

For example: Yesterday, a journalist interviewed a representative of the delegation who specially came to the meeting. - Yesterday, the journalist interviewed a representative of the delegation who specially came to the meeting.

5. Mixing direct speech and indirect.

Eg: The student said that I have not yet prepared the answer. - The student said that he had not yet prepared for the answer.

6. Variation in the parts of a complex sentence.

For example: At the parent meeting the following issues were discussed: a) assistance to the school in repairing classroom furniture; b) how to organize an evening meeting of school graduates. - The following issues were discussed at the parent meeting: a) assistance to the school in repairing classroom furniture; b) organizing an evening meeting for school graduates. Or: At the parent meeting, the following issues were discussed: a) how to help the school repair classroom furniture; b) how to organize an evening meeting of school graduates.

Complex sentences are divided into:

Complex sentences consist of parts (simple sentences) that are independent grammatically, connected in meaning and through coordinating conjunctions and, a, but, yes, or, or, however, but, as well as coordinating conjunctions neither.. nor.., then..that.., that..either.., either.., not that.. not that... and etc. “The rain stopped and the sun rose. Either the phone will ring, or the doorbell will ring.”

Complex sentences consist of parts (simple sentences), one of which is not independent in grammatical and semantic terms; parts are connected using connecting conjunctions and allied words: what, where, to, where, when, why, if (if), how, while, although, therefore etc. As well as complex subordinating conjunctions: due to the fact that, due to the fact that, instead of, etc.

Non-union proposals. Parts of a non-union sentence (simple sentences) are almost always independent grammatically, but sometimes equal in meaning; there are no conjunctions and allied words: “ I hear someone knocking on the door."

Complex syntactic constructions are combinations of parts with different types of syntactic connections. Such constructions are very widespread in speech, and are used equally often in works of different functional styles. These are combined types of sentences; they are diverse in possible combinations of parts in them, but with all their diversity they lend themselves to a fairly clear and definite classification.

Depending on various combinations of connection types between parts, the following types of complex syntactic constructions are possible:

1) with composition and submission: Lopatin began to feel sleepy, and he was delighted when the driver appeared at the door and reported that the car was ready (Sim.);

2) with an essay and non-union connection: My direction is to another unit, but I fell behind the train: let me, I think, look at my platoon and at my lieutenant (Cossack.);

3) with subordination and non-union connection : While walking in the forest, sometimes, thinking about my work, I am overcome with philosophical delight: it seems as if you are deciding the conceivable fate of all humanity (Prishv.);

4) with composition, subordination and non-union connection: But the river majestically carries its water, and what does it care about these bindweeds: spinning, they float along with the water, just as the ice floes floated recently (Prishv.).

Sentences with different types of syntactic connections usually consist of two (at least) logically and structurally distinguishable components or several, among which there may, in turn, be complex sentences. However, as a rule, the main components have the same type of connection - coordinating or non-conjunctive. For example, in the sentence: “The sword did not look back and did not hear the chase, but he knew that they were chasing him, and when three shots were fired one after another and a volley rang out, it seemed to him that they were shooting at him, and he ran even faster (Fad.)"four components: 1) Mechik did not look back and did not hear the chase; 2) but he knew that they were chasing him; 3) and when three shots were fired one after another and a volley rang out, it seemed to him that they were shooting at him; 4) and he ran even faster. All these parts are connected by coordinating relationships, but within the parts there is subordination (see the second and third parts).

More often, in such combined sentences there is a division into two components, and one of them or both can be complex sentences. The connection between components can be of only two types - coordinative or non-union. A subordinate relationship is always internal.

1) The greatest pictorial power lies in sunlight, and all the grayness of Russian nature is good only because it is the same sunlight, but muffled, passing through layers of moist air and a thin veil of clouds (Paust.);

2) There was one strange circumstance in the Stavraki case: no one could understand why he lived under his real name until his arrest, why he did not change it immediately after the revolution (Paust.);

3) One circumstance always surprises me: we walk through life and do not know at all and cannot even imagine how many greatest tragedies, beautiful human deeds, how much grief, heroism, meanness and despair have happened and are happening on any piece of earth where we live (Paust .).

Direct speech is a statement introduced verbatim into the author’s speech (speaker or writer). Unlike indirect speech, it preserves the individual and stylistic features of the speech of the person whose statement is reproduced: dialectal features, repetitions, pauses, introductory words, etc. Direct speech is introduced without conjunctions, personal pronouns, verb forms indicate the attitude towards the speaker’s person, for example : "You said, 'I'll be back late.'" For comparison in indirect speech: “You said that you would be back late.” Typically, direct speech is highlighted in the text with quotation marks or given in a separate paragraph, at the beginning of which a dash is placed. Direct speech as its variety includes quotations.

Direct speech is not a part of the sentence.

Not every direct speech can be easily converted into indirect speech. Direct speech, rich in interjections, introductory words, appeals and words characteristic of oral speech, cannot be replaced by indirect speech. For example: 1) In despair, Marya Vasilievna just threw up her hands and said: “Oh, Semyon, Semyon! What kind of person are you, really!..” (A. Chekhov). 2) “Ugh, you’re an abyss! - he [Yermolai] muttered, spitting into the water. - What an opportunity! And that’s all you, old devil!” - he added with heart... (I. Turgenev).

Literature.

1) Grammar of the Russian language. M., 1954,1960. - T. 2, parts 1 and 2.

2) Russian grammar. M., 1980, vol. 2.

Choose the appropriate option for agreeing the predicate with the subject.

A. To my sick son came father and mother to the hospital.

B. Cat with kittens hid under the table.

B. Plants are the same necessary both moisture and heat from the sun's rays.

G. Since then passed no longer seven, but ten whole years.

D. Son or daughter will help bring things to you.

2. Add endings.

A. Two (unequal) parts.

B. Three (workshops) were repaired.

B. Four (new) computers were purchased.

D. Two (fifth) moons.

3. Determine whether the participial phrases are used correctly.

Write the correct option.

A. Only a year later, the parents learned about the incident from their son’s letter, which occurred in the fall. (Only a year later did the parents learn about the incident that had occurred in the fall from a letter from their son)

B. The initiative shown by the students helped the dean.

(The initiative shown by the students helped the dean)

Q. Another detective story has already gone on sale, written by

Marinina. (Another detective story written by Marinina is already on sale)

D. Later, only in the third chapter, we learn about an article in which

Raskolnikov touched upon the issue of the crime written for

six months before the events take place.

(Later, only in the third chapter, we learn about an article written six months before the events, in which Raskolnikov touched upon the issue of the crime.)

4. Correct errors in the use of participles.

A. The newspaper reported about the theater opening the new season of the fifth

B. To answer the question, let us turn to two historical

personalities depicted in the novel.

B. One of the main problems put forward in the novel is

personality formation.

D. This question will be answered by the conference, which will take place in January.

D. Give the trip to citizen Gromov, who lives in

the specified address.

E. The road was covered with falling snow.

5. Correct errors in the use of adverbial verbs.

A. Without feeling tired, we continued our way to the top

B. It never occurred to the boss that when addressing a subordinate, there was the same person in front of him.

V. Describing the beauty of Russian nature, the writer noted the features of central Russia.

G. I feel a sense of pride in Russian literature when reading works of Russian classics.

D. Silence suddenly reigned, understanding the meaning of which,

I was in a bad mood.

6. Correct errors and indicate their cause.

B. According to the order of the head of the department, a

duty list.

B. We agreed that this is the only correct

G. Reviews about this film appeared in the newspapers.

D. In his speech, the speaker pointed out his shortcomings.

E. The examples given indicate the possibility of using

new method.

G. With the help of local authorities, we

Let's green our area.

5.(choose one answer)

Indicate the sentence with a grammatical error.

The famous German calculator Rückle memorized a number consisting of five hundred and four digits within thirty-five minutes.

The main accounting department serves thirteen kindergartens and twenty-two nurseries. (!)

Over one hundred and seventy nationalities and two hundred and sixty million people speaking seventy languages ​​inhabit this region.

On Venus, day and night last one hundred and seventeen Earth days, that is, more than eight hundred hours.

(choose one answer)

Indicate the sentence with an error in the use of the adverbial phrase.

This exercise is done while standing on your toes extended.

Students, while completing the task, turned to reference literature.

Going down from the window into the bright night, the sentries can see him. (!)

Agent

Blinds

Jealous

Parterre

Vomited

Beet

Customs

scoop

Scarves

Schemite

In Andersen's complex biography, it is not easy to establish the time when he began to write his first charming fairy tales.

It seemed that the cathedral was built not from stone, but from various and palely colored air masses.

If we could listen to the stranger's muttering, we would hear poetry.

When a ship passed through the canal, the cannons fired blank charges.

The more amazing the phenomenon, the more difficult it is to tell about it in our dead words.

Sh...l (slowly) along the mighty(n,nn) path

Short hair

Amazed(n,nn)y seen(n,nn)ym

(n...) than (n...) filled (n, nn) ​​bag

(not) easier (n, nn) ​​tears

(white) marble colo(n,nn)s

(marble) white hall

(c) chatter

At three o'clock (at) noon...

Nine(l,ll)ny

It is this problem that the author of this text addresses.

Indeed, people have two positions.

An example is...

This text was written according to Kuprin.

Test 2

alphabet

citizenship

I was waiting

X's

quarter

mosaic

security

will call back

drills

cakes

Write it off

When we returned home, I was the first to run up the stairs to our second floor with relief and began to pull the bell wire.

In the box lay several cleaned goose feathers, which no one had used since the time of Gogol.

The circle of the sun was so clear, precise and eternal that it was hard to believe in the possibility of an eclipse.

It was believed that only rare lucky people have two crowns.

My mother brought me to Yekaterinoslav to show me to her family.

Fill in the missing letters, open the brackets:

Bri(l,ll)iant

Ar(?)ergard

(by) force (= with difficulty)

She doesn’t…sta(n,nn)o whisper…t

R...vnina

Pr...encourage

C...cory

Pr...reproach

(c) consequence... find out...sh(?)

(n...) than (n...) disturb...my quiet...on

Find speech and grammatical errors in sentences. Write down the corrected version.

There are several points of view on this issue.

The problem of environmental pollution is now very acute.

Test 3

Write down the words, put emphasis:

fooling around

Religion

Dispensary

Ahead of time

Lecturers

Leela

Praying

For a long time

Will call

Fruit

Write down the sentences and add punctuation marks.

Andersen did not lose on his life’s path either his goodwill towards people or his ability to see poetry wherever it is.

Critics demanded that Levitan enliven the landscape with flocks of geese, horses, and figures of shepherds and women.

Levitan thought about the magnificent sun that sooner or later was supposed to flood Russia on his canvases and give each birch the weight and shine of a precious metal.

During the night the city was so thickly shrouded in cold fog that it did not have time to thin out during the short winter day.

We looked for a long time at everything that was opening up around us.

Fill in the missing letters, open the brackets:

Damn...nearest

Damn...standing

River...nka

Krista(l,ll)ny

Krista(l,ll)ic

Thorns prick...

(floor) arshin

Sifting (n, nn) ​​fields

Hesitation...my

Dragging...dragging

Find speech and grammatical errors in sentences. Write down the corrected version.

The problem of this text is the influence of music on people.

It is worth remembering a moment from I. Goncharov’s novel “Oblomov”.

Music has a very great influence on a person and remains in his soul for a long time.

An example is Sherlock Holmes, the hero of the works of A. Conan Doyle, who played the violin in order to unravel a complex case.

3. Test 4

Write down the words, put emphasis:

Orphans

Long-standing

Deepen

Bows

Cork

Klala

Garbage chute

Relieve

Overfilled

Plum

Write it off sentences, add punctuation marks.

From the slope where the dark birches bend under the gusty wind, the distance of a remote river opens up, meadows darkened by bad weather, and a huge cloudy sky.

And Andersen was happy as perhaps he had never been happy in his life.

All the grayness of Russian nature is good only because it is the same sunlight, but muffled, passing through layers of humid air and a thin veil of clouds.

When the steamships, having filled the entire strait with steam, embarrassedly passed through the formation of sailing ships, they were subjected to unheard of ridicule.

Once Andersen saw Dumas writing his next novel, either loudly quarreling with his characters or rolling with laughter.

Fill in the missing letters, open the brackets:

(to) below (adverb)

(from) under

Solom...nka

(little) little by little

(to) backtrack

(bright) red

A half-hearted shirt

(dark brown

Mur...vy

(on) leaked

Find speech and grammatical errors in sentences. Write down the corrected version.

I want to remember N.V. Gogol’s novel “Dead Souls”.

Chichikov's inner world is different from Manilov, Sobakevich, Nozdryov and other landowners.

Chichikov is a multifaceted character.

Gogol in his poem ridicules the vices and qualities of people whom we can still often see in everyday life, despite the fact that almost 200 years have passed since this work was written.

He (Akaky Akakievich) is constantly humiliated, has a job with virtually no income, lives in a small apartment.

1. Test 5

Write down the words, put emphasis:

Immediately

Got there

Created

poured

Departed

Will exclude

Glue

Makes it easier

Ripped off

Dowry

Write it off sentences, add punctuation marks.

The closer the Russian summer is to autumn, the more ripe colors there are.

One day Andersen came up with the idea of ​​attaching an Aeolian harp to the mast of a fishing schooner in order to listen to its plaintive singing during the gloomy northwest winds that constantly blew in Denmark.

Boldness in handling materials is necessary for everyone who works to realize their thoughts and images.

Andersen knew how to rejoice all his life, although his childhood did not give him any reason for this.

Fill in the missing letters, open the brackets:

They are moving (towards) a meeting

Chew...chew

(leisurely

Powerful (n, nn) ​​street with logs

It sways...

About...nd...led pe(r,rr)i(l,ll)a

(by) alone

(one by one

K...mouse...

Fondant(?)nick, fodder(?)nitsa

Find speech and grammatical errors in sentences. Write down the corrected version.

When evaluating architectural structures, should one be guided only by material considerations or should one also pay attention to aesthetic beauty?

Some people believe that routine things should be practical first and foremost.

The hero of A. Kumankov’s story is upset by the appearance of modern Moscow.

As an opposite example, we can cite modern Moscow.

If you have been to Rome, it would be strange not to visit the Roman Forum.

3. Test 6

Write down the words, put emphasis:

I took

Let's turn it on

Since ancient times

Acquired

Nalita

Encouraged

Embitter

Carpenter

Statue

Convocation

Nejdanov became so deep in his thoughts that little by little, almost unconsciously, he began to convey them in words.

The spacious and neat room into which the servant led Nezhdanov overlooked the garden.

The whole next day Gerasim did not show up, so Potap had to go get water instead.

Kolya’s mother asked Nezhdanov if she would interfere.

Where the sun had set, the edge of the sky was still white and faintly blushed with the last glow of the disappearing day.

Ts...v...lizova(n,nn)y

Tro(l,ll)eybus

Navigation

Olsha(n,nn)ik

B...hr...ma

What (would), what (b) – conjunctions

Desperate

(not only but

Under bonds(?)tsy

I(?)stvo

Dikoy and Kabanikha are very similar to each other.

The tyranny so characteristic of them came out of nowhere.

The personality itself is domineering; it gives her pleasure to push people around.

It makes no sense for a wild one to wander around in front of Kabanikha.

What is his nephew like?

8. Test 7

Write down the words, put emphasis:

Enable

They will call you

Poured

Flint

Intention

Seal

Wholesale

Illness

Call

Sorites

Write down the sentences and add punctuation marks.

Blok said that a genius emits light over immeasurable distances.

Bunin saw equally sharply and subtly everything that he happened to see in life.

But in the steppe it was so quiet that it seemed like the stars were splashing in a bucket of water.

The landscape is always sad when a person is sad.

He was haunted by the memory of that trip when from the top of Ai-Petri he saw a deserted cloudy sky at his feet.

Fill in the missing letters, open the brackets:

(before) it is impossible

Real...(n,nn) tea

As if)

Out of habit

About(?) explained the puta(n,nn)o

Still (still) offered

(not) tired

(not) overgrown this year

Tolerate

(in) ist...well, l...gendarnaya

Find speech and grammatical errors in sentences. Write down the corrected version.

Is it possible to express happiness in material things?

Writers, poets, philosophers and most ordinary people never cease to think about this eternal topic.

As the novel progresses, the main character, by helping others, comes to inner happiness.

I. Bunin gives a similar formulation of happiness with the help of his work in the story “The Swing”.

In conclusion, I just want to say that happiness is different for each person and that, first of all, it will always depend on him whether he achieves it or not.

6. Test 8

Write down the words, put emphasis:

Gave it away

Arrived

Percent

Aggravated

Nail

Accepted

Boyhood

Inquire

Force

Will lend

2.Copy down the sentences and add punctuation marks.

There was nothing in the real life of his country, not a single little thing that seemed insignificant to Kuprin.

Kuprin’s knowledge in any area of ​​life is especially valuable because it is all a consequence of everyday observations.

I have already said that almost all of Kuprin’s works are autobiographical.

Andersen was a poet of the poor, despite the fact that kings considered it an honor to shake his lean hand.

The snow flakes were so large that it seemed like light white flowers were flying from the sky onto the city.

1. 3.Insert the missing letters, open the brackets:

In the sky...

Golden (n, nn) ​​with light

On the pre(d,dd) believe… holiday(?)

Hurry up... get on the horse

(All in all

(at all

In(f,f)and

Dog...roars

(c) secret - adverb

4. Find speech and grammatical errors in sentences. Write down the corrected version.

In the 60s, many organizations appeared, the members of which were mainly young people.

Bazarov is a new person whose worldview differs from the previous generation.

Bazarov considered himself a happy person, doing scientific work.

Turgenev forces Bazarov to speak out the essence of nihilism.

Arkady was crazy about Bazarov.

5. Test 9

Write down the words, put emphasis:

Got it

Leisure

Exhaust

Winterer

Heels

More beautiful

Beginnings

Having started

Having started

Take heart

Write down the sentences and add punctuation marks.

No matter how much he turned away from the memories that arose, he could not completely drown them out.

It was my great-grandfather’s black earth garden, the likes of which you won’t see on this side of Moscow.

Passing by my favorite ash tree with a statue of the Madonna, we sat down on a bench to admire the view.

To Nezhdanov, everything he saw seemed funny and even entertaining.

Sipyagin warned his wife that he would bring a teacher with him for his son.

Fill in the missing letters, open the brackets:

Vyr...attended

Sooty(n,nn)y

Hours...nka

Pa(s,ss) fat

Eight(?)ten

Located

(to) the top

(greenish) gray

C...stubble

Exactly the same

Find speech and grammatical errors in sentences. Write down the corrected version.

We should always help and support lonely people.

Granin encourages us to be sensitive and attentive to people who are left alone.

The problem posed in this text concerns every person of any time.

5. Test 10

Write down the words, put emphasis:

I took it

Turn it on

Bursted in

Was chasing

You're calling

Significance

Lived

By means

Drill

Beautiful

Write down the sentences and add punctuation marks.

If Jack was thrown a stick into the river, he would rush after it, swim, then take it in his teeth and return to the shore.

When Jack grew old and could no longer search for game, he was replaced by another hunting dog.

Only one duck immediately disliked Jack because he chased her through the swamp.

The river in the place where we swam was shallow near the shore.

We got very used to Jack and didn’t part with him all day long, always dreaming about when the hunting time would come in August.

Fill in the missing letters, open the brackets:

Guest house

(like) birds

Without...bitter(?)

Asphalted(n,nn)y

Created

Pr...ost...new

Keep in mind

(before) refusal

The grass wrapped around the bushes

Reaching...to the river...

Find speech and grammatical errors in sentences. Write down the corrected version.

This term (Oblomovism) comes from Stolz.

Goncharov describes Stolz's biography in some detail.

This is how he remained throughout his life.

Oblomov, accustomed to a measured, calm life, radically changes its structure.

Some people are able to overcome the external influences of life so much that they stop noticing them.

6. Test 11

Write down the words, put emphasis:

accountants

joined

to the top

called

sneaked

bleed

not for long

news

get through by phone

created

Write down the sentences and add punctuation marks.

It is widely known that there are writers and poets who have a great infectious power of creativity.

The movement of the sky frightened Levitan just as the never-heard mountain silence frightened him.

There was not even the smallest detail in the Russian landscape that Bunin did not notice and describe.

Wherever Andersen was, he met his favorite writers, poets, musicians and artists.

Everything that Bunin talks about in “The Life of Arsenyev” is very clearly audible and tangible and makes us happy or sad for a long time.

Fill in the missing letters, open the brackets:

To(sch,sch)…th bridge

(not) difficult (n, nn) ​​firewood in a row

(not) sensitive(?)to danger(?)

(not) listening to him

Shine(?)nul f...nar

As if)

They don't quarrel

They don't fight

Obez(?)chick

Zhu(zh,zh)it shemale

Find speech and grammatical errors in sentences. Write down the corrected version.

Love for the Motherland must be taught from childhood.

In the life of Pierre Bezukhov one can understand what true patriotism means.

Driving along the road from the airport, the Traveling Palace is visible.

The loss of a monument cannot be restored.

The consciousness of his duty to the Motherland also dulled the feeling of fear, pain and thoughts of death.

6. Test 12

Write down the words, put emphasis:

Inquire

Arrived

Paste over

During

Perceived

We're calling

Sorrel

Expert

Strengthens

vulgarize

Write down the sentences and add punctuation marks.

What he did not understand did not exist for him.

The chips, broken off with an ax, lay in a heap near the stump as they had fallen some time ago.

Markelov suddenly became irritated, although no one contradicted him.

He was ready to reproach himself for accepting the responsibility of teaching.

Markelov was brought up in an artillery school from where he graduated as an officer.

1. Fill in the missing letters, open the brackets:

Danger

(in) far away

Overcome

Stroen…tse

K...mouse(?)

From nearby groves(?)

In some (half) hundred meters

(not) powerful (n, nn) ​​road

Ki(l,ll)ometer

Find speech and grammatical errors in sentences. Write down the corrected version.

In chapter 15 of Turgenev’s novel, Bazarov and his friends come to the governor’s ball, where Bazarov meets Odintsova.

At the ball, Bazarov did not talk to Odintsova, but after some time he and Arkady would visit her, and there they talked with Odintsova for three hours.

Bazarov and Odintsova meet for the first time at a ball and become interested in each other from afar.

Odintsov was very impressed and Bazarov was interested, but it is unpleasant for him to stand on the same level as Arkady and admire as naively as he does.

Bazarov, who is a proud, strong man, with his principles and clear guidelines, is at her feet.

7. Test 13

Write down the words, put emphasis:

hatred

taps

responded

accepted

dose

utterly

you'll call

tamed

understood

aggravate

Write down the sentences and add punctuation marks.

Keshka couldn’t let the puppy freeze on the stairs.

The dog Pirate went around the woodpile where Mishka hid and rushed on.

When the puppy got especially angry and allowed himself to disrespectfully bite the cat’s tail, he knocked him down with his strong paw and showed sharp fangs.

Keshka’s ears were burning as if they had actually been torn off by someone’s rough hand.

The cat hissed so loudly and fluffed his tail so much that a collision with him threatened to end badly for the puppy.

13. Fill in the missing letters, open the brackets:

Already driving down the (n, nn) ​​country road

Leather(n,nn)y

Pr...cratil

Ra(s,ss)three(n,nn)y

Cleaner(n,nn)y

swaying

(c) ford – adverb

(in) the course of... (not) which time... n...

Hands frozen(?) in the wind

People froze (?) for a moment

25. Find speech and grammatical errors in sentences. Write down the corrected version.

A person needs to direct all his strength in search of something eternal, over which neither time, nor envious people, nor failures have power.

The author encourages the reader to turn his attention not to external things, over which a person has no control, but to internal ones, where both will and power are greater, even maximum.

Pierre Bezukhov comes to the understanding that you don’t need to chase external things in order to be happy.

Sooner or later, people still realize that there are certain spiritual values ​​in their lives that make them happy.

The author believes that it is important to pay attention not to the external, but to the internal state.

The boy dreamed that they were about to swim to the treasured place and that some shore was already visible in the distance.

The boy really wanted to take up the oars himself in order to quickly swim to the islands where there was a big hunt for sea animals.

When the hunters landed on the shore, the boy was filled with courage and admiration because at that moment he felt strong and significant.

The hunter felt his heart pounding wildly in his chest and how at times he felt dizzy from an uplifting feeling of pride and excitement.

Beyond the islands, if you sail even further, the path lay in the ocean, which had no measure.

43. 3.Insert the missing letters, open the brackets:

To be given to and (l,ll)uses

Prediction

Int...(l,ll)...actual m...r...background

Int…(l,ll)…gencia

…do (our) way

S...nt...m...ntal

Philosophical problem (um, mm)

Look... a third (and...) of the forehead

Feel(?)to develop

(t,T)reet(?)Yakovskaya ha(l,ll)reya

spoiled

calls

narwhal

ski track

took off

hired

will call

adolescence

lived

force

2. Write down the sentences and add punctuation marks.

The boy was amazed that the sea turned out to be completely different from what it seemed to him in his games.

The shaman will ask that Earth and Water always be kind to the boy, so that he grows up to be a great earner, so that luck always accompanies him.

At sea, nothing prevented one from indulging in innermost thoughts, because everything that had once been thought about on land took its turn at sea.

The hunters prayed to the spirit of the sky to open the starry firmament and called upon the master of the winds to wake up beyond the sea.

It was difficult to guess where they had taken them and how far or close they were from the islands that could serve as a landmark.

3. Fill in the missing letters, open the brackets:

Ant...g...nism

A(p,pp)etit

Really... (whether)

(everything) right

Electoral committee

A group of friends

(not) from(?)eml...my

(not) pr…me(n,nn)o

P...(s,ss)...mism

Wholesale...mism

Find speech and grammatical errors in sentences. Write down the corrected version.

Science must be “free and unrestricted” in order to develop and move forward.

A true scientist in his work must take as a basis the activities of his predecessors.

Freedom of science lies in the recognition of ancient axioms.

The author believes that both theories are correct.

Science will move forward only when it is ready for new discoveries.

19. Test 28

Write down the words, put emphasis:

document

localities

more beautiful

delivered

litters

put

Understood

deposed

sent

foe

Write down the sentences and add punctuation marks.

I must still admit that I was partly pleased that Mars was able to find my trace along two crowded streets and three alleys.

I dreamed that an old man and a maid of honor were chasing me around the deck with mops, and a business man was threatening me with his notebook.

Mars lay there, squealing barely audibly, as if he wanted to pity him, as if he was going through the painful moments of impending separation.

The old man told me that he suffers from headaches and cannot tolerate noise and therefore takes boat trips all summer because he only finds silence on the boat.

When it was already about five and the sea air had sufficiently whetted the appetite, the deck was quickly cleared of passengers.

Fill in the missing letters, open the brackets:

It came (not) by the way

Enlightened (n,nn)y h...man

Pro(f,ff)e(s,ss)or sl…weight(?)ness

About...inertness (?)

…make a compliment

Mortality (n,nn)ost and a(k,kk)urity

F...t...leaf

C...r...monia

Ek...page(?)

Go(l,ll)iya

Find speech and grammatical errors in sentences. Write down the corrected version.

Paustovsky believes that a writer should learn to see the world around him from artists.

To create a truthful book, it is necessary that life “fill” the writer “to the very edges,” and only then will it be worthy of reading.

It is this indifference to what is happening that the author condemns.

Paustovsky encourages authors to immerse themselves in life, to experience it for themselves.

Akhmatova was always “where my people, unfortunately, were.”

18. Test 27

Write down the words, put emphasis:

Growth

Intention

Self-interest

Wholesale

Facilities

Uncorked

Shrewdly

Will hand over

Kilometer

Exhaust

2. Write down the sentences and add punctuation marks.

When you see a fire at night, it is difficult to determine whether it is close.

I clearly imagined how the wild boars walked and how the tiger stalked behind them.

Dersu told me about how in winter he caught two sables which he exchanged with the Chinese for a blanket, an ax, a pot and a teapot.

You could hear the sound of the water in the river, the sound of rain and the sound of the wind in the forest.

Hunters have repeatedly noticed that as soon as wapiti have visited the salt licks, roe deer leave them.

Fill in the missing letters, open the brackets:

Go against fate

Liberal views

World(z,zz)renniye

Start...start di(s,ss)ku(s,ss)yu

(n...) what does it have to do with it

(n...) how much

P...l...gardener

After (?)st... weeks...

Under...yachy

Te(r,rr)a(s, ss)a

Find speech and grammatical errors in sentences. Write down the corrected version.

Children, watching cartoons with their favorite characters, learn to separate good and evil, cowardice from courage, good from bad.

If someone buys their child, for example, a robot that destroys everything in its path, then he must understand what consequences this will lead to and how it will be reflected.

A toy should be an educator and teacher for a child on the path of learning about life.

Many of today's toys are truly cruel, but a lot depends on the parents.

An example of this will be my cousin, who knows firsthand what a modern toy is.

Isaac Ilyich Levitan Konstantin Georgievich Paustovsky

"Little story" Isaac Levitan" written in 1937.

The Lenten bell hummed sadly over the woodsheds and dead ends of old Moscow-Moscow in the eighties of the last century. Savrasov drank vodka from a glass, gray with age. Savrasov’s student Levitan, a skinny boy in a patched checkered jacket and gray short trousers, sat at the table and listened to Savrasov. “Russia does not have its own spokesman,” said Savrasov. “We are still ashamed of our homeland, as I was ashamed of my beggar grandmother from an early age.” She was a quiet old woman, she kept blinking her red eyes, and when she died, she left me an icon of Sergius of Radonezh. She finally told me: “Here, granddaughter, learn to write in such a way that your whole soul will cry from the heavenly and earthly beauty.” And the icon depicted herbs and flowers - our simplest flowers that grow along abandoned roads, and a lake overgrown with aspen trees. That's how cunning the grandmother turned out to be! At that time I was painting watercolors for sale, taking them to the Truba to small dealers. What I wrote is ashamed to remember. Lush palaces with towers and ponds with pink swans. Nonsense and disgrace. From my youth to my old age, I had to write something completely different from what my heart was in. The boy was shyly silent.

(K. Paustovsky)

Self-portrait. 1880s

Levitan strove to paint in such a way that in his paintings one could feel the air, embracing with its transparency every blade of grass, every leaf and haystack. Everything around seemed immersed in something calm, blue and shiny. Levitan called this something air. But this was not the air as it seems to us. We breathe it, we feel its smell, cold or warmth. Levitan felt it as a boundless environment of transparent substance, which gave such captivating softness to his canvases.

(K. Paustovsky)

Forest violets. 1889.

First green. May. 1888

Early spring. 1898

Etude. Spring. Last snow. 1895

Spring is big water. 1897

Silence.

…That same fall, Levitan wrote “Autumn Day in Sokolniki.” This was his first painting, where gray and golden autumn, sad, like the Russian life of that time, like the life of Levitan himself, breathed from the canvas with careful warmth and ached the viewers’ hearts. A young woman in black walked along the path of Sokolniki Park, through heaps of fallen leaves... She was alone in the autumn grove, and this loneliness surrounded her with a feeling of sadness and thoughtfulness. “Autumn Day in Sokolniki” is the only landscape by Levitan where a person is present, and it was painted by Nikolai Chekhov. After that, people never appeared on his canvases. They were replaced by forests and pastures, foggy floods and the poor huts of Russia, voiceless and lonely, just as man was voiceless and lonely at that time.

(K. Paustovsky)

Autumn day. Sokolniki. 1879.

On the barn in the village of Maksimovka, where Levitan lived in the summer, the Chekhov brothers hung a sign: “The loan office of the merchant Isaac Levitan”... Dreams of a carefree life finally came true. Levitan became friends with the artist Nikolai Chekhov, became friends with the Chekhov family and lived for three summers next to them. Chekhov coined the word “levitanist” and used it very aptly. “Nature here is much more Levitanistic than here,” he wrote in one of his letters. Even Levitan's paintings differed - some were more Levitanistic than others. At first it seemed like a joke, but over time it became clear that this cheerful word contained a precise meaning - it expressed that special charm of the landscape of central Russia, which of all the artists of that time, only Levitan was able to convey on canvas.

(K. Paustovsky)

Stormy day

At the pool. 1892

Summer evening. 1899

Forest landscape

Savvinskaya Sloboda near Zvenigorod. 1884.

Despite a life full of summer charm, Levitan worked a lot. The walls of his barn - a former chicken coop - were covered from top to bottom with sketches. At first glance, there was nothing new about them - the same winding roads familiar to everyone that are lost behind the slopes, copses, distances, a bright moon over the outskirts of the villages, paths trampled by bast shoes among the fields, clouds and lazy rivers. A familiar world appeared on the canvases, but there was something of its own in it, not conveyed by meager human words. Levitan's paintings caused the same pain as memories of a terribly distant, but always tempting childhood. Levitan was an artist of sad landscapes. The landscape is always sad when a person is sad. For centuries, Russian literature and painting have talked about a boring sky, skinny fields, lopsided huts...

(K. Paustovsky)

Landscape with a lake

Birches. 1899

Moonlight night. Big road. 1897.

In 1886, Levitan left Moscow for the first time to the south, to Crimea. In Moscow, he painted scenery for the opera house all winter, and this work did not pass without a trace for him. He began to use paints more boldly. The stroke became freer. The first signs of another trait inherent in a true master appeared - signs of audacity in handling materials. This property is necessary for everyone who works on the embodiment of their thoughts and images. A writer needs courage in handling words and the store of his observations, a sculptor - with clay and marble, an artist - with paints and lines. The most valuable thing Levitan learned in the south was pure paint. The time spent in the Crimea seemed to him like continuous mornings, when the air, settled overnight like water in the giant reservoirs of mountain valleys, is so pure that from afar one can see the dew flowing from the leaves, and tens of miles away the foam of the waves reaching the rocky shores. (K. Paustovsky)

Sea shore. Crimea. 1886

In the Crimean mountains. 1887.

In the south, Levitan felt with complete clarity that only the sun rules over colors. The greatest pictorial power lies in sunlight, and all the grayness of Russian nature is good only because it is the same sunlight, but muted, passing through layers of humid air and a thin veil of clouds. The sun and black light are incompatible. Black is not paint, it is the corpse of paint. Levitan was aware of this and after a trip to Crimea he decided to banish dark tones from his canvases. True, he did not always succeed. Thus began the struggle for light that lasted many years.

(K. Paustovsky)

Birch Grove. 1885 - 1889

Evening on the Volga.

After Crimea, the Volga entered Levitan’s life for a long time and firmly
(K. Paustovsky)

Golden autumn. Slobodka 1889

Landscape with a church. Quiet abode. 1890

Lilies. 1895

Lake. Rus. 1899 - 1900

Evening on the Volga. 1888

Lake. Spring. 1898

Dandelions. 1889

The locomotive is on the way. 1890

Levitan saw the beauty of the rains and created his famous “rainy works”: “After the Rain” and “Above Eternal Peace.” Levitan painted the painting “After the Rain” in four hours. Clouds and the pewter color of the Volga water created soft lighting. It could disappear any minute. Levitan was in a hurry. Levitan's paintings require slow viewing. They are not overwhelming to the eye. They are modest and precise, like Chekhov's stories; but the longer you look at them, the sweeter the silence of provincial towns, familiar rivers and country roads becomes. The painting “After the Rain” contains all the charm of rainy twilight in a Volga town. The puddles sparkle. The clouds go beyond the Volga like low smoke. Steam from steamship pipes falls on the water. Barges near the shore turned black from dampness.

(K. Paustovsky)

After the rain. Plyos. 1889

Over eternal peace. 1894.

In the painting “Above Eternal Peace” the poetry of a stormy day is expressed with even greater force. The painting was painted on the shore of Lake Udomli in the Tver province. From the slope, where dark birch trees bend under the gusty wind and a rotten log church stands among these birches, the distance of a remote river, meadows darkened by bad weather, and a huge cloudy sky opens up. Heavy clouds, filled with cold moisture, hang above the ground. Slanting sheets of rain cover the open spaces. None of the artists before Levitan conveyed with such sad force the immeasurable distances of Russian bad weather. It is so calm and solemn that it feels like greatness. (K. Paustovsky)

Fresh breeze.

On this second trip to the Volga, Levitan painted many canvases. About these things Chekhov told him: “There is already a smile in your paintings.” Light and brilliance first appeared in Levitan's "Volga" works - in "Golden Reach", "Fresh Wind", "Evening Bells". Almost every one of us has in our childhood memories forest glades covered with leaves, lush and sad corners of our homeland that shine under the cool sun in the blue, in the silence of windless waters, in the cries of nomadic birds. In adulthood, these memories arise with amazing force for the most insignificant reason - even from a fleeting landscape flashed outside the windows of the carriage - and evoke a feeling of excitement and happiness that is incomprehensible to us, a desire to leave everything - cities, worries, the usual circle of people, and go into this wilderness, to the shores of unknown lakes, to forest roads, where every sound is heard as clearly and for a long time, as on mountain peaks - be it the whistle of a steam locomotive or the whistle of a bird fluttering in the rowan bushes. Such a feeling of lovely places seen long ago remains from Levitan’s “Volga” and “autumn” paintings. (K. Paustovsky)

Golden Plyos. 1889

Evening shadows. 1891

Evening call, evening Bell. 1892.

The closer he got to old age, the more often Levitan’s thoughts stopped at autumn. True, Levitan wrote several excellent spring things, but it was almost always spring, similar to autumn... The softest and most touching poems, books and paintings were written by Russian poets, writers and artists about autumn. Levitan, like Pushkin and Tyutchev and many others, waited for autumn as the most precious and fleeting time of the year. Autumn removed the rich colors from the forests, from the fields, from all over nature, and washed away the greenery with the rains. The groves were made through. The dark colors of summer gave way to timid gold, purple and silver. Not only the color of the earth changed, but also the air itself. It was cleaner, colder, and the distances were much deeper than in summer. Thus, among the great masters of literature and painting, the youthful splendor of colors and elegance of language is replaced in adulthood by severity and nobility. Autumn in Levitan's paintings is very diverse. It is impossible to list all the autumn days he painted on the canvas. Levitan left about a hundred “autumn” paintings, not counting sketches. They depicted things familiar from childhood: haystacks, blackened by dampness; small rivers swirling fallen leaves in slow whirlpools; lonely golden birches, not yet blown by the wind; a sky like thin ice; shaggy rains over forest clearings. But in all these landscapes, no matter what they depict, the sadness of farewell days, falling leaves, rotting grass, the quiet hum of bees before the cold and the pre-winter sun, barely noticeably warming the earth, is best conveyed.

(K. Paustovsky)

River valley. Autumn. 1896

Gold autumn. 1895

Landscape with a church

Autumn. Fog. 1899.

...On July 22, 1900, he died. It was late twilight, when the first star appears above Moscow at a terrible height and the foliage of the trees is immersed in yellow dust and in the reflections of the dying sun. Summer was very late. In July the lilacs were still blooming. Its heavy thickets filled the entire front garden near the house. The smell of leaves, lilacs and oil paints stood in the studio where Levitan was dying, a smell that haunted the entire life of the artist, who conveyed on canvas the sadness of Russian nature... (K. Paustovsky)

Isaac Levitan and Konstantin Paustovsky are two masters of lyrical landscape, two poets of nature in central Russia. Paustovsky's interest in Levitan's work is a natural phenomenon. “Painting,” said K. G. Paustovsky, “is important for a pro-stammerer not only because it helps him to fall in love with colors and light. Painting is also important because the artist notices something that we do not see at all. Only after his paintings do we also begin to see and be surprised that we did not notice this before.” Reading Paustovsky, looking at Levitan’s paintings, we learn to notice the beauty in the ordinary.