Весенний лес

1879

Expelled from Moscow after the attempt on the tsar

After Alexander Soloviev's attempt on Alexander II (2 April), a decree is issued forbidding Jews to live in Moscow, and the eighteen-year-old Levitan is expelled; for the next couple of years he lives with his brother, sister and brother-in-law in a small dacha at Saltykovka near Balashikha. A year later, with the money from the sale of his painting “Evening after Rain”, he rents a furnished room on Bolshaya Lubyanka.

1880

Tretyakov buys “Autumn Day” for 100 roubles

The famous philanthropist and art collector Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov buys the painting for 100 roubles and will go on to acquire about twenty more of Levitan's works.

by 1883

The school rejects his picture for the medal

By 1883, disillusioned with the school, Levitan submits a landscape for a silver medal that would have made him a classed artist; Savrasov, by then drinking heavily and no longer teaching, writes “silver medal” on the back of the canvas, but the school rejects the painting and Levitan stops attending classes. Korovin repeated gossip that antisemitism played a part in the rejection.

spring 1884

He takes part in a Peredvizhniki exhibition

In the spring of 1884 he takes part in the travelling exhibition of the Peredvizhniki; he will become a member of their Association in 1891.

mid-1880s

His heart disease sharply worsens

Levitan's material situation improves in the mid-1880s, but a hungry childhood, an unsettled life and hard work tell on his health: his heart disease sharply worsens.

spring 1888

He discovers Plyos on the Volga

In spring 1888 he sails by steamer along the Oka to Nizhny Novgorod and on up the Volga with the artist Alexei Stepanov and Sofia Kuvshinnikova; to their own surprise they discover the small, quiet town of Plyos and decide to stay on for a while. The three summer seasons there (1888–1890) prove extremely productive: some two hundred works bring Levitan wide fame.