The painting "Above Eternal Peace" is the most famous of all Levitan's works, and the most atypical: when his compatriots' hearts aches from his other landscapes, this one takes their breath away. This is not a lyrical landscape, which Levitan is so famous for, but rather a dramatic epic, where the past meets the future, the sky threatens the earth, and time strives for eternity.

Above eternal peace - Levitan. 1894. Oil on canvas. 150x206

    Helplessness, fragility and defenselessness - these are the main feelings that every viewer experiences before this work of the great artist. Perhaps, thanks to this particular painting, the name of the master of landscape is so widely known not only among art lovers...

    The author himself believed that this was his most successful work, revealing his worldview, his attitude. Lead clouds hung heavily over the steep bank. There is a church on a small cliff, next to it there is a forgotten cemetery, a graveyard, the last refuge... Fragile trees bend under the strong wind, a thin, intermittent path leading to the church is a symbol of oblivion, abandonment, wear and tear.

    The elements surrounding the cliff breathe with power. It seems that in one more moment the graveyard will disappear, the church will scatter across the world... Destruction seems inevitable.

    It is known that the artist wrote this work while listening to music. The solemn and sad sounds of Beethoven's funeral march inspired the author and forced him to create a gloomy and almost tragic atmosphere of this work. The viewer hears the howling of the wind, feels the piercing cold, dampness, and hears the rumble of distant thunder.

    In the distance you can see a deserted island, which is rapidly “swimming away” from the cliff. It seems that the island takes with it the souls of the dead, so that eternity absorbs the remnant of the human spirit, the very memories of the departed people.