[9][10][11] According to the writer and publicist Vasily Mikheev, the canvas Over Eternal Peace is "a true landscape painting," this work by Levitan – "a symphony, strange at first sight, but subtly embracing the soul once you trust its impression.

[15] Then, Levitan arrived at Troitsa station[16][15] (now Udomlya), that was a part of Moscow-Vindavo-Rybinsk Railway at the time,[17] by train with his companion, the artist Sofia Kuvshinnikova.

Upon arrival, Filipp Petrov, a peasant from the village of Doronino, recommended that they stay at the Ushakovs' estate Ostrovno, as they welcomed holidaymakers.

He also made a large sketch of the future painting Over Eternal Peace (canvas, oil, 95 × 197 cm, 1893, now in the State Tretyakov Gallery).

"[29][30] To ensure that his enquiry reached the organizers of the exposition, Levitan sent a letter on 9 April 1894, from Nice to the artist Apollinary Vasnetsov, repeating his request.

Not having understood the philosophical idea that Levitan tried to put into his work, some critics found its title too pretentious and aimed at "raising the value" of the painting.

Some reviewers perceived Levitan's desire to convey his deep thoughts and experiences as an attempt to follow the fashionable "pessimistic tradition."

9 for 1894), wrote, calling the water space a river: "The river runs, bubbling, the clouds are painted a little too heavily on the horizon, the earth blooms, in short – life is everywhere; but the artist is possessed by pessimism, so he is in a hurry to make the viewer sad and remind him of the hour of death, if [at least] with the caption, the title of the painting" In a review article about the Peredvizhniki exhibition published in the newspaper "Nedelya" (No.

1314 in 1894), the critic Vladimir Chuiko, considering the painting unsuccessful in artistic terms, at the same time recognised that "despite, however, all these technical shortcomings, the painting nevertheless has a mood: Mr Levitan has managed to express the impression of some kind of dead peace, reminiscent of the idea of death, it is only a pity that this idea is expressed so strangely.

According to the art historian Alexei Fedorov-Davydov, "the new character of the painting with its decorative features and the desire to solve monumental tasks in this way was taken for a strange oddity, for incompleteness, for "indefinite ointment," posing as a special "manner," for the laying of new paths.

110, 23 April 1894), art critic Vladimir Sizov called Levitan's painting "well thought out and strongly felt," distinguished by "undoubted artistic merits.

"[37][34] In an article published in 1894 in the magazine "The Artist," writer and publicist Vasily Mikheev "sensitively grasped the deep psychology of the canvas and called it a genuine landscape-painting, remarkable for its content and 'mood'.

[38] During the summer of 1941, following the start of the Great Patriotic War, numerous exhibits from the State Tretyakov Gallery's collection were evacuated to Novosibirsk.

"[51] The composition found by the artist required a pictorial solution that would help "to feel more acutely the vastness and power of the space that opens up before the observer."

The movement of the disorderly pile of clouds is conveyed by "a combination of subtle shades of greyish purple, in some places leaden or greyish-brown tones."

According to him, Levitan often came with his paints and easel to the shore of Lake Ostrovno, "near which, on a hill, stood an old wooden church, half buried in the ground."

[20] Local historian Dmitry Podushkov noted that "we can say with a high degree of certainty that the composition of the painting Over Eternal Peace was made by Levitan in the village of Ostrovno," where the Ushakov estate served as an upper vantage point.

[15] Art historian Alexei Fedorov-Davydov wrote that the painting Over Eternal Peace is "a transfer of a motif seen on one lake to the image of another, similar one.

Dating from 1893 and bearing the common title Before the Storm, the drawings are executed in graphite pencil on a single sheet of paper (total format 18 × 16 cm, inv.

One of these sketches, titled Cloudy Sky (paper on cardboard, oil, 17.8 × 26.2 cm),[67] is held in the collection of the State Russian Museum[68][69][48][70] (inv.

"[71] Alexei Fedorov-Davydov stated that "the motif was definitely used in the painting Over Eternal Peace, including the grave crosses looming against the water.

[73] In 1893, Levitan created a large pictorial sketch for the future painting Over Eternal Peace (canvas, oil, 95 × 197 cm, State Tretyakov Gallery, inv.

"[75] In comparison to the final version of the painting, the large sketch – particularly in the right-hand section – has a significantly larger area dedicated to the foreground shore.

"[12] Among the painting's shortcomings, Mikheev considered the artist's representation of the water to be not entirely successful, as well as a certain coarseness of the clouds, in which "one would like to feel <...> more elemental power."

However, according to Mikheev, these shortcomings did not prevent Levitan's work from being perceived as "a picture of the human soul in the images of nature" and "an example of great power and originality.

"[80] In the introductory article to the album dedicated to the centenary of Levitan's birth, the art historian Vladimir Prytkov wrote that in Over Eternal Peace the artist "rises to tragic pathos," seeking "to express in the image of nature philosophical reflections of his time, his epoch.

According to him, Levitan attempted to depict "the eternal contradiction between the majestically beautiful forces of nature and the miserable fate of man in it.

According to Fedorov-Davydov, "from this juxtaposition of nature and traces of human existence in it, a landscape full of sublime sorrow and tragic heroics is formed.

"[86] The art historian Vitaly Manin noted that the motif, composition and colour scheme of Over Eternal Peace are "deeply characteristic of Russian nature."

"[87] According to Manin, in the "deliberate expressive plasticity of the painting" one can easily read "a sense of the power of the natural element and the meanings implicit in it."