Ilya Repin - biography, photo, personal life, paintings of the artist. Ilya Repin - biography, information, personal life Ilya Repin short biography and creativity
Russian painter
Ilya Repin
short biography
Ilya Efimovich Repin(August 5, 1844, Chuguev, Russian Empire - September 29, 1930, Kuokkala, Finland) - Russian painter. The son of a soldier, in his youth he worked as an icon painter. He studied at the Drawing School under the direction of I. N. Kramskoy, continued his studies at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts.
Since 1878 - a member of the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions. Academician of the Imperial Academy of Arts. Professor - head of the workshop (1894-1907) and rector (1898-1899) of the Academy of Arts, teacher of Tenisheva's workshop school; among his students - B. M. Kustodiev, I. E. Grabar, I. S. Kulikov, F. A. Malyavin, A. P. Ostroumova-Lebedeva, N. I. Feshin. V. A. Serov's direct mentor.
From the very beginning of his career, from the 1870s, Repin became one of the key figures in Russian realism. The artist managed to solve the problem of reflecting the whole variety of the surrounding life in a painting, in his work he was able to cover all aspects of modernity, to touch upon topics of concern to the public, and he reacted vividly to the spite of the day. Repin's artistic language was characterized by plasticity; it perceived various stylistic trends from the Spaniards and the Dutch of the 17th century to Alexander Ivanov and modern French impressionists.
The heyday of Repin's creativity fell on the 1880s. He creates a gallery of portraits of his contemporaries, works as a historical artist and master of everyday scenes. In the field of historical painting, he was attracted by the opportunity to reveal the emotional expressiveness of the proposed situation. The artist's element was modernity, and even while creating paintings on the themes of the legendary past, he remained a master of the burning present, reducing the distance between the viewer and the heroes of his works. According to the art critic V.V. Stasov, Repin's work is an "encyclopedia of post-reform Russia." Repin spent the last 30 years of his life in Finland, at his Penaty estate in Kuokkala. He continued to work, although not as intensively as before. In recent years, he has turned to biblical stories. In Kuokkala, Repin wrote his memoirs, a number of his essays were included in the book of memoirs "The Distant Close."
Origin. Childhood, adolescence, youth
Ilya Efimovich Repin was born in the city of Chuguev, Kharkov province. His paternal grandfather, an unserviceable Cossack Vasily Efimovich Repin, was a trader and owned an inn. According to the registers of births, he died in the 1830s, after which all household chores fell on the shoulders of his wife Natalya Titovna Repina. The artist's father Efim Vasilievich (1804-1894) was the eldest of the children in the family. In his memoir essays on childhood, Ilya Efimovich mentioned his father as a "ticket soldier" who, together with his brother, traveled to the Don region every year and, overcoming a distance of three hundred miles, drove herds of horses from there for sale. During his service in the Chuguev Uhlan regiment, Efim Vasilyevich managed to take part in three military campaigns and had awards. Ilya Repin tried to maintain a connection with his hometown, Slobozhanshchina and Ukraine until the end of his life, and Ukrainian motives occupied an important place in the artist's work.
The artist's maternal grandfather, Stepan Vasilyevich Bocharov, also devoted many years to military service. His wife was Pelageya Minaevna, whose maiden name the researchers failed to establish. In the early 1830s, the Bocharovs' daughter Tatyana Stepanovna (1811-1880) married Efim Vasilyevich. At first, the Repins lived under the same roof with their husband's parents; later, having saved up money for horse trading, the head of the family managed to build a spacious house on the banks of the Seversky Donets. Tatyana Stepanovna, being a literate and active woman, not only was engaged in the education of children, reading them aloud the works of Pushkin, Lermontov, Zhukovsky, but also organized a small school, which was attended by both peasant children and adults. There were few academic subjects in it: calligraphy, arithmetic and the Law of God. The family periodically had problems with money, and Tatyana Stepanovna sewed fur coats on hare fur for sale.
Watercolors were first brought to the Repins' house by Ilya Efimovich's cousin, Trofim Chaplygin. As the artist himself later recalled, his life changed at the moment when he saw the "revival" of a watermelon: a black-and-white picture, placed in a children's alphabet, suddenly acquired brightness and juiciness. From that day on, the idea of transforming the world with the help of paints no longer left the boy:
To console me, Trofim left me his paints, and from that time on I so stuck into the colors, clung to the table, that they barely torn me off for dinner and disgraced me, that I became completely wet as a mouse from zeal and went crazy with my paints for those days.
In 1855, his parents sent eleven-year-old Ilya to study at the school of topographers - this specialty, associated with filming and drawing work, was considered prestigious in Chuguev. However, two years later the educational institution was abolished, and Repin got a job in the icon-painting workshop of the artist I.M.Bunakov. Soon the news of Bunakov's talented student spread far beyond Chuguev; the young master began to be invited by contractors who came to the city who needed painters and gilders. At the age of sixteen, the young man left both the workshop and the parental home: he was offered 25 rubles a month for work in a nomadic icon-painting artel, which moved from city to city as orders were fulfilled.
In the summer of 1863, artel workers worked in the Voronezh province not far from Ostrogozhsk, the town in which the artist Ivan Kramskoy was born. Repin learned from local craftsmen that their fellow countryman, who had already received a small gold medal for the painting "Moses exuding water from a rock" by that time, had left his native place seven years ago and went to study at the Academy of Arts. The stories of the residents of Ostrogozh served as an incentive for drastic changes in life: in the fall, having collected all the money he earned during the summer months, Ilya Efimovich went to St. Petersburg.
The first Petersburg period (1863-1871)
Academy of Arts
The first visit to the Academy of Arts disappointed Repin: the conference secretary of the Academy F.F. Lvov, having familiarized himself with the drawings of a nineteen-year-old boy, said that he did not own shading, did not know how to create strokes and shadows. The failure upset Ilya Efimovich, but did not discourage him from learning. Having rented a room in the attic for five and a half rubles and switched to austerity, he got a job in an evening drawing school, where he was soon recognized as the best student. The repeated visit to the Academy ended with the successful passing of the exam, but after the entrance tests Repin faced difficulties again: for the right to attend the classes, the student had to pay 25 rubles. This amount for Repin was paid by the patron, the head of the postal department Fyodor Pryanishnikov, to whom Ilya Efimovich turned for help.
During the eight years spent within the walls of the Academy, Repin made many friends. Among them were Vasily Polenov, in whose house the aspiring artist was always welcomed, and Mark Antokolsky, who arrived in the capital from Vilna to study as a sculptor and later wrote: "We soon became close, as only lonely people in a foreign land can get closer." In 1869, Repin met the art critic Vladimir Stasov, who had been a member of Repin's "inner circle" for many years. He considered Kramskoy to be his direct mentor: Repin was his own man in the art artel created by Ivan Nikolaevich, showed him his student sketches, listened to advice. After the death of Kramskoy, Repin wrote memoirs in which he called the artist his teacher.
I. E. Repin. The resurrection of Jairus's daughter. 1871
Years of study brought Repin several awards, including a silver medal for the sketch "The Angel of Death Beats All the Firstborn Egyptians" (1865), a small gold medal for the work "Job and His Brothers" (1869) and a large gold medal for the painting "The Resurrection of Jairus's Daughter" ( 1871). Years later, recalling the story of "Resurrection ...", Repin told in a circle of artists that the preparation for its writing was complicated by the lack of money. Desperate, the student of the Academy created a genre picture of a student preparing for exams watching a girl from a neighboring apartment through the window. Ilya Efimovich took his work to Trenti's store, gave it to the commission and was surprised when he was soon presented with a considerable sum: “It seems that I haven’t experienced such happiness in my entire life!”. The money received was enough for paints and canvas, but their purchase did not relieve one of the creative torments: the plot of "Jairus's Daughter" did not work out. One evening, returning from Kramskoy, Repin tried to imagine how his loved ones would react if a person “endowed with the gift of a healer” could return life to Usta, his early deceased sister. As a result, the gospel story set according to the academic program was embodied in a "living picture of life":
The shadedness of the interior in the depths and on the right creates an atmosphere of silence, sorrow and evokes a feeling of expectation ... Here we have the beginning of that lyrical theme of sleep and awakening, which attracted Repin throughout his entire career.
"Barge Haulers on the Volga"
The plot of the first of Repin's significant paintings was prompted by life. In 1868, while working on sketches, Ilya Efimovich saw barge haulers on the Neva. The contrast between the idle, carefree audience walking on the shore and the people pulling rafts on the straps impressed the Academy student so much that upon returning to the rented apartment, he began to create sketches depicting "draft manpower". He was not given the academic obligations associated with the competition for a small gold medal to completely immerse himself in a new work, however, according to the artist, he could not free himself from a ripening idea either during games with friends in towns or during communication with young ladies he knew.
In the summer of 1870, Repin, together with his brother and fellow painters Fyodor Vasiliev and Yevgeny Makarov, went to the Volga. Vasiliev received the money for the trip - two hundred rubles - from wealthy patrons. As Repin later wrote, the journey was not limited to contemplating landscapes "with little albums" in their hands: young people got to know the locals, sometimes spent the night in unfamiliar huts, sat around the fire in the evenings. The Volga spaces amazed young artists with their epic scope; the mood of the future canvas was created by Glinka's "Kamarinskaya", which constantly sounded in the memory of Ilya Efimovich, and the volume of Homer's "Iliad" he had taken with him. One day the artist saw "the most perfect type of the desired barge haulers" - a man named Kanin (in the picture he is depicted in the first three, "with his head tied with a dirty rag").
I. E. Repin. "Barge Haulers on the Volga". 1870-1873
What a blessing that Kanin did not take it into his head to go to the bathhouse or have a haircut, as happened with some models who came with their hair cut, shaved beyond recognition. He was notified in advance and, like all serious people, posed seriously: he skillfully endured an unfamiliar position and easily adapted, without hindrance to me.- Ilya Repin
According to the German art historian Norbert Wolff, the painting "Barge Haulers on the Volga" caused a sensation in the international art community, because its author "monumentalized a genre scene, 'the lowest' in the academic classification." Each of the heroes of the canvas bears the stamp of individuality; at the same time, the entire group of characters, placed in an "existential and primordial" landscape, resembles the procession of the damned from Dante's "Divine Comedy".
Ordering "Slavianski Bazaar"
By 1871, Repin had already gained some fame in the capital. At the exam, he received the first gold medal for the painting "The Resurrection of Jairus's Daughter", the title of artist of the first degree and the right to a six-year trip abroad. The rumor about the talented graduate of the Academy reached Moscow: the owner of the hotel "Slavyansky Bazar" Alexander Porokhovshchikov invited Ilya Efimovich to paint a picture "Collection of Russian, Polish and Czech composers", promising 1,500 rubles for the work. At that time, portraits of many cultural figures were already placed in the hall of the hotel restaurant; the only thing missing was a "large decorative spot". The artist Konstantin Makovsky, to whom Porokhovshchikov had previously contacted, believed that this money would not recoup all labor costs, and asked for 25,000 rubles. But for Repin, an order from a Moscow entrepreneur became a chance to finally get out of years of need; in his memoirs, he admitted that "the amount assigned for the picture seemed enormous."
Together with Repin, Stasov joined the work, who, well versed in music, collected materials in the Public Library and gave professional advice. Nikolai Rubinstein, Eduard Napravnik, Mily Balakirev and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov posed for the picture; Repin created images of other composers, including those who had passed away, on the basis of engravings and photographs found by Stasov.
In June 1872, the opening of the "Slavianski Bazaar" took place. The picture presented to the public received many compliments, and its author received a lot of praise and congratulations. Among those who remained dissatisfied was Ivan Turgenev: he told Repin that he could not "come to terms with the idea of this picture"; later, in a letter to Stasov, the writer called Repin's painting "a cold vinaigrette of the living and the dead - a stretched nonsense that could have been born in the head of some Khlestakov-Porokhovshchikov."
First family
Wife Vera Alekseevna
I. E. Repin. " Relaxation. Portrait of V.A.Repina, the artist's wife". 1882
Korney Chukovsky, who was friends with Repin, believed that the artist's first family "due to their lack of culture showed little interest in his work." Ilya Efimovich knew Vera Shevtsova, the sister of his companion from the drawing school Alexander, from childhood: young people often gathered in the house of their father, academician of architecture Alexei Ivanovich Shevtsov. Over time, Vera and Ilya began to communicate more often. Art critic Alexandra Pistunova, talking about the portrait of the young bride Repin, painted in 1869, noted that the girl looks at the artist as if she was waiting for an invitation to dance:
She was good at sixteen: a heavy resinous braid below the waist, light brown eyes, a child's bangs over a round forehead, a straight nose, upwardly curved corners of the lips, the ability of a slender figure to somehow comfortably nestle, bend in a soft green chair.
Ilya Efimovich and Vera Alekseevna got married on February 11 (23), 1872. Instead of a honeymoon trip, Repin offered his young wife business trips - first to Moscow, to the opening of the Slavianski Bazaar, and then to sketches in Nizhny Novgorod, where the artist continued to look for motives and types for Burlakov. In the late autumn of the same 1872, a daughter was born, who was also named Vera. The christening of the girls was attended by Stasov and the composer Modest Mussorgsky, who "improvised, sang and played a lot."
Repin's first marriage lasted fifteen years. Over the years, Vera Alekseevna gave birth to four children: in addition to the eldest, Vera, Nadezhda, Yuri and Tatiana grew up in the family. The marriage, according to the researchers, could hardly be called happy: Ilya Efimovich gravitated towards an open house, was ready to receive guests at any time; he was constantly surrounded by ladies who wanted to pose for new paintings; For Vera Alekseevna, who was focused on raising children, the salon lifestyle was a burden. The break in relations occurred in 1887; during the divorce, the former spouses divided the children: the elders remained with their father, the younger ones went to live with their mother. The family drama influenced the artist so seriously that Stasov wrote to Mark Antokolsky about his concern for his friend's mental well-being:
Repin was silent for something with his exhibition, and in summer and autumn he talked a lot about it ... What peace, what joy, what opportunity to paint his pictures? How can one prepare an exhibition here when ... all the troubles, stories, sheer misfortune?
Family portraits. The fate of children
I. E. Repin. "Autumn Bouquet". 1892
Both during the years of marriage and after leaving the family, Repin painted many portraits of his loved ones. So, Ilya Efimovich created several portraits of Vera Alekseevna, including the painting "Rest" (1882), in which "not too attractive, rather, unkind", according to the art critic Alexei Fedorov-Davydov, the face of a woman asleep is softened by the "charming lyrics" of the artist ...
Repin played the role of "subtle, sincere lyricist" and when writing portraits of children. First of all, this concerns two of his paintings - "Dragonfly" (1884) and "Autumn Bouquet" (1892). The heroines of both works are the Repins' eldest daughter, Vera Ilinichna. In the first of them, a twelve-year-old girl, illuminated by the sun, sits on a crossbar. Art critics suggest that the artist created the portrait of his daughter from memory; evidence of this is some discrepancy between the background and the figure. But "Autumn Bouquet", on which the artist worked in the estate Zdravnevo, was painted from life. Vera has already turned into a young lady, whose autumn bouquet in her hands was intended to emphasize her “sense of life, youth and bliss”. A portrait of Nadia's daughter was also created there; the artist himself told about him like this: "She is in a hunting dress, with a gun over her shoulder and with a heroic expression."
The fate of Repin's children was different. Vera Ilyinichna, having served for some time at the Alexandrinsky Theater, moved to her father in Penaty. She later moved to Helsinki, where she died in 1948. Nadezhda, who was two years younger than Vera, graduated from the Christmas courses for women in medicine assistants in St. Petersburg, then worked in zemstvo hospitals. After a trip to the typhus epidemic in 1911, the young woman began to suffer from mental illness. Living with her father in Kuokkala, Nadezhda Ilyinichna almost never left her room. She passed away in 1931. Yuri Ilyich (1877-1954) followed in his father's footsteps and became an artist. The tragedy of his life was the story of his missing son Diya. After the declassification of the archives, it turned out that in 1935 he was arrested while crossing the border with the USSR and sentenced to death by the tribunal of the Leningrad Military District on the basis of Articles 58-8 and 84 of the RSFSR Criminal Code. Repin's youngest daughter Tatiana, after completing the Bestuzhev courses, taught at the health school; after the death of her father, she and her family left for France; died in 1957.
Retirement trip abroad (1873-1876). "Sadko"
In April 1873, when the eldest daughter grew up a little, the Repin family, who had the right to travel abroad as a pensioner of the Academy, went on a voyage across Europe. Having visited Vienna, Venice, Florence, Rome and Naples, the artist rented an apartment and studio in Paris. In letters to Stasov, he complained that the capital of Italy disappointed him ( "There are a lot of galleries, but ... I don't have the patience to get to the bottom of good things."), and Raphael seemed "boring and outdated." Excerpts from these letters have been made public; the magazine "Entertainment" (March 1875) responded to them with a poisonous caricature in which Stasov "helped Repin to hatch out of the nest." The drawing was accompanied by a poem: "... Isn't it, my reader, / What is for judges like Stasov, / And turnips are better than pineapples?".
I. E. Repin. "Sadko". 1876
Getting used to Paris went slowly, but by the end of the trip, the artist began to recognize the French impressionists, separately highlighting Manet, under whose influence, according to the researchers, Repin created the painting "Parisian Cafe", testifying to the mastery of the techniques of plein air painting. Nevertheless, according to the artist Yakov Minchenkov, the new forms until the end of his life "baffled him, and the impressionist landscape painters irritated him." Those, in turn, reproached Ilya Efimovich for “not understanding beauty”. A peculiar response to their claims was the painting "Sadko" painted by Repin in Paris, the hero of which "feels himself in some kind of underwater kingdom." Its creation was complicated by the fact that it took too much time to find a customer and money; interest in the invented plot gradually melted away, and in one of his letters to Stasov, the annoyed artist admitted that he was “terribly disappointed with the painting Sadko”.
In 1876, for the painting "Sadko" Repin received the title of academician. However, this did not save the artist from criticism: for example, art critic Andrei Prakhov wrote in a review published in the art magazine "Bee":
Excuse me, but isn't this the same Repin who wrote Burlakov? What should he do now if he was already producing perfections while still a disciple? I am in awe and go ... "Oh, look, maman, the man in the aquarium!" ... I wish him to wake up happily ...
Moscow period (1877-1882)
Joining the Association of the Wanderers
Returning to Russia, Repin lived and worked in his native Chuguev for a year - from October 1876 to September 1877. All these months he corresponded with Polenov, offering him to settle in Moscow. The move turned out to be difficult: Ilya Efimovich, as he himself reported to Stasov, was carrying with him "a large supply of artistic good", which had stood unpacked for a long time because of the malaria that had brought Repin down. After his recovery, the artist told Kramskoy that he had decided to join the Association of the Itinerants. Kramskoy, being one of the main inspirers of this creative association, took the initiative with enthusiasm:
Do you know what a good word you wrote: "I am yours." This word infuses my tormented heart with courage and hope. Forward!
According to the rules, admission to the Partnership was carried out after the candidates had passed the "exhibitor experience", but for the sake of Repin an exception was made: he was accepted, neglecting formalities, in February 1878.
"Princess Sophia"
I. E. Repin. "Princess Sophia". 1879
One of the first paintings, which Repin began to paint after moving to Moscow, was "Tsarevna Sophia" (the full author's title is "The ruler Princess Sophia Alekseevna a year after her imprisonment in the Novodevichy Convent during the execution of archers and torture of all her servants in 1698" ). Researchers believe that for a deeper immersion in the topic, the artist even chose apartments for himself, taking into account the distance from the monastery: first he lived in Tyoply lane, then in Bolshoy Trubny lane.
The work lasted for over a year; Ilya Efimovich spent a lot of time outside the studio, studying historical documents and materials that Stasov had selected for him in St. Petersburg. For a detailed acquaintance with the accessories, the artist visited museums and wardrobe workshops of theaters, making many sketches there. For Sofia Repina, the mother of Valentina Serov, Valentina Semyonovna, the wife of the composer Pavel Blaramberg, Elena Apreleva, and a certain dressmaker posed. Repin's wife Vera Alekseevna sewed a dress with her own hands according to sketches brought from the Armory. According to art critic V.N.
The figure of the princess and the silver brocade of her dress, and the twilight of the cramped and stuffy cell, and the beautifully conveyed struggle of the warm lamp light with the cold smoky light streaming from the narrow window, and the figure of a frightened novice in the depths ...
Despite the amount of work done, Repin's new painting, shown at a traveling exhibition in 1879, did not cause delight among the artist's friends. The same Stasov, who put a lot of effort into its creation, wrote that for the image of Sophia Ilya Efimovich “did not find the necessary elements”, and therefore he “had to compose a 'pose'”. Mussorgsky was also disappointed, who admitted that he saw on the canvas "a woman who was not plump, but all blurred to the point that, given her enormous size (in the picture), there was little room for the audience." Almost the only one of the close people who supported Repin was Kramskoy, who called "Sophia" a historical picture.
Student Valentin Serov
In Moscow, young Valentin Serov joined Repin's household. The artist first saw him in 1871, when, after the death of Alexander Serov, he came to the composer's house to support his widow and six-year-old son. Later, fate brought them together in Paris: Valentin lived with his musician mother on Boulevard Clichy and came to the studio of Ilya Efimovich almost every day.
V. A. Serov. "Portrait of the artist I. E. Repin". 1892
When Valentin was fifteen years old, his mother Valentina Semyonovna asked Repin to take the young man into her family. In the artist's house, he felt free: Serov was not singled out among other children, if necessary, he was involved in household chores, spent many hours in the workshop. With a trained eye, Repin determined that Valentine has both zeal and artistic taste:
In the afternoon, during leisure hours, he (Serov) copied all the views from the windows of my apartment: gardens with birches and fruit trees, buildings for houses; everything with the greatest love and incredible assiduity was copied by the boy Serov, bringing his small canvases to full charm with oil paints.
That the student was ripe for further growth, Repin realized during summer sketches in a village near Abramtsevo. Working with Valentin near the monastery, Ilya Efimovich drew attention to the image of a hunchback made by the young Serov (later this very type was used for the painting “Religious Procession in Kursk Province”). The drawing, executed “with the brilliance of an experienced master,” became evidence that Serov was ready to enter the Academy of Arts. Soon Valentin left for St. Petersburg and became a volunteer at this educational institution. Repin personally sought to ensure that the young man was enrolled in the course of Professor Pavel Chistyakov, whom he valued not only as a master of painting, but as a subtle, intelligent teacher.
Portrait of Turgenev
I. E. Repin. "Portrait of I. S. Turgenev". 1874
The work on the portrait of Turgenev was so hard that the researchers called it "walking through pain." The acquaintance of the writer and the artist took place in St. Petersburg; they later met in Paris. Repin accepted Pavel Tretyakov's order to paint a portrait of Ivan Sergeevich with enthusiasm. The first session was successful, but the next day a messenger brought a note stating that the proposed version had been rejected by Pauline Viardot. This assessment was enough for the inspiration to go away; recalling further work, Repin lamented: "Oh, my stupidity, I in a rage turned my successfully grasped underpainting head down and started from another turn ... Alas, the portrait came out dry and boring."
Tretyakov, who received a portrait of Turgenev in his collection, did not hide his displeasure. The painting depicting Ivan Sergeevich left him for Kuzma Soldatenkov's gallery, from him it got to Savva Mamontov, then to the Rumyantsev Museum and in the 1920s returned to the Tretyakov Gallery.
In January 1879, when Turgenev arrived in Moscow, Tretyakov, who never gave up his dream of getting a good portrait of the writer, organized a meeting between Ilya Efimovich and Ivan Sergeevich at his home. The sessions resumed, and by the spring the picture was ready. However, its demonstration at the 7th exhibition of the Itinerants did not bring the artist anything but negative emotions: the reviewers saw “whipped soap” on the writer's head, and the created image was compared to “some old celadon”. Stasov, admitting that the second attempt was also unsuccessful, noted:
In this case, Repin suffered a common fate: whoever painted the portrait of Turgenev, everyone failed, none of our painters was able to convey the face and figure of the famous Russian writer.
"Religious procession in the Kursk province"
The coloristic value of the "Procession of the Cross" arises due to the fact that the gamut is brought to the natural in the midday summer hours, a general, as it were, a silvery tone. It is generated by the whitish color of the sky as if burnt out from the heat, the hot air saturated with dust, and the dominant spots of brownish-gray peasant clothes in the picture.
- I. I. Pikulev
It took Repin three years to create the painting Religious Procession in Kursk Province, which the artist originally called the Miraculous Icon. To collect materials, he traveled to the Kursk province, Kiev and Chernigov. The deadlines for the completion of the work were postponed over and over again: for example, in August 1881, Ilya Efimovich wrote to Stasov that in the winter he intends to “finish the Procession of the Cross,” but later reported that it was still far from completion.
“Religious Procession ...” is a “multi-figured, choral composition” based on “pressure, strength, power, chaos”. In the stream of people, no less than seventy figures with "clear characteristics" stand out; from a multitude of faces and moods, a "holistic picture of the life of the people" of the 1880s is formed. Social types are indicated not only in those characters that are in the foreground (the hunchback and the lady), but also in the "secondary" images - such as a representative of the authorities, swinging a whip at the violator of the order.
"Procession of the Cross ...", like most of Repin's previous works, caused an ambiguous reaction. If Igor Grabar believed that this painting "finally established the reputation of the first artist in Russia for Repin," the St. Petersburg newspaper Novoye Vremya saw in it "not an impartial depiction of Russian reality, but only an exposure of the artist's views on life."
Repin and Tolstoy
The initiator of the acquaintance of Lev Tolstoy and Repin was Stasov, who, starting from the 1870s, tirelessly told the writer about the appearance of a "new star" in Russian art. Their meeting took place in October 1880, when Lev Nikolaevich suddenly appeared in the house of Baroness Simolin (Bolshoy Trubny lane, No. 9), where Repin lived. The artist wrote about this in detail to Stasov, noting that the writer "is very similar to the portrait of Kramskoy":
I was so stunned by his unexpected and just as unexpected departure (although he stayed for about two hours, but it seemed to me no more than a quarter of an hour) that I, absent-mindedly, forgot to even ask where he was staying, how long he was here, where he was going ... Write to me please, his address where can be found.
The acquaintance was continued a year later, when Lev Nikolaevich, having arrived in Moscow, stopped at the Volkonskys. As the artist later recalled, in the evenings, after finishing work, he often went to meetings with Tolstoy, trying to time them to the time of his evening walks. The writer could travel long distances tirelessly; sometimes the interlocutors, carried away by the conversation, “went so far” that they had to hire a horse-drawn carriage for the way back. In 1882, Tolstoy took part in the Moscow population census. He got a plot in the area of the Smolensk market, which included the so-called "Rzhanovskaya fortress", inhabited by the urban poor. According to the researchers, Repin could have accompanied the writer during these rounds; This is confirmed by the drawings "Street Scene", "L. N. Tolstoy and census enumerators ”and some others.
I. E. Repin. "Plowman. Leo Tolstoy on arable land. " 1887
During his twenty years of acquaintance with Lev Nikolaevich Repin, who was both in his Moscow apartment and in Yasnaya Polyana, created several portraits of Tolstoy (the most famous are “L.N. an armchair with a book in his hands "(1887)," L. N. Tolstoy in the Yasnaya Polyana study under the arches "(1891)), as well as dozens of sketches and sketches; many of them remained in scattered albums. Painting “L. N. Tolstoy on arable land ”, as the artist himself recalled, appeared on the day when Lev Nikolayevich volunteered to plow a widow's field. Repin, who was in Yasnaya Polyana that day, "received permission to accompany him." Tolstoy worked without rest for six hours; Ilya Efimovich, with an album in his hands, recorded the movements and "checked the contours and relationships of the size of the figures."
In the September 1887 issue of Novosti i birzhevaya gazeta, an article by Stasov appeared that Repin's Tolstoy reminds him of tanned barge haulers: “The same expression of strength, devotion to his cause, the same infinitely national type and warehouse.” The critic paid special attention to the horses - in his opinion, each of them has its own character: one meekly "corrects his service", the other demonstrates liveliness and disobedience.
Portrait of Mussorgsky
I. E. Repin. "Portrait of the composer M. P. Mussorgsky". 1881
For many years, Repin had a particularly warm relationship with Musorgsky. The composer tried not to miss the exhibitions of Ilya Efimovich; he, in turn, attended the premieres of his musical works. As the composer Boris Asafiev recalled, sometimes he happened to accompany Repin's work by playing the piano - the artist loved to listen to Khovanshchina. In the spring of 1881, Stasov told Repin from St. Petersburg that Modest Petrovich was in the Nikolaev military hospital in an extremely serious condition: "What a pity this brilliant force, which was so stupid with itself physically."
The artist immediately left for the capital to visit a sick comrade. In the hospital ward, Repin painted a portrait of Mussorgsky for four days - from 2 to 5 March. Ilya Efimovich did not take an easel for a trip to Petersburg, so the work was carried out near the table at which the composer was sitting. According to the researchers, the artist did not try to hide the composer's “human weaknesses”, but even in a hospital dress, with a steadfast and at the same time detached gaze, Mussorgsky looks like a “handsome and spiritually great” man. The audience was impressed by the portrait of the composer who died a few days after Repin's visit. According to Kramskoy, the artist used in his work "some unheard-of techniques, never tested by anyone, - he himself is" I "and no one else":
Look at these eyes: they look as if they were alive, they were thinking, all the inner, spiritual work of that moment was drawn in them - and how many portraits in the world with such an expression!
Repin and Tretyakov
Repin met the art patron and founder of the Tretyakov Gallery Pavel Tretyakov while he was still working on The Barge Haulers. In 1872, hearing about interesting material brought by a graduate of the Academy of Arts from the Volga, Tretyakov arrived at Ilya Efimovich's St. Petersburg workshop and, introducing himself, studied the sketches hung along the walls for a long time. His attention was attracted by two works - portraits of the watchman and the seller; The entrepreneur halved the price set by Repin and left, promising to send a messenger for the sketches.
In Moscow, the business relations that developed between Repin and Tretyakov gradually developed into friendly ones. The patron visited Ilya Efimovich's house; if it was impossible to meet, they exchanged letters or short notes: “If you have a free hour, turn to see me to see the portrait of Aksakov. Repin "," I would be very grateful if you visited me today. Tretyakov ". Mutual sympathy did not prevent them from polemizing on a variety of issues. So, Tretyakov believed that on the canvas "Procession of the Cross" an amusing bourgeois woman carrying an icon case should be replaced by a pretty young lady. Pavel Mikhailovich was also puzzled by the theme of the painting "The Plowman"; Repin explained in response that he could not agree with the opinion that the image of Tolstoy while working on arable land was akin to advertising.
I. E. Repin. Portrait of Pavel Tretyakov. 1901
Sometimes Tretyakov suggested to the artist ideas for future works; so, it was he who suggested that Ilya Efimovich paint a portrait of the seriously ill and reclusive writer Alexei Pisemsky - as a result, the gallery was replenished with "an extraordinary piece of art." At the same time, the artist categorically rejected Tretyakov's recommendation to choose the critic and publisher Mikhail Katkov as a "model"; in a letter to Pavel Mikhailovich, he passionately explained that it is useless to put "a portrait of a retrograde" on a par with Tolstoy, Nekrasov, Dostoevsky and cast a shadow on "the activities of such a precious museum."
For a long time Repin had a dream to paint a portrait of Tretyakov himself, but the patron flatly refused to pose. Nevertheless, in the winter of 1882, joint work began; it lasted until the departure of Ilya Efimovich from Moscow and was completed already in St. Petersburg. Knowing that Pavel Mikhailovich's relatives had comments on his portrait, Repin, after the death of the patron, created a second version of the picture. Arriving in December 1898 at the funeral of Tretyakov, Ilya Efimovich wrote:
Here fell a mighty, spreading oak, under its wide branches how many good Russian artists lived and prospered ... But when a temporary impoverishment comes, a trifle, then they will understand the era that has gone into the distance and be surprised at its grandeur, appreciate both art and the collector.
Second Petersburg period (1882-1900)
On the eve of moving to the capital, Repin admitted in one of his letters that Moscow was beginning to tire him. The ensuing satiety, coupled with the persistent persuasion of Stasov and Kramskoy, led to the fact that in the fall of 1882 the 38-year-old artist returned to the city of his youth. He brought with him a lot of baggage, the basis of which was the sketches for the works begun - "Cossacks", "The arrest of a propagandist", "Refusal of confession", "Ivan the Terrible", as well as hundreds of drawings and sketches on a variety of topics.
"Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan on November 16, 1581"
The birth of the historical canvas, created "based on" one of the plots of the "History of the Russian State", was preceded by Repin's visit to a concert by Rimsky-Korsakov. As the artist himself later wrote, “his musical trilogy - love, power and revenge” seemed so impressive that he wanted to “depict something similar in the power of his music in painting”.
I. E. Repin. “Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan on November 16, 1581”. 1885
The work began with the choice of nature. Repin was looking for the right people everywhere - he peered at passers-by on the streets, turned to his acquaintances. The image of Ivan the Terrible, according to Ilya Efimovich, somewhat coincided with the type of the painter Grigory Myasoedov, who, along with a random person he met in the market, agreed to pose for a new picture. Several people became the prototypes of the tsarevich, including the landscape painter Vladimir Menk and the writer Vsevolod Garshin. Answering questions about why, when writing the profile of the prince, the choice fell on Vsevolod Mikhailovich, Repin noted:
In the face of Garshin, I was struck by the doom: he had the face of a man doomed to perish. This was what I needed for my prince.
The painting was completed in 1885 and displayed at the 13th exhibition of the Itinerants. The interpretation of the historical plot aroused the discontent of Alexander III: the emperor "deigned to command Repin's painting" Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan "not to allow exhibitions and generally not to allow its dissemination to the public." Many cultural figures spoke out in defense of the canvas; thanks to their efforts, as well as the efforts of the artist Alexei Bogolyubov, the ban was lifted.
"Didn't expect"
The history of the work "They Didn't Expect", on which Repin worked in 1883-1888, began with a small picture. It depicted a young female student appearing in a room after a long absence. Later, developing the theme, the artist replaced the heroine with a man - the "prodigal son", who, entering the house, pauses and looks inquiringly at the elderly woman - his mother.
I. E. Repin. "We didn't expect." 1888
The plot was originally built only on the "psychological characteristics" of the characters, but in the first versions, "not trusting himself", Ilya Efimovich included two more characters in the action - "some old man" and the hero's father. Later, realizing that the reaction of the mother, wife, children and the maid standing in the doorway was accurately reproduced, Repin decided to do without additional "explanatory figures."
The interior for the picture was one of the rooms of a country house in the village of Martyshkino near St. Petersburg, where the Repin family lived in the summer of 1883. The house was crowded, so all the relatives and guests who were there, including the artist's mother-in-law and the daughter of Stasov's brother, posed for "They Did Not Expect". According to the biographer of Repin Sophia Prorokova, the artist for a long time failed to capture the facial expression that happens to close people at the moment of a sudden and long-awaited meeting, so the artist rewrote the hero's head many times. Even when the painting added to the gallery's collection, Ilya Efimovich, secretly from Pavel Tretyakov, made his way into the hall and worked until he achieved that emotional movement that he had been looking for for a long time - an instant "transition from joy to amazement."
Repin and Garshin
I. E. Repin. Portrait of Garshin. 1884
The acquaintance of Repin and Vsevolod Garshin took place in the Pavlova hall on Troitskaya Street, where the writer came accompanied by students and course students. As the artist later admitted, the desire to paint a portrait of the writer arose already at the first meeting - Ilya Efimovich was struck by "Garshin's eyes, full of serious modesty." The sessions took place in Repin's studio, and the appearance of Vsevolod Mikhailovich surprised the artist every time: he entered silently, radiating "quiet delight, like a disembodied angel." Garshin also spoke of the artist with sympathy. In a letter to his comrade V. M. Latkin, he said that Ilya Efimovich, with all his "apparent gentleness and even tenderness," is a man with a strong character. The letter ended with a message that the work on the portrait was nearing completion.
The portrait of Garshin, acquired by the industrialist and collector Ivan Tereshchenko, was presented at the 15th traveling exhibition in St. Petersburg (1887) and caused an ambiguous reaction from reviewers: some believed that “Repin wrote Garshin to a madman”, others argued that they had not seen “his eyes more beautiful and a bright forehead. " In the middle of the 20th century, Soviet art critics considered this work to be lost: for example, Ilya Zilbershtein wrote that traces of the painting were lost in Kiev in the early 1920s. Nevertheless, Garshin's portrait did not disappear: it is currently in the United States at the Metropolitan Museum.
"Cossacks write a letter to the Turkish sultan"
The first sketch of "Zaporozhtsev" appeared in 1878 in Abramtsevo. The maturing concept was separated from the finished painting presented to the world at the personal exhibition of Repin (1891) by twelve years of work. According to the recollections of the artist's eldest daughter Vera Ilyinichna, for a long time the whole family lived only with Cossacks: Ilya Efimovich read aloud poems and stories about the Sich every night, the children knew all the heroes by heart, played Taras Bulba, Ostap and Andriy, sculpted their figures from clay and could any moment to quote a piece of text from the letter of the Cossacks to the Sultan.
I. E. Repin. "The Cossacks write a letter to the Turkish sultan." 1891
In the summer of 1880, Repin, together with his student Valentin Serov, left for Little Russia; eight years later, he made a second trip with his son Yuri. Working on sketches, the artist painted everything that could be useful for the canvas: huts, utensils, costumes, weapons. The artist called his state of obsession "a creative binge", and the future characters of the picture - "a cheerful people".
Ilya Efimovich looked for the features of the Cossacks in all his acquaintances. As the writer Mamin-Sibiryak recalled, having entered Repin's workshop, he was forced to pose for the Cossacks for several hours: the artist liked his eyelid for one of the heroes and his eyes for the other. To create the image of the clerk, Repin invited the historian Dmitry Yavornitsky, the chieftain Serko agreed to embody General Dragomirov. The prototypes of other characters were Ilya Efimovich's fellow countryman - musicologist Alexander Rubets (laughing Cossack), collector Vasily Tarnovsky (man in a hat), artist Kuznetsov, son of Varvara Ikskul-Gildenbandt (young smiling Zaporozhets) and others.
Repin and the "World of Art"
Repin's rapprochement with the World of Art association took place after meeting Alexander Benois. In 1894-1895, the artists visited each other, discussed plans to create a new association of painters. In November 1898, answering the question whether decadence was dying, Repin noted that it was not:
Any new direction in art has something eternal in its essence and with its best works brings refreshing motives to the sphere of art. All kinds of art have their fans, their consumers. The fight against them, in my opinion, is not legal and useless.<…>Decadence, in my opinion, is still only in its infancy, at least in our country, in Russia, and one cannot but wish it to develop.
Then Ilya Efimovich joined the exhibition project of Benoit and Diaghilev - on January 18, 1899, the First International Exhibition of the World of Art magazine opened, where among 350 works by artists from France, England, Germany, Finland and Russia, Repin's works were also exhibited. In early January, Repin agreed to join the editorial board of the magazine. This cooperation seemed promising: Ilya Efimovich was conquered by Diaghilev's "fighting fervor"; the latter, in turn, understood how much the authority of his publication would increase if Repin's name appeared on the editorial list. Repin's students V. A. Serov, I. E. Grabar, A. P. Ostroumova-Lebedeva collaborated in the journal. Repin spoke enthusiastically about the International Exhibition organized by the "World of Art" ("There are things that are interesting for their artistry, and there are for their arrogance!").
However, in mid-January 1899, the artist's mood changed. The ideological platform of the "World of Art" implied opposition to the Academy of Arts and the moribund movement. The epithets "school of bad taste" and "creeping empiricism" addressed to academics alternated with accusations of the later Itinerants of ostentatious tendentiousness ("direction" - "slap in the face of Apollo", according to A. N. Benois), in crushing the themes of the Itinerants-everyday writers of the 1890s G. Myasoedova, Vl. Makovsky, N. Bogdanov-Belsky, imitating nationality and depicting only "bast shoes and rags."
P. E. Shcherbov. The joy is immeasurable. (V. V. Stasov, I. E. Repin, M. V. Nesterov, S. P. Diaghilev and others) "Jester" (1900, No. 4)
It became known that Repin sent a letter to Diaghilev, in which he refused to cooperate with the "World of Art". Stasov, with whom Repin had a falling out about six years ago, was, by his own admission, very happy with the break with the "decadents". Accidentally meeting with Filosofov, editor of the literary department of the "World of Art", Stasov insisted on the publication of Repin's letter on the pages of the magazine. Several months passed, but the letter was never published. Apparently, Repin made it clear to Diaghilev that he would still publish his letter, and then, on March 22, Diaghilev met with the artist to discuss this issue. An attempt to extinguish the conflict failed: in April 1899, in the 15th issue of Niva, Repin's message “To the address of the World of Art”, dated March 30, was published. The reason for the final break in relations was a note in the "Artistic Chronicle" heading ("World of Art", 1899, no. 8), the anonymous author of which spoke very caustically about the representatives of the academic school of painting and proposed to withdraw some of their canvases from the Museum of Alexander III. This disdain angered Repin; he defended his colleagues Vladimir Makovsky, Grigory Myasoedov and others:
Anyone who is close to the interests of art is surprised by the claim to the role that this art magazine wants to play. He looks down on the Academy of Arts. Joking at her activities, he instructs the Museum of Alexander III as a subordinate to remove from the hall what the editorial board does not like. He takes the tastes of the Russian public under his wing ...
Repin defended not only the Wanderers, but also academic artists KD Flavitsky, IK Aivazovsky, FA Moller from the attacks of the World of Artists, evaluating the direction of the "World of Art" as a whole as decadent. In the heat of controversy, he criticized Auguste Rodin, Axeli Gallen-Kallela, Claude Monet, calling them fighters for ignorance and opposing them all with the work of the Polish "colossus" - academic artist Jan Matejko, whose significance was challenged in the "World of Art" Igor Grabar ...
Repin announced that he was terminating cooperation with the magazine. Diaghilev replied in No. 10 of World of Art, reprinting his letter in his article "Letter to I. Repin." He used recent quotes from the artist (including Repin's article "In Defense of the New Academy of Arts" in the October 1897 issue of Books of the Week) to point out his conflicting views on art.
Stasov, who consistently fought against the "decadents", dedicated the article "Miraculous" ("News and Exchange Gazette" No. 15) to Repin's "return", where he expressed joy at the "resurrection" of the artist and, without hesitation in expressions, attacked the "world of art" ". The article displeased Repin, in a letter to L.I. Shestakova, he admitted that if it were not for Stasov's illness, he would again quarrel with him. As I. Grabar noted in his monograph "Repin", Repin's views on art had a "fundamental difference" with those of Stasov, and subsequently both tried to avoid direct collisions: finally improved relations. " Already in the fall of 1899, Stasov wrote to Antokolsky about Repin's reaction to the content of a "decadent magazine" that fell into his hands in the critic's house:
... he [Repin] exclaimed with animation: “What a magazine. How wonderful! How new everything is here, freshly talented and original. " What then mean all his (printed) denials of decadence and decadence? All lies and pretense or complete demotion and unconsciousness?>
Many contemporaries noted the inconsistency of Repin's judgments about art. A. Ostroumova-Lebedeva, who at first adored him “as before some kind of deity”, later became disillusioned with Repin and “learned to separate in him a genius artist from a person”. V. Serov was very wounded by Repin's careless words. V. Perepletchikov wrote in his diary: "This is a folding soul, it can fold into any shape you want." Nevertheless, A. Benois liked Repin's variability, in his opinion, it showed that despite his age, the artist did not lose interest in art, “that he is still full of life; he continued to speak and write about everyone and everything with the same youthful spontaneity and absolute sincerity. "
In the course of further controversy between World of Art and Repin, each of the parties used various platforms to exchange claims, including the Rossiya newspaper and Novosti i birzhevy gazeta. Confirmation that a return to the previous relationship is impossible was the reaction of the "World of Art" to Repin's performance at the Academy of Arts (December 1899). It was timed to coincide with the centenary of Karl Bryullov, was approved by the audience, but in the Diaghilev edition it was regarded “as devoid of thought, full of curiosities and absurdities”. At the same time, Diaghilev, who argued that "Repin's views are now irrelevant," continued to praise him as an artist.
Pedagogical activity (1894-1907)
From the instructions of I. E. Repin
- See more, draw for longer, write easier.
- Expression is the most precious thing.
- Nothing extra.
- Look for the meeting of large planes.
- Knowing of limits! Knowing of limits!
- The body must be the body, water is water.
- How it happened - and stop.
In 1894, Repin, who had already received the title of professor of painting by that time, returned to the Academy of Arts as the head of the painting workshop. The fate of this educational institution began to worry Ilya Efimovich long before the first students came to his workshop. So, back in 1877, Repin, being in his native Chuguev, wrote to his friend Polenov that mature artists who could benefit the Academy should “enter it, even if only for this they had to endure troubles”.
Reviews about the pedagogical methods of Ilya Efimovich were contradictory. Critic Viktor Burenin believed that "Repin has assured himself and wants to assure others that the Academy has really revived from the moment he took possession of it with the company." The artist's apprentice Igor Grabar spoke of his master in a paradoxical way: "Repin was a bad teacher, but a great teacher." According to the artist Yakov Minchenkov, as a professor at the Academy, Ilya Efimovich "was an attractive force for young people" - it is no coincidence that pupils of many art schools in Russia tried to get into his workshop. Bearing in mind that apprenticeship is a difficult "financial period" for many young people, the head of the workshop arranged for his pupils to work in publishing houses as illustrators, and gave them recommendations for participating in paid art projects. Over the years, such artists as Philip Malyavin, Dmitry Kardovsky, Boris Kustodiev, Anna Ostroumova-Lebedeva, Dmitry Shcherbinovsky, Ivan Bilibin, Nikolai Feshin and others worked in Repin's workshop.
Repin twice submitted his resignation petitions. The first time was in 1905, when he had disagreements with Serov and Polenov. Valentin Serov, observing the events of January 9 from the Academy window, saw the crowd clashing with the troops; according to Ilya Efimovich, since then "his sweet character has changed dramatically." Together with Polenov, Serov prepared a letter addressed to the council of the Academy, in which he recalled that "the person who has the highest leadership over these troops is at the head of the Academy of Arts." When the authors of the letter turned to Repin with a proposal to put his signature under the text, he refused, noting that the Grand Duke could not foresee how events would unfold. In January, "at the request of the students" the Academy was temporarily closed; Repin responded to what was happening with a question: “What can we“ in a time of disaster and shame !? ” [chilisha] in the present and possible changes in the future. " In December, the petition was granted, but in April 1906 Repin returned back at the request of his colleagues.
The final parting with the Academy took place in 1907. According to researchers, despite the active work of the Repin workshop, alienation gradually grew between the artists and his pupils. So, Repin's student Gabriel Gorelov argued that on the eve of his resignation in the academic teahouse, where the master and his students loved to gather, an unpleasant dialogue took place between Ilya Efimovich and Konstantin Lepilov, who expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that many novice painters, having come to the Academy, were disappointed in their choice ... Another reproach came from Nikolai Verkhoturov, who noticed that some professors live in huge apartments, while their pupils sometimes do not have enough money even for lunch. After this conversation, Repin wrote a second petition, rented out the apartment he had received from the Academy, and went to Tolstoy's in Yasnaya Polyana. In a statement addressed to the President of the Academy, Ilya Efimovich pointed out that the incentive for him to resign from the position of the head of the workshop is "the little time remaining for his own work." Some of the students followed, but their attempts to return the master were unsuccessful.
Royal orders
"Reception of volost elders by Alexander III in the courtyard of the Petrovsky Palace in Moscow"
In 1884, Repin received the first "state order": he received an offer to paint the painting "Reception of volost elders by Alexander III in the courtyard of the Petrovsky Palace in Moscow" (the second name is "Speech of Alexander III to volost elders"). Despite the fact that the word “order” was a little burdensome for the artist, the task set before him seemed interesting - in a letter to Pavel Tretyakov, he said: “This new theme is quite rich, and I like it, especially from the plastic side”. To create the background, the artist specially traveled to Moscow to prepare sketches in the courtyard of the Petrovsky Palace with the obligatory presence of the sun, the light of which served as the most important element of the composition. Part of the work took place at a dacha in Belogorka; from here Repin periodically traveled to Peterhof and Alexandria to make sketches of the royal clothes.
The painting, which was completed in 1886, was in the first hall on the second floor of the Grand Kremlin Palace. After the revolution, it was removed and put into storage, and on the vacated space was hung a painting by the artist Isaac Brodsky "Speech by V. I. Lenin at the II Congress of the Comintern."
Another "tsarist order" was the painting "Jubilee Meeting of the State Council", dedicated to the centenary of the State Council (1901-1903). To work on this canvas, the artist involved two students from his workshop - Boris Kustodiev and Ivan Kulikov; pupils of the Academy of Arts were present at all sessions, prepared canvases, and, if necessary, made sketches.
I. E. Repin. "Anniversary meeting of the State Council". 1903
The urgency of the order and the swiftness of its execution did not allow Repin to polish the picture for a long time: for each of the sixty portraits, the artist was allocated no more than three or four sessions. In other cases (as when working with Konstantin Pobedonostsev and some other "models") Ilya Efimovich limited himself to one session. Many dignitaries, especially those who had to "pose with the back of their heads", did not hide their displeasure, and their irritation also had to be taken into account. It was the “mad race”, according to Igor Grabar, that allowed to create a vivid portrait gallery, which brought Repin's colleagues to “ecstatic amazement”:
Forced to work quickly, as quickly as never before, he (Repin) gradually developed a special style of one-session writing. In essence, these are stunning brush sketches, almost fleeting impressions, but at the same time they are the last synthesis of many years of close observation.
The painting "Jubilee Meeting of the State Council", according to researchers, was not included in the number of Repin's masterpieces and became the last of his "grandiose paintings"; nevertheless, this work demonstrated to the audience the possibilities of the artist's “mature talent”. Until 1917, the canvas was in the Mariinsky Palace; some of the sketches were purchased by the Museum of Alexander III. The artist sent ten thousand rubles received from the museum for sketches to the needs of the fleet. The painting is on permanent display at the State Russian Museum.
Female images
In the gallery of picturesque images created by Repin, there are several paintings, written, according to the researchers, "from women who truly admired the artist." While visiting Leo Tolstoy in Yasnaya Polyana, Ilya Efimovich made friends with the writer's daughter Tatyana; her portrait, made “with a certain amount of idealization,” exudes the charm of this woman. Among the students of Ilya Efimovich, Marianna Verevkina stood out. Repin began working on her portrait when the artist was already entering the period of maturity. However, Verevkina's mentor had definitely forgotten about the age of his pupil: he "managed to transfer his former attitude towards her to the canvas." In the 1880s and 1890s, the artist was truly inspired by female beauty - one after another, portraits of S. M. Dragomirova (1889), Baroness V. I. Ikskul von Gildenbandt (1889), N. P. Golovina (1996) appeared; this series also includes "Nude Model (from the Back)" (mid-1890s).
I. E. Repin. "Portrait of Eleanor Duse". 1891
Varvara Ikskul von Hildenband was the wife of the Russian ambassador to Rome and the owner of one of the most popular Petersburg salons, which Repin also visited from time to time. Observing the guests (among them were Korolenko, Dmitry Merezhkovsky, Vladimir Solovyov), the artist created album sketches. When working on the portrait of the hostess herself, who posed in a dazzling outfit - a scarlet blouse and a black skirt - the emphasis was placed on her "sophisticated aristocracy" combined with extravagance.
Researchers consider the portrait of the Italian actress Eleanor Duse to be among the best graphic works of Repin. The artist was familiar with her theatrical works, communicated with Duse in the house of Varvara Ikskul. The original idea - to paint a portrait of the actress with paints - could not be realized; the picture, in which the noble sophistication of a lady is combined with the intimacy of the atmosphere, was made with charcoal on canvas. When choosing a composition, the artist used an unusual perspective - "looking at the model from a low point of view."
I. E. Repin. "Portrait of Elizaveta Zvantseva". 1889
Standing apart is the portrait of Elizaveta Zvantseva (1889), which, according to art critic Olga Lyaskovskaya, is "much more meaningful and stricter" than the previous "high society" canvases of the artist. They met in the spring of 1888, when a girl, on the recommendation of Vasily Mate, came to Repin's workshop. How strong the artist's passion for his student was, is evidenced by the letters of Ilya Efimovich addressed to Elizaveta Nikolaevna:
How I love you! My God, my God, I never imagined that my feeling for you would grow to such a passion. I am beginning to fear for myself ... Indeed, never in my life, never have I loved anyone so impermissibly, with such selflessness. Even art has gone somewhere, and you, you - every second on my mind and in my heart ...
The relationship was so painful that Zvantseva even changed her teacher, moving to the workshop with Pavel Chistyakov. However, the meetings continued until, in 1891, Elizaveta Nikolaevna, who had never completed her studies at the Academy, left Petersburg. Repin took the portrait of Zvantseva with him to Penaty; it hung in the artist's dining room until his last days.
Repin illustrator
Despite the fact that I. E. Repin often turned to illustrating the works of L. N. Tolstoy, A. S. Pushkin, N. V. Gogol, M. Yu. Lermontov, N. A. Nekrasov, N. S. Leskov, the viewer knows little about this area of the artist's activity, and it still remains insufficiently studied. Art critics point out that when referring to the work of different writers, the artist varied his style: "When he illustrates Gogol, he is a realist, Tolstoy - he is mentoring, tendentious, Pushkin and Lermontov, he is a romantic."
According to I.E. Grabar, Ilya Efimovich created the first watercolor sketches for "The Song of the Merchant Kalashnikov" while studying at the Academy of Arts, in 1868, "Kiribeevich Pursuing Alyona Dmitrievna" and two more drawings on this subject. These and subsequent illustrations for Lermontov - watercolors for the poems "An angel flew across the midnight sky" (1880), "Three palms" (1884), for the drama "Masquerade", for the story "Bela" (1884) were unsuccessful. The authors of the Lermontov Encyclopedia and the Encyclopedic Lermontov Dictionary criticize them for their excessive romanticism in their depiction and for Repin's lack of penetration into the deep tragic meaning of Lermontov's works. But unlike watercolors, the pencil drawing "Kazbich hurts Bela" (1887) is considered the best work of Repin associated with the poet's work. Watercolor "Pechorin at the Window" of the 1890s is dedicated to the story "Princess Mary".
A series of illustrations for “The Prophet”: sepia watercolors “The Prophet at the Entrance to the Temple and the Mocking Crowd at Him”, “People Mocking and Stoning the Prophet Walking Down the Street” depict a lyrical hero in modern society; the watercolor "Outcast Prophet in the Desert" and the ink drawing "In the Desert" round out this series. The drawings were intended for the first volume of M. Yu. Lermontov's Collected Works of 1891. Nevertheless, all these illustrations, according to the author of the Lermontov Encyclopedia, are "the most significant attempt to convey the deep meaning of the Prophet."
Repin's image of the Prophet turned out to be unusual: already an elderly, long-haired, bearded intellectual in rags instead of clothes - this is how he was presented by an artist who was under the influence of Tolstoy's views. His appearance, a glowing gaze on an emaciated face, is contrasted with the appearance of another character - a rude and down-to-earth man. But this painting is more a variation of the artist on the theme of modern life, rather than a traditional literary illustration. Despite the fact that Repin's creations were a deep penetration into the image of Lermontov's character, his illustrations did not impress art critics, Ilya Efimovich himself was dissatisfied with his works for The Prophet. As a result, these images were not included in the Collected Works of M. Yu. Lermontov. The next appeal to the work of Lermontov took place in 1914-1915. - these were his drawings for "The Demon" and "Mtsyri".
Greater luck accompanied the artist when referring to the works of Gogol - the psychological aspect of Gogol's creations was conveyed by Repin expressively and aptly. Gogol was one of Repin's favorite writers, Repin repeatedly turned to the image of the writer himself and to illustrations of his works. For the first time, interest in "Notes of a Madman" was shown by Repin in 1870. This was followed by many years of work on the canvas "Letter of the Cossacks to the Turkish Sultan" with the characters of "Taras Bulba", but this is still not book graphics, but a pictorial work designed to be viewed in the exhibition hall, but Repin made a drawing based on the plot of "Taras Bulba" - Andriy and Pannochka (1890). In addition, four illustrations were created for "Sorochinskaya Fair" (1870) and one for "Terrible revenge" (1890). In 1896, the artist made a new sketch of Poprishchyn, the protagonist of The Diary of a Madman. In this Gogol character, the artist found “acutely psychological grotesque collisions,” as I. A. Brodsky put it.
In 1913, five drawings by Repin about the insane hero Gogol were presented to the public. The art critic Konstantin Kuzminsky, who saw them in the exposition of the Lemercier Gallery, spoke about his impressions as follows:
These two illustrations are particularly impressive. This is Poprishchin in an overcoat and a uniform cap, who must have been depicted at the moment when he goes to "see Fidel and interrogate her." Madness is barely visible in his eyes. The extraordinary concentration on his face is much stronger. After all, he is absorbed, probably at this moment, with the thought of unraveling the secret meaning of that conversation between two dogs, which he overheard on Nevsky Prospect ... An even stronger impression is made by the drawing depicting Poprishchina lying on the bed. His gaze is directed into space, and you clearly feel, looking at this drawing, that Poprishchin at this time - as in reality, sees and hears either the director's wife, or the talking dogs, or even himself in the crown and mantle of the Spanish king ...
Sepia “Killed Lensky” is dedicated to Pushkin’s creation - one of several versions, which was finally embodied in the painting “Onegin's duel with Lensky”.
Drawings "Meeting of an angel with a shoemaker Semyon at the chapel" and "An angel at a shoemaker Semyon in a hut" were created in 1881-1882 to illustrate Leo Tolstoy's story "How people live" in the collection of 1882 "Stories for children by I. S. Turgenev and ... L. N. Tolstoy ". In 1889, a series of drawings was supplemented with a sketch "The shoemaker Semyon takes measurements from the master's leg". The collection of illustrations has gone through several editions. In addition, the artist illustrated several other small works of Leo Tolstoy, including the image of the devil in the story "The Edge of Bread".
KS Kuzminsky believed that the painting "Barge Haulers on the Volga" was also a response to the poem by N. A. Nekrasov "Reflections at the front entrance" (1858), but Repin himself claimed that he had met Nekrasov's lines "Go out to the Volga ... "Two years after the creation of his painting. An illustration, according to the critic, was the painting "Sadko", but an illustration to Russian epics.
Other works worth mentioning are drawings for the works of N. Leskov "Beautiful Aza", "Conscientious Danila", "Mountain", V. Garshin "Artists", Shakespeare "King Lear", A. P. Chekhov "Men", Leonid Andreeva "The Story of the Seven Hanged", to the works of Maxim Gorky. The drawings of IE Repin as an illustrator, according to some art historians, are distinguished by "liveliness, sharpness, charm of Repin's artistry and a sharp psychological" grip "". At the same time, the art critic I. I. Lazarevsky in his article "Repin the Illustrator" spoke negatively about the art of Repin the illustrator. He supported his opinion with the opinion of V. A. Serov. In support of these words, he also cited the words of Repin himself about his disappointment in his ability to illustrate the book:
God does not give a horn to a thirsty cow<…>how much in my life before death I wanted to illustrate. Especially when I still didn't feel all my weakness as an illustrator. Here is Pushkin, his "Belkin's Tale" and among them most of all "The Station Keeper". How it burned in me. He also messed up a lot of papers, and no good. I didn't even leave a scrap - I destroyed everything. No, forever enough about illustrations. If I have talent, it is the talent of an artist who sees, not fantasies.
Kuokkala (1900-1930)
Second marriage
Repin's second wife was the writer Natalya Borisovna Nordman, who wrote under the pseudonym Severova. Their acquaintance took place in the artist's studio, where Nordman came with Princess Maria Tenisheva. While Ilya Efimovich was working on Tenisheva's portrait, another guest read poetry aloud. In the spring of 1900, Repin came to the Paris art exhibition with Natalya Borisovna, and at the end of the same year he moved to her estate at Penaty's estate, located in Kuokkale.
Korney Chukovsky, who, by his own admission, “closely watched” the life of Nordman for several years, believed that the artist’s second wife, through the efforts of some researchers, had created a reputation as “a freak of bad taste”. However, at the heart of these "eccentricities" was a sincere concern for her husband. Natalya Borisovna, from the moment of rapprochement with Repin, began to collect and systematize all information published in the press about Ilya Efimovich. Knowing that the visits of numerous guests sometimes prevent him from concentrating on work, she initiated the organization of so-called "Wednesdays", thereby giving the artist the opportunity not to be distracted by visitors on other days of the week.
At the same time, as Chukovsky noted, Natalya Borisovna sometimes went too far in her innovative ideas. So, violently protesting against furs, she flatly refused to wear fur coats and put on "some kind of thin coat" in any frost. After hearing that decoctions of fresh hay are good for health, Nordman introduced these drinks into the daily diet. Students, musicians, and artist friends came to Penates for open Wednesdays, who never ceased to be surprised that the serving of dishes at the table was regulated by mechanical devices, and the lunch menu included only vegetarian dishes and a little grape wine called “solar energy ". Everywhere in the house there were advertisements written by the hostess: "Do not wait for the servant, she is not there", "Do everything yourself", "The door is locked", "The servant is a shame of mankind."
It never occurred to Natalya Borisovna that she was damaging the name of Repin. She was sure that she was using this name not at all for her own benefit, but solely for the sake of promoting beneficial ideas that should bring happiness to humanity.- Korney Chukovsky
Repin's second marriage ended dramatically: falling ill with tuberculosis, Nordman left Penates. She went to one of the foreign hospitals, taking neither money nor things with her. Natalya Borisovna refused the financial assistance that her husband and his friends tried to provide. She died in June 1914 in Locarno. After Nordman's death, Repin handed over economic affairs in Penates to his daughter Vera.
Repin the memoirist
In Kuokkala, Repin began to write his memoirs, which formed the basis of his collection of essays "The Distant Close", which was prepared for publication in 1915, but was published only 7 years after the death of the author - in 1937. According to the editor and compiler of this book, Korney Chukovsky, the main features of Ilya Efimovich's memoirs are fiction and "dramatization of events":
Describing any episode, he always gives it hot emotionality, stage performance. Even the arrival of the stanovoi, demanding a passport from Vasiliev, even the crush of the public in front of the paintings of Arkhip Kuindzhi, even the appearance of Lev Tolstoy in a St. Petersburg tram - all this was dramatized by him as if for a stage.
Kramskoy on the pages of Repin's book is "not a frozen wax figure", but the hero of a fascinating, almost detective story; friend-artist Fyodor Vasiliev, with whom Ilya Efimovich traveled to the Volga - "a noisy, unceremonious and infinitely charming young man"; the essay on the collection of materials for "Barge Haulers" is akin to a "poem about youth." Separately, Chukovsky singled out the dialogues that are saturated with Repin's memories. Each of his characters - from the Chuguev bourgeoisie to the professors of the Academy - has its own speech characteristics; possessing an excellent memory, the artist many years later easily reproduced the speech of the Volga fishermen and Zaporozhye Cossacks. Before embarking on a particular essay, Ilya Efimovich told him several times to the guests who appeared in Penates. Making sure that the next story is really interesting for the listeners, Repin wrote it down, keeping the colloquial intonation; hence - the fantastic style of his book.
Repin's self-portraits
Repin painted his first self-portrait in his youth in Chuguev. As Ilya Efimovich recalled, the fate of this work turned out to be unenviable: in the absence of the young artist, the local merchant Ovchinnikov came to the Repins' house, removed the picture from the wall and took it to himself to show off to the guests. Repin was so hurt by this impudence that, having come to the Ovchinnikovs with a "return visit," he tore his portrait into small pieces, which he later regretted.
At the age of nineteen, Repin created another self-portrait, which he painted "from himself in the mirror." The picture was made in the first months of St. Petersburg life, and in the face of a young man who arrived in the capital with a hundred rubles in his pocket, there was a gamut of feelings - “impulse, anxiety and at the same time alertness. Life ahead, what will it be? " In subsequent years, the artist has repeatedly created his own images. In the self-portrait, taken in 1877, Ilya Efimovich looks emaciated; according to researchers, the pain that the artist's brush was unable to hide is a consequence of the malaria that Repin suffered immediately upon arrival in Moscow. A year later, the artist again chose himself as a model; as a result, "the best of the self-portraits of this period" was created, which is now kept in the Russian Museum.
I. E. Repin. "Self-portrait". Linoleum, oil. 1920. Museum-estate "Penaty"
With age, Repin developed problems with his right hand: it ceased to obey the artist. Friends, worried about the health of Ilya Efimovich, began to hide brushes and pencils from him; Repin, not wanting to break away from what he loved, began to write with his left hand. When the weakened, almost stiff fingers stopped holding the palette, the artist fastened the paint board with special belts, threw them over his neck and continued to work. Repin conveyed his condition in a self-portrait dated 1920:
An old man in a shabby sports cap sits in an armchair, resting the elbow of his limp hand on the next table. The face of an exhausted lonely man living in a cold room ... Without condescension to his misfortune, this self-portrait was written, illuminating the last decade of the artist's life.
last years of life
After 1918, when Kuokkala became Finnish territory, Repin was cut off from Russia. In the 1920s, he became close to Finnish colleagues, made significant donations to local theaters and other cultural institutions - in particular, donated a large collection of paintings to the Helsingfors Museum.
Communication with former friends was only in absentia. The letters indicated that the middle-aged, tired artist was often overcome with blues. In 1925, Repin hoped that he would be able to get out to an exhibition of his own paintings, organized in the Russian Museum, with enthusiasm he announced that, together with the children Vera and Yuri, he was also going to visit Moscow, to visit the Rumyantsev Museum and the Tretyakov Gallery. However, the plans were destroyed due to the fault of his daughter, "who promised Ilya Efimovich to accompany him to Leningrad and Moscow and refused to fulfill her promise."
In the same 1925, Korney Chukovsky came to visit Repin. This visit gave rise to rumors that Korney Ivanovich should have offered the artist to move to the USSR, but instead "secretly persuaded Repin not to return." Decades later, Chukovsky's letters were discovered, from which it followed that the writer, who understood that his friend “should not leave Penata in his old age,” at the same time missed him very much and invited him to visit Russia.
A year later, a delegation of Soviet artists arrived in Kuokkala, led by Repin's student Isaac Brodsky. They lived in Penates for two weeks. Judging by the reports of the Finnish supervisory services, colleagues should have persuaded Repin to move to his homeland. The issue of his return was considered, according to the minutes of the Politburo meeting of May 22, 1924, at the highest level: following the results of one of the meetings of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) I.V. Repin to return to the USSR, instructing Comrades. Lunacharsky and Ionov to take appropriate measures. " In November 1926, Ilya Efimovich received a letter from KE Voroshilov, a member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), which said: "When deciding to move to your homeland, you not only do not make a personal mistake, but you are committing a truly great, historically useful deed." Repin's son Yuri was also involved in the negotiations, but they ended in vain: the artist remained in Kuokkala.
The grave of I. E. Repin in Penates
Further correspondence with friends testified to the extinction of Repin. In 1927, in a letter to Minchenkov, the artist reported: "I will turn 83 in June, time takes its toll, and I am becoming a uniform idler." To help take care of the weakening father, his youngest daughter Tatyana was called from Zdravnevo, who later said that all his children took turns on duty near Ilya Efimovich until the very end. Repin died on September 29, 1930 and was buried in the park of the Penaty estate. In one of his last letters to friends, the artist managed to say goodbye to everyone:
Goodbye, goodbye, dear friends! I was given a lot of happiness on earth: I was so undeservedly lucky in life. It seems that I am not at all worthy of my glory, but I did not bother about it, and now, spread in the dust, I thank, thank, completely moved by the kind world that has always glorified me so generously.
Creative method and principles of work
Repin formulated the principles of his work on the pages of the book "The Distant Close"; they are based on "matter as such": "I do not care about colors, strokes and the virtuosity of the brush, I have always pursued the essence: the body as a body." He rejected "acrobatics of the brush, picturesqueness for the sake of picturesqueness" and was ready to repeat after Kramskoy that "the most precious quality of an artist is the heart." Ilya Efimovich called his realism “common”, emphasizing that he never succeeded in trying to falsify: his brush, according to Korney Chukovsky, “was more truthful than himself”. The artist Yakov Minchenkov believed that Repin was never interested in aesthetic research:
Passion for only one form or colors, retreat into the past, sophistication - all this was not for Repin. He needed a life theme, living people, wide plasticity, expression, strong feelings.
I. E. Repin and F. I. Shalyapin. 1914 year.
While working on the portraits, the artist, by his own admission, "fell in love for a short time" with nature, studied the books of the portrayed writers, listened to the music of composers, reproduced by heart large quotes from poems of poets - it was a short but obligatory "honeymoon" of Repin with people , whose images he created. So, while working on "Burlaks", Ilya Efimovich was delighted with Kanin, "to passion he fell in love with every feature of his character and every shade of his skin and tailor-made shirt"; Researchers have called this passion "professional expediency." Despite the fact that Repin painted with watercolors and ink, in the first place he had oil paints. He worked almost blindly with his brushes, trying not to take his eyes off the person sitting in front of him:
Hands themselves snatched out the right brush, they themselves mixed the colors in the proper proportions, but he did not notice all this technology of creativity, since it became subconscious for him.
Appearance, character, attitude to everyday life
Researchers have repeatedly drawn attention to the fact that Repin did not look like a giant against the background of his paintings. Yakov Minchenkov, who met the artist during a traveling exhibition in 1898, recalled that he saw in front of him a short, lean man with curly hair and a sharp beard. The recognized master, whose appearance both the audience and colleagues were waiting for, behaved with "shy modesty", behind which was "a little sketch of the darling of fate." Korney Chukovsky, whose first meeting with Ilya Efimovich took place in Kuokkala, told about the same in his essays about the artist: ordinary village knitted gloves ".
The niece of Repin's first wife, Lyudmila Shevtsova-Spore, who lived in the artist's St. Petersburg apartment for three years, said that guests constantly came to the open house of Ilya Efimovich: in addition to fellow artists, the regulars of the spacious apartment were writers Maxim Gorky and Zinaida Gippius, artists Grigory Ge and Vladimir Maksimov, scientists Dmitry Mendeleev and Vladimir Bekhterev. In addition, during the period described, three pupils of his painting workshop lived in the house of Ilya Efimovich, including one of his favorite students, Konstantin Veshchilov. In the summer months, when the artist left for sketches in Zdravnyovo, the students followed him.
IE Repin with guests on the winter veranda in Penaty. 1905
Having moved to the Penaty estate in 1900, Repin was forced to lead a more withdrawn lifestyle. He maintained constant contact with his former environment with the help of letters. Every day the postman brought many envelopes to the artist; Ilya Efimovich answered each of the letters himself - sometimes it took several hours. Reading the daily newspapers was a similar compulsory activity for him. Ilya Efimovich perceived any book brought to Kuokkala as an event; his letters to friends were replete with "literary" details: “I am rereading Korolenko. What a genius thing of his "Shadow" ", "Reading Nekrasov aloud to the people is a great pleasure".
Rumor endowed Repin with such a quality as a tendency to excessive savings, reaching the point of stinginess. To refute these rumors, Chukovsky recalled that the artist really spent very little on himself. At the same time, he did not miss the opportunity to take part in various kinds of charity events and help others:
He presented the artists of the Maly Theater with a portrait of M. Shchepkin, donated his painting "Nikolai Mirlikisky" (1891) in favor of the hungry, gave his native town Chuguev a hefty sum for the construction of an Abyssinian well, etc.
Museum-estates of Repin
On the territory of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus today there are four Repin museum-estates, the most famous of which is the Penaty estate, in which Repin lived for about three decades. The estate got its name in honor of the ancient Roman gods who were responsible for protecting the home and family. The backyard territory was originally swampy, so the owners carried out landscaping work, built ponds and canals. An artificial Chuguevskaya mountain was erected from the earth excavated during these works. Almost all the objects of the garden that surrounded the house had names taken from fairy tales or myths: "Temple of Isis", "Scheherazade's tower", "Prometheus rock". The small building in which Repin and his wife settled at the beginning of the 20th century has changed over the years: the owners of the estate put up a second floor, equipped two workshops - for winter and summer work.
After the death of Natalya Borisovna Nordman, her will was made public, according to which Ilya Efimovich became the lifelong owner of the estate. In the future, the Penates were to become the property of the Academy of Arts. According to the will of the artist's wife, a house-museum was to be created in the premises of the estate, "preserving the tastes and habits of Repin." In 1914, having familiarized himself with the text of the will, Repin transferred 40,000 rubles to the Academy's account, intended for the organization of the future museum.
In 1930, Repin's daughter Vera Ilyinichna became the keeper of the estate and the archive. With the outbreak of the winter war, Vera and her brother Yuri moved to Helsinki. From Kuokkala, included at the end of hostilities in the USSR, the news came that Repin's house was left without supervision. Representatives of the USSR Academy of Arts - art critic Joseph Anatolyevich Brodsky and painter Shaya Noevich Melamud - arrived in Penaty to assess the state of the estate and systematize the exhibits. In Soviet times, Vera Ilyinichna was blamed for the disorder in which the Repin archive was located; it was reported that, leaving Penaty, she took with her "the most valuable of her father's artistic heritage." Decades later, opinion changed: according to the head of the estate museum Tatyana Borodina, the artist's daughter kept the workshop in the form it was during Repin's lifetime; Ilya Efimovich's belongings and documents remained in the house.
The first Repin museum, which appeared in 1940, did not last long: in 1944 the building was destroyed. The archive, which had been removed from Kuokkala to the Academy of Arts in advance, was not damaged. The surviving paintings, letters, things became the basis for the restoration of the estate. Elements of the garden's decoration were recreated from Repin's drawings and the memories of those who visited Penaty. The house-museum was opened in the summer of 1962.
Repin's museums are also located in Chuguev (Art Memorial Museum), on Samarskaya Luka (House-Museum in Shiryaevo) and near Vitebsk (Museum-Estate "Zdravnevo").
The meaning of creativity. Influences. Evaluations
Researchers, referring to the scale of Repin's personality, mean not only the variety of genres and artistic techniques subject to him, but also the “versatility of creative interests”: he proved himself as a painter, teacher, art theorist, memoirist, publicist. Ilya Efimovich created historical canvases, genre paintings, portraits, landscapes; left many illustrations for the works of Russian classical literature; in his creative heritage, graphic and sculptural works have been preserved.
According to legend, the painting by Ilya Repin "Nikolai Mirlikisky saves three innocent convicts from death", bought by Alexander III at the 17th traveling exhibition, influenced the decision of the emperor to create the Russian Museum
Repin's work is, in the words of art critic Mikhail Allenov, "the pinnacle of itinerant realism"; this also applies to its thematic scope and stylistic plasticity. Thus, the idea of a "choral painting" born in the 1870s was embodied in Repin's painting "Religious Procession in Kursk Province", in which the author managed to show the character of the crowd "incomparably more convincingly than all artists before him." The painting "Barge Haulers on the Volga" can be interpreted both as a "choral painting" and as a "group portrait". The most significant of the genre works of Ilya Efimovich is "They Didn't Expect"; in this work, the artist is interested in "composition as a question". Turning to historical plots, Repin created the painting "Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan," in which a specific tragedy brings the viewer to the age-old problem: "a despot punished by the torment of repentance."
From the very beginning of his career, Repin was recognized as one of the brightest representatives of Russian realism. Long-term and uninterrupted activity, attention to all aspects of modern life, a “quick” brush that captures events, ensured the unflagging attention of critics and the public to the artist's work.
According to Alexei Fedorov-Davydov, on a global scale, Repin is comparable to the French painter Gustave Courbet and the German painter Adolph von Menzel. Speaking about the influence of the Russian art school on Repin, the art critic names, first of all, the representative of academism, Alexander Ivanov, whose idea “to make art a teacher of life” Ilya Efimovich was able not only to master, but also to develop; in addition, he deeply perceived "Fedotov's description of everyday life." Mikhail Allenov also includes Rembrandt and Frans Hals in this series. Art critic Olga Lyaskovskaya discovers in the works of the mature Repin explicit references to the works of Velasquez, who was interesting to the artist from the point of view of "studying the human face and its facial expressions." The German art historian Norbert Wolff, seeing in Repin a typical example of a "salon-academic artist", focuses on his Parisian business trip; during this period, Ilya Efimovich deeply absorbed Manet's pictorial language. It was Repin's stylistic closeness to one of the founders of Impressionism that allowed the organizers of the exhibition Impressionism. America-France-Russia. Vienna, Kunstforum, 2002 "include Ilya Efimovich's painting" Lady Leaning on a Chair "(1873) among the exhibits.
Evidence that "Repin is inexhaustible" is the position of Alexander Benois, who at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries assessed Ilya Efimovich as an artist who "was not yet ready for history", and in 1930 wrote in the Paris edition of "Latest News" that Repin is "a worthy representative of the Russian principle on the world Parnassus." Recalling the importance of Repin for Russian culture, Korney Chukovsky lists the artist's contribution to various branches of science and art:
Repin glorified Russian music with his portraits of Glinka, Mussorgsky, Borodin, Glazunov ... Russian literature - with portraits of Gogol, Turgenev, Leo Tolstoy, Pisemsky, Garshin, Fet, Stasov ... Russian painting is represented by a whole gallery of portraits: Surikov, Shishkin, Kramskoy, Vasnetsov, Kuindzhin ... He glorified Russian science with portraits of Sechenov, Mendeleev, Pavlov, Tarkhanov, Bekhterev.
Benoit, in his later recollections, regretted that "today's youth do not have their own Repin." Meanwhile, attempts to make him the mouthpiece of a generation were made very actively in the 1920s. In 1924-1925, personal exhibitions of the artist were held in Moscow and Leningrad, which marked the beginning of the artist's “prescribed and aggressive veneration of icons”. In the USSR, the question of Repin's return from Kuokkala was of a political nature, primarily because the authorities needed an "ideological inspirer of realistic art"; it was assumed that it was Ilya Efimovich who would head the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia. The release in 1937 of Grabar's monograph, dedicated to the artist's work, marked a new round of Repin's cult. As art critic G. Yelshevskaya notes, the result of the global popularization of the artist in the USSR was the situation when the name of Repin, who was compared with Leo Tolstoy during his lifetime, “perhaps correlates with the name of Pushkin, but in an ambiguous context - universal fame (“ our everything ”) no matter how deliberately does not imply any specific acquaintance or personal relationship. "
The role of "the main herald of socialist realism" (according to Wolf) Repin inevitably performed for several decades. Thus, direct "borrowings" from his works were noticed both on the canvases of Soviet painters and in campaign materials (for example, on the poster "People's Dreams Come True"). The authorities created the image of Repin as an "ideological artist"; This explains the scattering of Ilya Efimovich's paintings in dozens of small museums, each of which was obliged to have in the collection works of "ideologically consistent artists."
In the 1960s, there was a reassessment of the values that had been totally imposed in the previous decades. The attitude to itinerant movement and, first of all, to the work of Repin, as the most prominent representative of this movement, was revised. Soviet art criticism turned to a more promising study of other periods of Russian art at that time, primarily the fine arts of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, which was considered the forerunner of the "severe style" and "other" radical "movements." The classic works of Grabar, Zilberstein, Lyaskovskaya, in which the “Stasov's” opinion about Repin as “the first Russian artist”, who most fully embodied the principles of ideological realism, was developed, was not replaced by anything new. The attitude towards Repin, which does not recognize semitones - either complete acceptance or unconditional rejection - did not contribute to a deep study of his work:
Categories:“In public opinion, he was 'buried' somewhere in the mid-1890s, immediately after the Zaporozhtsev (at best - with the mention of the 'Meeting of the State Council'<…>a sad conclusion suggests itself: more than thirty years of creativity were taken from Repin and from Russian culture. Isn't this too generous in relation to the national shrine? "
An artist whose surname is constantly heard thanks to a painting that he ... did not paint. The great representative of Russian realism in painting ... passionately carried away by other creative methods. A classic who gained fame during his lifetime in the USSR, but ended his life in bourgeois Finland and ... on the territory of St. Petersburg at the same time. The creator who left many brilliant canvases, and ... who found time for many other activities - from teaching and memoirism with journalism to a rich personal life and regular receptions.
Guess who we are talking about? Yes, this artist is Ilya Efimovich Repin. Who does not know his paintings "Barge Haulers on the Volga", "The Cossacks", "They Did Not Wait", "Leo Tolstoy on the Plow", "Ivan the Terrible Kills His Son", and who did not say "Repin's picture" Came "in a difficult situation! So, a very natural interest of the descendants is a short biography of Ilya Repin, which I will gladly present.
Biography of the artist Ilya Repin
Childhood and youth
Ilya Efimovich was born on August 5 (July 24, Old Style) 1844. The painter's hometown is Chuguev, Kharkov province. Father, Efim Vasilyevich - a retired military man who traded horses, driving herds from the Don region. Mother, Tatyana Stepanovna, sewed and sold fur coats, did a lot of educating her own children, and even organized a small school for townspeople of all ages, where the Law of God, arithmetic and literacy were taught.
Ilyusha's gift of the artist manifested itself thanks to his cousin Trofim, who brought watercolors to the Repins' house and painted a watermelon on a page of a children's alphabet. Seeing the "revived" berry, as if by magic became juicy and bright, the boy was so carried away by drawing that his mother had to work to persuade him to put down the brush and eat.
At the age of 11, Ilya began his studies at the school of topographers, which was considered prestigious in Chuguev, but was closed two years later. Undaunted, the youth found the first use of his talent in the icon-painting workshop of the local artist Ivan Bunakov. And at the age of sixteen he entered adulthood - he parted with his parental family and his first mentor, having received an invitation to an artel of nomadic bogomaz with a monthly salary of 25 rubles.
In the summer of 1863, Ilya found himself near the city of Ostrogozhsk, Voronezh province, where the famous Ivan Kramskoy was born. Local residents told the artels about their fellow countryman, who had gone to St. Petersburg for seven years and entered the Academy of Arts. Hearing this story, young Repin saved up some money and, following the example of Kramskoy, moved to the capital.
First achievements
The young man's first attempt to get into the Academy was a failure, but he did not blunder - he rented a room in the attic and went to a drawing school, where he soon became the best student. The second time Ilya passed the exam, and the payment for his studies was paid by the famous benefactor Fyodor Pryanishnikov.
The first paintings by Ilya Repin, painted during the years of study, were awarded several awards, including a large gold medal for "The Resurrection of Jairus's Daughter" (1871). It was this canvas that brought the young painter his first glory, which reached Moscow. As a result, Aleksandr Porokhovshchikov, the owner of the Slavyanskiy Bazar Hotel, ordered a painting depicting famous Slavic composers from Repin. After many years of need, the artist's fee of 1,500 rubles seemed enormous, and by 1872 he brilliantly completed the order.
In parallel, the young master of the brush continued to work on the first of the most significant canvases - "Barge Haulers on the Volga". The idea for the painting arose in the late 1860s while working on sketches on the Neva, when Repin was struck by the contrast between the public walking carelessly along the shore and emaciated people pulling barges with straps. In 1870, he traveled along the Volga, where he made many sketches and sketches, including the "perfect barge haule", copied from a Volzhan named Kanin and subsequently depicted in the picture in the first three.
Completed in 1873, "Barge Haulers" made a splash both in Russia and far abroad, captivating the audience with the author's ardent sincerity, careful portrayal of characters and associations of a group of disadvantaged barge haulers with the procession of the damned from Dante's "Divine Comedy".
From St. Petersburg to Moscow - via Paris and Chuguev
Together with a large gold medal for the "Resurrection of Jairus's daughter" Repin received the right to a creative "business trip" abroad. He set off on a voyage across Europe with his first wife Vera Alekseevna, when the Barge Haulers on the Volga saw the light, and the daughter grew up a little. The couple visited Vienna, Venice, Naples, Rome and Florence, after which they settled in Paris for three years, renting an apartment and a workshop. "On the French side" Ilya Efimovich became closely acquainted with the works of the Impressionists, under whose influence he later wrote "Temptation", "The Last Supper" and a number of other paintings. Directly in Paris in 1876, Repin created an unusual painting "Sadko", which was mercilessly criticized by art critics, but brought the author the title of academician.
Returning to their homeland, the Repins couple lived for an incomplete year in Chuguev. Little Russian (Ukrainian) motives enriched the painter's work, including the famous "Zaporozhians" (1891), who composed a harshly humorous response to the ultimatum of the Turkish Sultan.
From his native Kharkov province, Ilya Efimovich with his family and a huge load of "artistic good" moved to Moscow, where he joined the glorious Association of Itinerants. The Moscow period began with the controversially perceived historical painting "Princess Sophia", after which Repin created many portraits of prominent contemporaries (composer Mussorgsky, writers Tolstoy and Turgenev, philanthropist Tretyakov, etc.), began to write the masterpiece "Religious Procession in Kursk Province" (1883 ), made sketches for "Ivan the Terrible", "Zaporozhtsev" and other famous canvases.
Meanwhile, the Repin family had four children of their own (three daughters and a son) and young Valentin Serov, who settled in the mentor's house, became a prominent portrait painter thanks to the patronage of Ilya Efimovich. Repin himself willingly painted portraits of loved ones, and the best of them, I think, is the depiction of Vera Ilyinichna's eldest daughter "Autumn Bouquet".
Again in the Northern capital
Feeling that Moscow was beginning to tire him, the artist with his family and huge luggage moved back to St. Petersburg, where he lived from 1882 to 1900. Here, the great works of Repin Ilya Efimovich came out from under the brush - the historical canvas "Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan" and the picture of the return from exile of the commoner revolutionary "They Did Not Expect".
The name of the latter, many years later, helped to give birth to the expression "Repin's painting" They sailed "". The main version of its origin - visitors to the Sumy Art Museum mistakenly attributed to the works of Ilya Efimovich the work of Lev Solovyov hanging next to them under the original title “Monks. We stopped in the wrong place. " And the painting "Swam" was dubbed by association with "We did not expect"!
Kuokkala - Repino
From 1900 until his death on September 29, 1930, Repin lived on the Penate estate in Kuokkala, which in 1918 became the territory of Finland, and after the Second World War ceded to the USSR. Contrary to the efforts of the Soviet leadership, during his lifetime the great painter did not return to Russia, not wanting to leave his home in old age. But now the ex-Kuokkala is called Repino and is part of the city of St. Petersburg.
Ilya Efimovich was married twice. Vera Alekseevna left her famous husband, unable to withstand the hardships of "salon life" and the increased attention of fans to him. The couple divided the children equally: the older ones, Vera and Nadezhda, to the husband, the younger ones, Yuri and Tatyana, to the wife. The second wife is the writer Natalya Nordman-Severova, to whom Repin moved to Penaty. Having fallen ill with tuberculosis, Natalya Borisovna left the estate to her husband, refused his money and went to Switzerland for treatment, where she died in 1914. Their common daughter lived in this world for two weeks.
Ilya Efimovich continued to work until his death at the age of 86, even after his right hand ceased to obey him. The painter learned to write with his left hand both pictures and letters, which in recent years have become for him the last way to communicate with friends in the USSR.
Repin's museums, besides Penat, are located in the Samara region, Chuguev and near Vitebsk.
Ilya Repin's paintings
Category
GREAT RUSSIAN PAINTER
The brilliant Russian painter Ilya Efimovich Repin is the beauty and pride of Russian painting. The most striking period in the history of Russian painting is associated with the name of Repin. His art, which grew up on the wave of the revolutionary upsurge of the 60s, was formed and strengthened under the ideological influence of the aesthetic and philosophical views of the enlighteners. Permeated with the advanced ideas of its time, deeply democratic and popular in its spirit, Repin's art acquired the significance of a huge social factor.
The appearance of each new painting by Repin became a social event. For over thirty years, Repin has been at the forefront of Russian art, having won worldwide recognition for Russian realistic painting.
Repin is the undisputed head and the largest representative of that classical period of new Russian painting, which is characterized by such glorious names as Surikov, Serov, Levitan, etc. All these remarkable masters, using the conquests of their large and small predecessors both in Russian and in world art , managed to communicate to Russian painting a truly grandiose scope, to put it on a par with other related arts - literature and music, which at that time took a leading place in world culture. These painters are akin to such giants of literature as Leo Tolstoy, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, to such musicians as Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov. Due to the peculiarities of the historical process in Russia, its culture in the last third of the 19th century took an avant-garde role in world culture.
While in the West painting was steadily declining, shrinking and degenerating, losing its deep ideological significance, in Russia there were true heroes, powerful talents, with Repin at the head. They embodied in their art with tremendous artistic power the greatness, power and beauty of the great Russian people, uttered warm words of anger and protest against the autocracy, against the feudal reality of Russia at that time, captured the images of popular Protestants against the hated bourgeois reality.
Repin and his associates raised the theme of the people, showed that only it is the basis for the development of great and full-fledged art, that only such art is truly beautiful.
Repin is the greatest representative of critical realism in Russian painting, that form of realism in which the only possible fruitful, progressive development of art, depicting the surrounding reality of tsarist Russia. All of Repin's work is permeated with the deepest democracy, the greatest sympathy for the working people and their intercessors - representatives of spiritual labor. Labor is what defines and adorns a person. On this basis, Repin builds the characteristics of the characters in his portraits and paintings.
In Repin, Russian painting reached its full maturity, unprecedented freedom in handling its own means. Repin worked in almost all genres and types of painting. Repin is not only the greatest painter, but also an excellent watercolorist, draftsman and etcher. He also made a number of successful experiments in the field of portrait sculpture.
Perfectly mastering many genres, Repin reveals his talent with the greatest force in two genres: in a social painting and a portrait - in works, the content of which the artist drew from the contemporary reality that surrounded him. In his compositions, he created a picturesque epic of Russian life at the end of the 19th century. Each painting by Repin is a wonderful chapter of this epic: "Barge Haulers",
"They Didn't Expect", "Religious Procession in Kursk Province", "Gathering", "Seeing Off a Recruit", "Arrest of a Propagandist", "Protodeacon", "Vechernitsy" and many others.
Repin created an immortal portrait gallery of the best sons of the Russian people - writers, artists, musicians, actors, scientists, public figures; among this gallery sparkle with precious
with stones such masterpieces of portrait painting as portraits of the composer Mussorgsky, the artist Strepetova, the writer L. Tolstoy, the surgeon Pirogov.
Repin is an outstanding master of historical painting, the author of such deeply dramatic works as "Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan", "Princess Sophia", such cheerful ones as "The Cossacks".
Reality comes to life on Repin's canvases in all the brightness and richness of its colors, in all its immediacy and vitality. Repin is everywhere and always a true painter, with extraordinary power sculpting forms and images with paint; he always tries to show life in all its fullness and strength.
The artist reveals a person in all the richness of his life manifestations, in all the glory of his material physical life. In Repin, all the actions and actions of the characters are deeply meaningful, weighed, his event is not an accidental, episodic incident, but a natural, typical disclosure of the phenomenon.
Repin created the deepest social pictures, typical images of Russian reality in the second half of the 19th century.
In strenuous and long work, Repin gained freedom, lightness and simplicity, which so captivates and pleases us in his art. An inimitable master in conveying direct impressions, the colorful splendor of reality, Repin never limited himself to these first materials. It was only raw, rough material, which was later melted down, processed beyond recognition in the painter's creative laboratory. Everything that was accidental, secondary was discarded, the main was generalized, synthesized until a single fact turned into a synthetic image that carried a great ideological content. Repin accidentally saw a scene of a rural procession with the cross was the starting point for the creation of the artist's most monumental painting “Religious Procession in Kursk Province”, a painting that captured not only the face of all classes of tsarist Russia, but also gave a deep disclosure of their relationship as oppressors and oppressed.
Numerous sketches, sketches, sketches perfectly reveal creative searches in this direction, his path from the particular, single to the generalized, typical. This greatest art of bringing an individual fact to the generalized, typical is the main force of Repin's realism, one of the main victories of Russian realism of the 19th century.
Ardent love for his people, expressed in the art of Repin, his amazing skill will forever preserve his name in the pantheon of the greatest representatives of the culture of the great Russian people.
PORTRAIT OF I. E. REPIN
IE Repin is the greatest Russian portrait painter of the 19th century and one of the most significant in world art. Such a stunning portrait gallery, which Repin left us, was not created by any Russian artist.
Giving many years to the creation of such significant and complex in content paintings as "Barge Haulers on the Volga", "Religious Procession in Kursk Province", "They Did Not Expect", "Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan", Repin simultaneously throughout his entire life devoted a lot of attention and time to the portrait. The artist's attraction to portraiture manifested itself in his early childhood. He describes his first experiments in portrait art in the following way: “I took my heart out of drawing and one evening, when my mother was not at home, I asked Donyasha (Repin's cousin - IG) to sit quietly for me. With a dull, greasy candle, her face, reddish with freckles, was well lit; only the wick was constantly burning, and it became darker. And the candle became lower and the shadows changed. Donyasha first removed the carbon deposits with her finger, but soon such a dream began to make out that she pecked her nose and could not open her eyes, so they stuck together. However, the portrait came out very similar, and when the mother returned from Ustia (Repin's sister - IG), they laughed a lot. "
After a year of study in the studio of the icon painter Bunakov, when Repin was only fifteen years old, he began to independently carry out orders for church painting and for portraits, for which he received three and five rubles each.
Having entered the Academy of Arts, Repin showed all his academic drawings to Kramskoy, whose instructions he valued more than those of academic professors. Once Kramskoy asked him to show his independent homework. Repin brought the head of an old woman, written on a small cardboard box. "How? Is it you yourself? - said Kramskoy. - Yes, this is excellent! This is better than all your academic work ... There is more love for the cause, - he explained. - You tried to convey from the heart what you saw, unconsciously carried away by many subtleties of nature, and it turned out surprisingly true and interesting; we did it as we saw it, and it came out in an original way. "
Repin worked a lot and stubbornly both at the Academy of Arts and independently, outside its walls.
In the late 1860s, he turned from an apprentice to a mature master. This is especially noticeable in his portraits.
Already in 1865, Repin was exceptionally successful in the profile portrait of the doctor's wife Yanitsky.
In 1866, the artist painted portraits of brothers A. V. and M. V. Prakhovs, under the obvious influence of Kramskoy, in his favorite technique "wet sauce", with whitening highlights on the illuminated parts of the face.
In the portraits of I.S.Panov (1867), Vasya Repin, the artist's younger brother (1867), the architect F.D.Khloboschin (1868) and V.A. the artist's skill grew every year.
In the portrait of Khloboshchin, the artist took a further step towards mastering the form. The drawing is confident, the modeling is solid. Correctly constructed, slightly Mongolian-set eyes reveal a thorough acquaintance with the theory and practice of the "perspective structure of the head", cultivated in the academy since the time of Bryullov and subsequently developed by P.P. Chistyakov into a whole system. All the shadow parts of the head, according to the academic tradition, are liquid wiped with burnt sienna, the lights are applied with thick opaque paints.
In the portrait of V. A. Shevtsova, Repin again took a huge step forward. The composition of this portrait clearly reveals a feature that is especially typical for all of Repin's portrait art in the future: constant searches, "how to take" a given person on the canvas, how to give him in his most inherent and characteristic movement. The girl was taken to life, naturally seated on the couch. In the painting of the portrait, one can see a certain tendency towards the coloristic coordination of the color scheme: a red dress, a dark gray jacket and a green couch upholstery.
After the appearance in 1871 at the exhibition of Repin's competitive painting "The Resurrection of Jairus's Daughter", its author immediately moved to the forefront of Russian artists. The success of this painting brought Repin his first large commission: he was commissioned to paint a large group portrait of all famous “Slavic composers” for the concert hall of the Slavyanskiy Bazar Hotel. In 1872, Repin's painting was completed. The composers-musicians are located in the picture in groups: some are standing, others are sitting, and still others are walking.
The work on the painting proceeded under extremely difficult conditions. All the characters, with the exception of Nikolai Rubinstein, were, of necessity, written from engravings or photographs, and thus the author was denied the opportunity to show the most precious property of his talent - a sense of truth in life. The urgency of the order and the endless whims of the customer also could not but affect the artist's work negatively. And yet, in this picture, Repin discovered an extraordinary skill, and in individual figures, in their deliberate and poignant characterization, there is a great vitality.
For three years, from mid-1873 to mid-1876, Repin spent abroad, in Italy and in Paris. Abroad, he painted a number of portraits: I. S. Turgenev, two ladies - Bove and Frankenstein, artist A. P. Bogolyubov, S. G. Ovdenko, "A Jew at Prayer", a sketch of the girl Verunya Repina, etc.
After arriving from abroad, Repin did not stay long in St. Petersburg. He was drawn to his native Chuguev, to see his own people, to live in the wilderness, in the very thick of a peculiar, original life. Arriving in Chuguev, he completely plunged into Chuguev's life. He wandered through the surrounding villages, attended weddings, bazaars, volosts, inns, taverns, taverns and churches, filled albums with notes, sketches and sketches.
He also paints there portraits of the types that struck him. Excellent watercolor portrait of the ancient grandfather - "The Old Man from Chuguev". Two oil portraits: "A peasant with an evil eye" and "A timid peasant" give a sharp and deep characterization of these types.
In the same period, Repin painted a wonderful portrait - "Protodeacon". Stasov, in his enthusiastic response, writes about this portrait: “What a fire must have burned in the soul of the artist who wrote this terrible, this formidable“ Varlaam ”! It seems to me that the brush did not move, 1 but jumped in tiger leaps on the canvas. All this was begun and ended in a few hours, as if some demon was leading him with his hand. These eyebrows, thick leeches raised apart from the bridge up the forehead, these eyes, as if drilled into the face and looking from there with nails, these flaming cheeks and nose with a shoe, testifying to dozens of years spent in the Varlaam way, this disheveled thick gray hair, these hands like a pillow , laid down with thick loose fingers on his chest ... "
In "Protodeacon", undoubtedly, the influence of Rembrandt affected, even in the composition of the portrait, Repin came from the famous masterpiece of Rembrandt "Jan Sobieski". But in "Protodeacon", in addition to the influence of Rembrandt, we see something that Repin did not have before and that will henceforth be a characteristic feature of his pictorial manner, his language. In "Protodeacon" the real Repin, the Repin of the future paintings, our Russian Rembrandt were reflected. The "Protodeacon" is the most important milestone in Repin's work, the springboard from which it was only possible to make a pry-I (ok to his future, even more perfect creations.
In the "Protodeacon" for the first time that temperamental pictorial language, that confident boldness of strokes and volumetric images, which gave the illusion of real life, which henceforth became inseparable from the ideas of Repin's portraits, finally took shape.
In the 80s, Repin's creativity flourished. In one decade, Repin created an entire portrait gallery of his contemporaries (more than sixty portraits) - famous writers, painters, composers, musicians, artists, scientists, doctors, engineers, etc., which alone would have been enough to immortalize his name.
In this article, I am unable to describe this entire brilliant series of portraits. I will dwell only on the most significant, outstanding works of Repin.
In 1880, Repin, commissioned by Tretyakov, painted a portrait of the most popular writer at that time, A.F. Pisemsky. He managed to create not just an ordinary portrait of the famous writer, but an extraordinary work of art. Repin found for Pisemsky a pose characteristic of the last, dying period of the writer. Leaning with both hands on a stick, sick, bilious, he looks unfriendly at the viewer, as if expressing to him his bewilderment and displeasure. It is taken as a silhouette against the background of a white wall, which further enhances the vitality of the whole figure, and especially of sore eyes with yellow whites.
In 1881, Repin created the greatest, unsurpassed portrait masterpiece that eclipsed the portrait of Pisemsky - the portrait of the composer M.P. Mussorgsky. Repin was friends with Mussorgsky, loved his music. In February 1881, Repin learned that Mussorgsky was seriously ill. Arriving in St. Petersburg for the opening of the traveling exhibition, Repin went to the Nikolaev military hospital, where Mussorgsky was. Here he paints a portrait of the sick composer for four days in a row.
There was some temporary improvement in Mussorgsky's health. Moreover, the weather was favorable for work. The large bright room with high windows, where Mussorgsky was located, was all flooded with sunlight. Without an easel, Repin nestled somehow at the table in front of which Mussorgsky was sitting in a hospital chair. Repin portrayed him in a dressing gown with crimson velvet cuffs, with his head tilted slightly, deeply pondering something. The portrait is painted with inspiration. The artist was guided by only one thought, one desire - to convey on the canvas the features of a beloved friend and a brilliant composer. Everyone who knew Mussorgsky was delighted with the portrait - it is so vital, so similar, so it faithfully and simply conveys the whole nature, the whole character, the entire external appearance of Musorgsky.
“Kramskoy, seeing this portrait,” wrote the critic V. Stasov, “simply gasped in surprise. After the first seconds of the general survey, he took a chair, sat down in front of the portrait, right point-blank to his face, and did not leave for a long, long time. “What Repin is doing now,” he said, “is simply incomprehensible. Look, his portrait of Pisemsky - what a masterpiece! .. But this, this portrait will, perhaps, be even more amazing! Here he has some unheard-of tricks, never tried by anyone, he himself is I - and no one else. This portrait was painted very quickly, fieryly - everyone sees it. But how everything is drawn, with what hand of a master, how sculpted, how it is written! Look at those eyes! They look as if they were alive, they thought, all the inner, spiritual work of that moment was drawn in them - and how many portraits in the world with such an expression! And the body, and the cheeks, forehead, nose, mouth - a living, completely alive face, and even in the light from the first to the last dash, everything is in the sun, without a single shadow - what a creature! "
The portrait of Mussorgsky does not amaze with either the melodiousness of the colors or the virtuosity of the technique, and yet it amazes anyone who can read in nature and who is able to understand the transfer of this nature by a painter. Repin approached Mussorgsky's portrait with complete spontaneity, without any premeditated methods.
Repin was in such a happy trance that in those few hours when, by his own admission, he was entertaining himself with work and all kinds of conversations with Mussorgsky, the entire external and internal appearance of his friend by itself, under the strokes of a brush, was transformed into an artistic image.
Many more beautiful portraits were painted later by Repin, but the second one similar to the portrait of Mussorgsky did not appear.
Soon the artist had the opportunity to paint a portrait of the famous surgeon and popular teacher N.I. Pirogov, who arrived in Moscow in May 1881 to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of his medical practice.
Of the portraits of the next year, 1882, the most prominent are: the portrait of the famous tragic actress P. A. Strepetova, a sketch with T. A. Mamontova and the portrait of A. I. Delvig, the author of famous memoirs.
Strepetova is depicted in her homely appearance, in a simple dress and with unkempt hair. In this one-session, quickly completed sketch, Repin put everything that can be required from a portrait. The artist managed to catch here that great, tragic expression that was inseparable from the personality of the famous actress, which formed the basis of her being, which did not leave her outside the theater. This sketch, sparkling in painting, is one of the pearls of the Tretyakov Gallery.
But the most powerful portrait of 1882 must be recognized as the portrait of Delvig. In terms of vitality, expressiveness, modeling and skill, he is one of the heights of Repin's creativity.
1883 brought several first-class portraits. Of these, the portrait of the critic V.V. Stasov, painted in Dresden during his joint trip abroad with Repin, stands out.
Stasov reports the following details about Repin's work on the portrait: “On the first day the session lasted nine hours almost without interruption, on the second day the session lasted five hours. In total, the portrait was painted in two sessions. It seems to me that any artist who understands at all will find in the portrait itself traces of that wonderful inspiration, that fire with which this portrait was painted! The bright, spring sun, then shining into our room, is conveyed in the picture, it seems to me, with extraordinary truth. "
The portrait, indeed, is incomparable both in the temperament with which it was painted, and in the color solution, the more difficult because it is built in a gray, but subtly harmonious scale.
From the portraits of 1884, I single out a large portrait of the writer V. M. Garshin - an indisputable masterpiece by Repin, although it did not surpass "Mussorgsky", but close to him.
As can be seen from Garshin's letters, the artist worked for a long time on his portrait, which is difficult to notice from the painting, fresh, unusually thin, in many places not covering the canvas. Garshin does not pose: he was sitting at his desk, going over books and manuscripts, when someone entered him and he had to turn his head and look at him inquiringly. A completely natural composition that fits perfectly into an almost square canvas format. In the portrait you feel not only the oppressed psyche of this “doomed”, but you can almost feel his breath on you. And what a strong impression this unforgettable Garshinsky look makes!
In 1887, Repin devotes a lot of time to working on portraits of L. N. Tolstoy. The most successful portrait of Lev Nikolaevich was painted in Yasnaya Polyana in August 1887. This is a large generational portrait in an armchair, with a book in his left hand. Perfectly solved in the composition, which is largely facilitated by a beautiful mahogany armchair, with great artistic tact linked to the silhouette of Tolstoy's figure, this portrait was exceptionally successful in a plastic respect. It is written broadly, boldly.
Returning to St. Petersburg after a trip to Yasnaya Polyana, to Tolstoy, and sorting through his Yasnaya Polyana albums, Repin stopped at the idea of painting an oil painting from one of the drawings depicting Tolstoy lying on the grass under a tree. The portrait gives the impression of being painted from life, so true and convincing is the play of sunspots on Tolstoy's light figure and greenery.
Among the best portraits performed by Repin in the 90s are the portraits of the artist M.O. Mikeshin, the poet K.M. Fofanov, Mercy d'Arzhent, Ikskul, A.V. Verzhbilovich and N.P. Golovina. The portrait of Ikskul should rightfully take a place in the top ten best portraits of Repin. No one in Russia, except Serov, conveyed such a matte complexion, dark eyes, and silk. And the hand in this portrait, its satin skin, pearls, rings are hardly equal in height in all of Europe.
In the 1900s, Repin gave a number of extremely successful female portraits: tempera, depicting a girl with a bowed head, oil - by N.I. Repina, under an umbrella, in a hat, in the sun, and A.P. Botkina, made with multi-colored pencils and pastels ... The latter is perhaps the thinnest of Repin's portraits of women.
In 1901-1903 in the painting "Meeting of the State Council" Repin once again showed himself as the greatest master of portrait.
When the painting was completed and displayed for viewing at the Mariinsky Palace, the vast majority of visitors accepted it as some kind of impartial, objective depiction of the ceremonial meeting of the State Council. This is how the dignitaries depicted in the picture reacted to him. Only a few have understood the accusatory tendency of the author hidden in it, who made a big mockery of all this gilded bureaucratic people. Why does one line of grand-ducal dolls, with the tsar in the center, or the sanctimonious figure of the "chief prosecutor of the Holy Synod" Pobedonostsev, who crossed his arms in prayer, or the clever, crafty head of Witte? In addition to several striking characteristics of the main bureaucrats, most of them, with full portrait resemblance, are given in the form of a general impersonal mass of "Actual Privy Counselors" decorated with ribbons and stars. For his painting, Repin made a number of brilliant portraits painted from life in a sketchy manner. Individual portrait sketches belong to the best that Repin created, in terms of the power of expressiveness and purely picturesque scope.
The "Meeting of the State Council" was Repin's last great creation; his work began to decline noticeably.
It goes without saying that later there were happy creative successes - such are the individual sketches and portraits.
The name of the great artist Ilya Repin is familiar to almost everyone. Many museums, streets and galleries are named after him. Deserves special attention. It most clearly and vividly describes the most important events in the life of the great master.
Childhood and youth
Repin Ilya Efimovich was born on August 5, 1844 in the territory of modern Ukraine. The future artist was born in the small town of Chuguev in the Kharkiv region. Ilya Repin's father was a military settler.
The boy began to get involved in art early. Already at the age of thirteen, he took up painting. Repin's mentor was the icon painter and portrait painter Ivan Mikhailovich Bunakov, who also lived in Chuguev. As the artist himself later admitted, the teacher had a tremendous influence on the formation of his style. Repin has repeatedly called Bunakov the best of the Chuguev craftsmen. Ilya Efimovich is even credited with the following words: "Ivan Mikhailovich was a truly incredible artist and took a place on a par with Holbein."
From the very beginning of his creative activity, Repin received good reviews about his work. His paintings are very popular in his home area. Wanting to develop further, the young painter makes an important decision in life to try his luck in St. Petersburg. In this glorious city on the Neva, the short biography of Repin continues.
Learning and recognition
In 1863, luck smiled at the talented artist, and Ilya Efimovich entered the Academy of Arts. There, the master shows remarkable creative abilities, which earns the respect of colleagues and mentors. Among the famous teachers of Repin was Rudolf Kazimirovich Zhukovsky.
Already after a short six years, the young artist receives his first award, which is what Repin's short biography means. It was Small for his painting "Job and His Friends".
Searches in creativity
Since 1870, Repin went on a steamer down the Volga River. The artist uses the time allotted for this journey to the benefit of his creativity. During the trip, the master's piggy bank is replenished with numerous sketches and sketches. Later, some of them formed the basis of one of the most important works of the master of canvases - "Barge Haulers on the Volga". This canvas took three whole years to paint and took on enormous significance for the cultural and political life of that time. It is worth noting that its creation was carried out to order by Prince V. Alexandrovich himself. However, not only for him, this picture caused genuine emotions. The critics praised the work done. After all, the picture simply amazes with its genuine sincerity, careful technical study of the smallest details and laborious portrayal of all the characters.
Soon, Repin receives the next important award for him. In 1870, the artist was awarded the Great Gold Medal. This time the choice of critics fell on a large canvas called "The Resurrection of Jairus's Daughter." This work became significant for the master, because, in addition to being recognized in his homeland, he got the opportunity to try his hand at study and creativity in the vastness of Europe. Sunny Italy and France were already waiting for him, where Repin went. The artist continues to improve his skills.
Cultural heritage
One of the most striking works in the work of Repin was the painting "The Cossacks write a letter to the Turkish Sultan." The master made the first sketches in 1878. Ilya Efimovich worked on the canvas for ten long years.
It is worth noting that, in addition to creative activity, Repin was successfully engaged in teaching. So, since 1893, he took an honorable place at the Academy of Arts. Later, the master was in charge of the workshop. The pinnacle of his teaching career was the position of the rector of the Academy.
Interestingly, the artist was married twice. With his second lawful wife, the master lived in his own estate in Finland until the end of his life.
This is the end of the short biography of Repin, but everyone can find something new for themselves in his work.
Photo from the 1900s.
Photo studio
"Rentz & Schrader"
Ilya Efimovich Repin(August 24, 1844 - September 29, 1930) painter-painter.
Father - Efim Vasilyevich Repin (1804-1894) from a family of military settlers, was engaged in trade, took part in three military campaigns, and had awards.
Mother - Tatyana Stepanovna Bocharova (1811-1880) was engaged in the family, organized a small school in which she taught children and adults, sewed fur coats for sale.
The first wife is Vera Alekseevna Shevtsova (1856 - 1919). They got married in 1872. There were four children: Vera (1872-1948), Nadezhda (1874-1931), Yuri (1877-1954) and Tatiana (1880-1957). Divorced in 1887.
The second wife is Natalya Borisovna Nordman (1863-1914). They got together with Ilya Efimovich in 1900 and were together until her death from tuberculosis.
Ilya Efimovich Repin was born on August 24 (August 5, old style) in 1844 in the suburb of Chuguev in the Osinovka settlement of the Kharkov province of the Russian Empire (now the city of Chuguev in the Kharkov region of Ukraine). At the age of eleven (1855), his parents sent him to study at the corps of the topographer in Chuguev, and two years later to the icon-painting workshop to the artist Ivan Mikhailovich Bunakov. At this time, he had a desire to enter the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. By the age of fifteen, he became an independent master, customers from all over the area came to him. In August 1861, he received an invitation to work from an icon-painting artel moving from city to city, agreed, and left home.
Having collected money for a trip to St. Petersburg, Ilya Efimovich in 1863 went through Kharkov to St. Petersburg, to fulfill his old dream of entering the Academy of Arts. The first admission was not successful, and Repin got a job at an evening drawing school, where he was soon recognized as the best student. Re-admission to the Academy was crowned with success. By 1871, Repin graduated from the Academy, already having fame, several awards and the title of artist of the first degree.
Graduation from the Academy gives Ilya Efimovich the right to a six-year foreign trip as a pensioner of the Academy. Retired or boarder - a student receiving support (boarding school) from the Academy for improvement. The best of the best students who graduated from the Academy with the Big Gold Medal were included in the pensioners. On November 29, 1871, a traveling exhibition opened in St. Petersburg, at which Repin's work "The Resurrection of Jairus's Daughter" was presented. This was a great event in the life of artists. For the same picture, he received the Great Gold Medal.
In April 1873, Repin and his family went abroad. He visited Vienna, Venice, Florence, Rome and Naples. In October 1876 he returned to Chuguev. After working here for almost a year, in September 1877 he moved to Moscow. In 1882, after much persuasion of friends, he moved to St. Petersburg.
In 1884 he received the first state order for a painting and wrote "Reception of volost elders by Alexander III in the courtyard of the Petrovsky Palace in Moscow"
In 1894, already having wide fame and the title of professor of painting, Repin began teaching at the painting workshop at the Academy of Arts. His pedagogical activity continued until 1907.
In 1900, Repin converges with Natalia Nordman and moves to live with her in the Penaty estate, located in Kuokkale, 44 kilometers from St. Petersburg (now the village of Repino, part of the Kurortny district of St. Petersburg). Here he began to write his memoirs. The collection of essays "Distant Close" was prepared for publication in 1915, but was published in 1937.
In 1918 Kuokkala became Finnish territory and communication with former friends remained only by correspondence. Attempts were made to persuade Repin to move to the USSR, but he remained in Kuokkala until his death.
Ilya Efimovich Repin died at the age of eighty-six on September 29, 1930 in Kuokkala and was buried in "Penates" in the place of the park he had chosen.
The author of such famous paintings: "Barge Haulers on the Volga", "Letter of the Cossacks to the Turkish Sultan", "Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan."
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