Ilya Repin And The World Of Russian Art

Soviet Studies 900823

Ilya Repin was the most gifted of the group known in Russia as “The Itinerants”. When only twelve years old, he joined Ivan Bounakov’s studio to learn the icon-painter’s craft. Religious representations always remained of great importance for him. From 1864 to 1873 Repin studied at the Academy of the Arts in Saint Petersburg under Kramskoï. Repin also studied in Paris for two years, where he was strongly influenced by outdoor painting without, becoming an Impressionist, a style that he judged too distant from reality. Taken with French pictorial culture, he worked to understand its role in the evolution of contemporary art. Most of Repin’s powerful work deals with the social dilemmas of Russian life in the nineteenth century. He established his reputation in 1873 with the celebrated picture Barge Haulers on the Volga, symbol of the oppressed Russian people pulling their chains. This struggle against the autocracy inspired many works. He also painted Russia’s official history in such works as Ivan the Terrible Meditating at the Deathbed of his Son Ivan. Seen as one of the masters of realist painting, he devoted himself to portraying the lives of his contemporaries: the most renowned Russian writers, artists, and intellectuals; peasants at work; the faithful in procession; and revolutionaries on the barricades. He understood the pains of the people perfectly, as well as the needs and the joys of ordinary lives. Kramskoï said on this subject: “Repin has a gift for showing the peasant as he is. I know many painters who show the moujik, and they do it well, but none can do so with as much talent as Repin.”Repin’s works, which depart from the academic constraints of their predecessors, are both delicate and powerful. He achieved a superior mastery of skill, and found new accents to transcribe the many-coloured and brilliant vibrations he sensed in the ordinary world around him.

Ilya Repin (1844-1930) is a key figure of Russian nineteenth-century realism; this presents the life and work of the most celebrated Russian painted of his generation. A painter of immense technical and aesthetic talent, Ilya Repin's vibrant, colourful and highly topical canvases offer a fascinating panorama of all strata of life in late-Tsarist Russia and a microcosm of the issues that preoccupied Russian thought during this crucial period of historical change. Ilya Repin (1844-1930) is a key figure of Russian nineteenth-century realism; his career spanned a period of huge cultural, social and political change, bearing witness to the challenge to the Russian autocracy, the coming of the October Revolution and the dawn of the Soviet Union. From humble peasant beginnings Repin rose to a place of artistic pre-eminence and international acclaim and was the most important influence in shaping a distinctly Russian school of art. Through a series of successful but controversial works he addressed such issues as the hard lives of the peasants, the fate of revolutionary activists and Russian history, as well as painting some of the nation's greatest cultural figures, many of whom - such as Tolstoy, Mussorgsky and Gorky - he counted as personal friends. 'The Russian Vision: The Art of Ilya Repin' presents the life and work of the most celebrated Russian painted of his generation. A comprehensive survey of Repin's oeuvre, featuring a wealth of little-seen paintings; dramatic, distinctive images that evoke the hardships, pleasures and everyday routines of Russian society in the twilight years of Tsarist rule. Having declined in the twentieth century, Repin's reputation is growing again. Combining close readings of all his major canvases, as well as many of his lesser-known works, within the broader context of Russian art, society and culture, written in an accessible style, David Jackson's book, featuring more than 100 colour plates of Repin's work, and telling the story of his life, will do much to help restore his stature.

Ilya Repin was the most gifted of the group known in Russia as “The Itinerants”. When only twelve years old, he joined Ivan Bounakov’s studio to learn the icon-painter’s craft. Religious representations always remained of great importance for him. From 1864 to 1873 Repin studied at the Academy of the Arts in Saint Petersburg under Kramskoï. Repin also studied in Paris for two years, where he was strongly influenced by outdoor painting without, becoming an Impressionist, a style that he judged too distant from reality. Taken with French pictorial culture, he worked to understand its role in the evolution of contemporary art. Most of Repin’s powerful work deals with the social dilemmas of Russian life in the nineteenth century. He established his reputation in 1873 with the celebrated picture Barge Haulers on the Volga, symbol of the oppressed Russian people pulling their chains. This struggle against the autocracy inspired many works. He also painted Russia’s official history in such works as Ivan the Terrible Meditating at the Deathbed of his Son Ivan. Seen as one of the masters of realist painting, he devoted himself to portraying the lives of his contemporaries: the most renowned Russian writers, artists, and intellectuals; peasants at work; the faithful in procession; and revolutionaries on the barricades. He understood the pains of the people perfectly, as well as the needs and the joys of ordinary lives. Kramskoï said on this subject: “Repin has a gift for showing the peasant as he is. I know many painters who show the moujik, and they do it well, but none can do so with as much talent as Repin.”Repin’s works, which depart from the academic constraints of their predecessors, are both delicate and powerful. He achieved a superior mastery of skill, and found new accents to transcribe the many-coloured and brilliant vibrations he sensed in the ordinary world around him.

Artwork by Ilya Repin.