Tretyakov Gallery. Part №4: Portraits and paintings of the artist Ilya Repin

Part №3:

Tretyakov Gallery. Part Three: Portrait Gallery

Russian text:

Третьяковская галерея. Часть №4: Портреты и живописи художника Ильи Репина

Serbian text:

Државна галерија Третjаков. Наставак №4: Портрети и слике уметника Иље Репина

Ilya Efimovich Repin (on Russian: Илья Ефимович Репин, 1844 – 1930) – Russian painter, teacher, professor, full member of the Imperial Academy of Arts.

From the very beginning of his career, from the 1870-s, Repin became one of the key figures in Russian realism.

I. E. Repin: **“Religious procession in the Kursk province”** (1883). The artist managed to solve the problem of reflecting the diversity of the surrounding life in a pictorial work, in his work he managed to cover all aspects of modernity, touch upon topics of concern to the public, and reacted vividly to the spite of the day.

“Plasticity” was the basic characteristic of Repin’s artistic language; he perceived various stylistic trends from the Spanish and Dutch artists (of the 17th century), until to great Russian painter Alexander Ivanov (first half of 19th century) and modern French impressionists.

I. E. Repin: ***“Plowman. Leo Tolstoy on arable land”*** (1887)

The heyday of Repin’s work takes place in the 1880-s. He creates a gallery of portraits of his contemporaries, works as a historical artist and master of everyday scenes.

Ilya Repin: ***“Barge Haulers on the Volga”***, 1870—1873. 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 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.

***

The plot of the first of Repin’s significant paintings (“Barge Haulers on the Volga”, 1870-1873) was created by life itself. In 1868, working on sketches, Ilya Efimovich saw barge haulers on the Neva.

Neva River and Finland Railway Bridge in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The Neva (Russian: Нева) is a river in northwestern Russia flowing from Lake Ladoga through the western part of Leningrad Oblast (historical region of Ingria) to the Neva Bay of the Gulf of Finland. Despite its modest length of 74 kilometres (46 mi), it is the fourth largest river in Europe in terms of average discharge (after the Volga, the Danube and the Rhine).

The Neva is the only river flowing from Lake Ladoga. It flows through the city of Saint Petersburg, three smaller towns of Shlisselburg, Kirovsk and Otradnoye, and dozens of settlements. The river is navigable throughout and is part of the Volga–Baltic Waterway and White Sea – Baltic Canal. It is a site of numerous major historical events, including the Battle of the Neva in 1240 which gave Alexander Nevsky his name, the founding of Saint Petersburg in 1703, and the Siege of Leningrad by the German army during World War II. The Neva river played a vital role in trade between Byzantium and Scandinavia.

Volga basin. Volga is a river in the European part of Russia (a small part of the Volga delta, outside the main river bed, is located in Kazakhstan). One of the largest rivers on Earth and the largest in water content, basin area and length in Europe, as well as the largest river in the world that flows into a drainage (inland) reservoir. The length of the river is **3530** km (before the construction of reservoirs – 3690 km), and the catchment area is **1360** thousand km². The annual runoff is **254** km³. There are four “millionaire-cities” (more than million inhabitants) along the river Volga: Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, Samara and Volgograd. From 1930-s until 1980-s, eight hydroelectric power plants were built on the Volga, which are part of the Volga-Kama cascade. The part of the territory of Russia adjacent to the Volga is called the Volga Region (on Russian: *Поволжье*).

***

According to art critic V.V. Stasov, probably the most respected Russian critic during his lifetime, Repin’s work is “an encyclopedia of post-reform Russia.”

The last 30 years of his life, Repin spent in Finland, in his estate Penates in Kuokkale. He continued to work, although not as intensively as before.

I.E. Repin. **“Resurrection of the daughter of Jairus”** (1871). In recent years, he turned to biblical subjects. In Kuokkale, Repin wrote memoirs; a number of his essays were included in the memoirs “Far Close” (on Russian: *«Далёкое близкое»*).

As a respectable art-teacher, he brought up a whole “galaxy” of famous artists: B. M. Kustodiev, I. E. Grabar, I. S. Kulikov, F. A. Malyavin, A. P. Ostroumova-Lebedeva, N. I. Feshin, V. A. Serov.

Portraits of Ilya Repin: