Repin Ilya Efimovich

Main article: Painting in Russia

Biography

Ilya Efimovich Repin was born in the city of Chuguev, Kharkov province. His paternal grandfather, a non-serving Cossack Vasily Efimovich Repin, conducted trade and owned an inn. According to metric books, he died in the 1830s, after which all economic worries fell on the shoulders of his wife Natalia Titovna Repina.

The artist's father Efim Vasilievich (1804-1894) was the eldest of the children in the family. In his memoirs on childhood, Ilya Efimovich mentioned his father as a "ticket soldier," who, together with his brother, annually traveled to Donshchina and, covering a distance of three hundred miles, drove horses from there for sale. During his service in the Chuguevsky Ulan regiment, Efim Vasilyevich managed to participate in three military campaigns, had awards. Ilya Repin tried to maintain contact with his hometown, Slobozhanshchina until the end of his life.

The grandfather of the artist on the maternal side - Stepan Vasilyevich Bocharov - also gave many years of military service. Pelageya Minaevna became his wife, whose maiden name the researchers could not establish. In the early 1830s, the daughter of the Bocharov Tatyana Stepanovna (1811-1880) married Efim Vasilievich. At first, the Repins lived under the same roof with their husband's parents; later, having saved money on horse trading, the head of the family managed to put a spacious house on the banks of the Seversky Donets. Tatyana Stepanovna, being a literate and active woman, was not only engaged in the education of children, reading aloud to them the works of Pushkin, Lermontov, Zhukovsky, but also organized a small school attended by both peasant children and adults. There were few educational subjects in it: purity, arithmetic and the Law of God. The family periodically had problems with money, and Tatyana Stepanovna sewed fur coats on hare fur for sale.

Watercolor paints in the Repins' house were first brought 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 the watermelon: a black and white picture placed in children's alphabet suddenly gained brightness and juiciness. From that day on, the idea of ​ ​ transforming the world with paints no longer left the boy:

To comfort me, Trofim left me his paints, and since then I have dug into the colors so much, sticking to the table that I was barely torn off for lunch and cut off that I completely became wet, like a mouse, from zeal and stupefied with my colors over the days.

1857: Work in icon painting workshop and nomadic icon painting artel

In 1855, parents sent eleven-year-old Ilya to study at a school of topographers - this specialty, associated with filming and drawing, was considered prestigious in Chuguev. However, two years later the educational institution was abolished, and Repin got a job in an icon painting workshop with the artist I. M. Bunakov. Soon the news of Bunakov's talented student spread far beyond Chuguev; young craftsmen began to be invited by contractors who came to the city, who needed painters and gilders. At sixteen, the young man left both the workshop and the parent's house: he was offered 25 rubles a month for work in a nomadic icon-painting artel, which, as orders were fulfilled, moved from city to city.

In the summer of 1863, artelists worked in the Voronezh province near Ostrogozhsk, the town in which the artist Ivan Kramskoy was born. Repin learned from local masters that their fellow countryman, who had already received a small gold medal for the painting "Moses exudes water from a rock" by that time, left his native places seven years ago and left to study at the Academy of Arts. The stories of the Ostrogozhtsy served as an incentive for drastic life changes: in the fall, having collected all the money earned in the summer months, Ilya Efimovich went to St. Petersburg.

1863-1871: First Petersburg period

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 mascara, did not know how to create touches and shadows. 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. A second visit to the Academy ended with a successful exam, but after the entrance tests, Repin was again expected to be difficult: a volunteer had to pay 25 rubles for the right to attend the classes. This amount for Repin was contributed by the patron - the head of the postal department Fedor Pryanishnikov, to whom Ilya Efimovich turned for help.

During the eight years spent in the walls of the Academy, Repin gained many friends. These included Vasily Polenov, in whose house the novice artist was always prepared for a warm welcome, and Mark Antokolsky, who arrived in the capital from Vilna to study as a sculptor and subsequently wrote: "We soon got closer, as only lonely people in a foreign land can get closer."

In 1869, Repin met with art critic Vladimir Stasov, who for many years was part of Repin's "inner circle." He considered Kramskoy his direct mentor: Repin was his 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.

Years of study brought Repin several awards, including a silver medal for the sketch "The Angel of Death Beats All 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 the circle of artists that the preparation for its writing was complicated by the lack of money. Desperate, a graduate of the Academy created a genre picture of a student preparing for exams watching a girl from a nearby apartment out the window. Ilya Efimovich took his work to Trenti's store, gave it to the commission and was surprised when he was soon handed a considerable amount: "I don't seem to have experienced such happiness in my entire life!" The money received was enough for paints and canvas, but their acquisition did not save them from creative torment: the plot of "Daughter of Jairus" did not work out. On one evening, returning from Kramskoy, Repin tried to imagine how his loved ones would react if a man "clothed with the gift of a healer" managed to return the life of Usta - his early deceased sister. As a result, the gospel plot set according to the academic program was embodied in a "living picture of life."

Burlaki on the Volga

The plot of the first of Repin's significant paintings was prompted by life. In 1868, working on sketches, Ilya Efimovich saw burlaks on the Neva. The contrast between an idle, carefree audience walking on the shore and people pulling rafts on straps impressed the student of the Academy so much that upon returning to the apartment being rented, he began to create sketches depicting "draft manpower." Earlier, Repin sketches on the same topic were made by the artist Vasily Vereshchagin. He was not given full immersion in the new work by the academic obligations associated with the competition for a small gold medal, however, according to the artist, neither during games with his comrades in the towns, nor during communication with familiar young ladies could he free himself from the maturing plan.

In the summer of 1870, Repin, together with his brother and painting friends Fyodor Vasiliev and Yevgeny Makarov, went to the Volga. Money for the trip - two hundred rubles - received from rich patrons Vasiliev. As Repin later wrote, the journey was not limited to contemplating landscapes "with album makers" in his hands: young people met local residents, sometimes spent the night in unfamiliar huts, sat in the evenings by the fire. The Volga spaces amazed young artists with epic scope; the mood of the future canvas was created by Glinka's "Kamarinskaya" constantly sounded in the memory of Ilya Efimovich and the volume of the Homeric Iliad taken with him. One day, the artist saw "the most perfect type of desired burlak" - a man named Kanin (in the picture he is depicted in the first three, "with his head tied with a dirty rag").

What a happiness that Kanin did not decide to go to the bathhouse or cut his hair, as happened with some models who came trimmed, shaved beyond recognition. He was notified in advance and, like all serious people, posed seriously: he skillfully endured an unusual position and easily adapted, without hindrance to me. - Ilya Repin.

According to the German art historian Norbert Wolf, the painting "Burlaki on the Volga" made a sensation in the international art community because its author "monumentalized the genre scene," the lowest 'in academic classification. " Each of the heroes of the canvas carries the seal of individuality; at the same time, the entire group of characters placed in an "existential and primordial" landscape resembles Dante's procession of the damned from Divine Comedy.

Order "Slavic Bazaar"

By 1871, Repin had already gained some fame in the capital. In 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. Rumor about a talented graduate of the Academy reached Moscow: the owner of the Slavic Bazaar Hotel, Alexander Porokhovshchikov, invited Ilya Efimovich to write the painting "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; only a "large decorative spot" was missing. The artist Konstantin Makovsky, whom Porokhovshchikov had previously addressed, believed that this money would not recoup all labor costs, and asked for 25,000 rubles. But for Repin, the order of the Moscow entrepreneur was a chance to finally get out of many years of need; in his memoirs, he admitted that "the amount assigned for the picture seemed huge."

Stasov also joined the work with Repin, who, well versed in music, collected materials in the Public Library and gave professional advice. Nikolai Rubinstein, Eduard Napravnik, Miliy Balakirev and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov posed for the picture; Repin created images of other composers, including those who passed away, based on engravings and photographs found by Stasov.

In June 1872, the opening of the Slavic 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 were 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 canvas "a cold vinaigrette of the living and the dead - a stretch of nonsense that could be born in the head of some Khlestakov-Porokhovshchikov."

Marriage to Vera Shevtsova

Korney Chukovsky, who was friends with Repin, believed that the artist's first family "showed little interest in his work in its unculturality." Vera Shevtsova, the sister of his fellow drawing school Alexander, Ilya Efimovich knew 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 the dance:

She was good at sixteen years old: a tar heavy braid below the waist, light brown eyes, a baby nut over a round forehead, a straight nose, corners of the lips curved upwards, the ability of a thin figure to somehow cozy up, bend in a soft green chair.

Ilya Efimovich and Vera Alekseevna were married on February 11 (23), 1872. Instead of a wedding trip, Repin offered his young wife business trips - first to Moscow, to open the Slavic Bazaar, and then to sketches in Nizhny Novgorod, where the artist continued to look for motives and types for Burlakov.... In late autumn of the same 1872, a daughter was born, who was also called Vera. The girl's christening was attended by Stasov and 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 Tatyana grew up in the family. Marriage, according to researchers, could hardly be called happy: Ilya Efimovich gravitated to an open house, was ready to receive guests at any time; he was constantly surrounded by ladies who wanted to pose for new paintings; Vera Alekseevna, focused on raising children, the salon lifestyle was a burden. The breakdown of relations occurred in 1887; during the divorce, the former spouses divided the children: the eldest remained with their father, the younger ones moved to live with their mother. The family drama so seriously influenced the artist that Stasov wrote to Mark Antokolsky about his concern for the mental well-being of a friend:

Repin fell silent about something with his exhibition, and in the summer and autumn he talked a lot about it... What peace, what joy, what opportunity to write your paintings? How to prepare an exhibition here, when... all troubles, stories, the real misfortune?

Family portraits. The fates of children

Both during the marriage years and after leaving the family, Repin painted many portraits of his loved ones. So, Ilya Efimovich created several portraits of Vera Shevtsova, including the painting "Rest" (1882), in which "not very attractive, rather unkind," according to art critic Alexei Fedorov-Davydov, the face of a sleeping woman is softened by the "charming lyrics" of the artist.

Repin acted as a "subtle, soulful lyricist" and when writing portraits of children. First of all, this applies to two of his paintings - "Dragonfly" (1884) and "Autumn Bouquet" (1892). The heroines of both works are the eldest daughter of the Repins - Vera Ilyinichna. On the first of them, a twelve-year-old girl, illuminated by the sun, sits on the crossbar. Art historians suggest that the artist created a portrait of his daughter from memory; evidence of this is some mismatch between background and figure. But the "Autumn Bouquet," on which the artist worked on the Zdravnevo estate, was written from nature. Faith has already turned into a young lady, the autumn bouquet in whose hands was intended to emphasize her "sense of life, youth and negi." A portrait of Nadia's daughter was also created there; about him, the artist himself said: "She is in a hunting dress, with a gun over her shoulder and with a heroic expression."

The fate of Repin's children developed differently. 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 women's courses of medical assistants in St. Petersburg, then worked in zemstvo hospitals. After a trip to the typhus epidemic in 1911, a young woman began to suffer from mental illness. Living with her father in Kuokkala, Nadezhda Ilyinichna almost did not leave 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 the missing son Diy. After declassifying the archives, it turned out that in 1935 he was arrested while crossing the border with the USSR and sentenced by a tribunal of the Leningrad Military District to be shot on the basis of Articles 58-8 and 84 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR. The youngest daughter of Repin, Tatyana, at the end of the Bestuzhev courses, taught at the Zdravnev school; after the death of her father, she and her family left for France; died in 1957.

1873-1876: Retirement trip to Europe

Ilya Repin. Beggar. 1873

In April 1873, when the eldest daughter grew up a little, the family of Repin, who had the right to a trip abroad as a pensioner of the Academy, went on a voyage in Europe. Visiting Vienna, Venice, Florence, Rome and Naples, the artist arrived in Paris in November and wrote to I. N. Kramsky: "Having overcome cowardice, I stayed in Paris for a whole year, took a workshop at Rue Véron (fr.), 13 - apartment, and 31 - workshop." In letters to Stasov, he lamented that the capital of Italy disappointed him ("Galleries are many, but... no patience enough to get to the bottom of good things "), and Rafael seemed" boring and outdated. " Excerpts from these letters were made public; the magazine "Entertainment" (March 1875) responded to them with a poisonous caricature in which Stasov "helped Repin hatch from the nest." The drawing was accompanied by a poem:... "Isn't it, my reader ,/What for judges like Stasov ,/And turnips are better than pineapples?"

Addiction to Paris was slow, but by the end of the trip, the artist began to recognize the French impressionists, separately highlighting Manet, under whose influence, according to researchers, Repin created the painting "Paris Cafe," testifying to the mastery of the techniques of plein air painting.

Paris Cafe, 1875

Nevertheless, according to the artist Yakov Minchenkov, new forms until the end of his life "put him in a dead end, and impressionist landscape painters irritated him." Those, in turn, reproached Ilya Efimovich for "misunderstanding of beauty." A kind of response to their claims was the painting "Sadko" written by Repin in Paris, the hero of which "feels in a certain underwater kingdom." Its creation was complicated by the fact that it took too long to find the customer and money; interest in the invented plot gradually melted, and in one of the letters to Stasov, the annoyed artist admitted that he was "terribly disappointed with the painting" Sadko '. "

In 1876, Repin received the title of academician for the painting "Sadko." 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":

Let me, is this not the same Repin who wrote Burlakov? What should he do now if, as a student, he has already produced perfection? I am imbued with trepidation and go... "Ah, look, maman, man in aquarium!..." I wish him a happy wake...

Negro, 1876

1877-1882: Moscow period

Entry into the Association of Wanderers

Returning to Russia, Repin lived and worked in his native Chuguev for a year - from October 1876 to September 1877.

Protodeacon, 1877, GTG

Godmother in the Oak Forest, 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, brought with him a "large supply of artistic goodness," which for a long time stood unpacked due to malaria dumped by Repin. After recovering, the artist informed Kramsky that he had decided to join the Association of the Wanderers. Kramskoy, being one of the main inspirations of this creative association, took the initiative with enthusiasm:

Did you know what a good word you wrote: "I am yours." This word infuses my exhausted heart with vigor and hope. Go ahead!

According to the rules, admission to the Partnership was carried out after the candidates passed the "exponential experience," but an exception was made for the sake of Repin: he was accepted, neglecting formalities, in February 1878.

"Princess Sophia"

One of the first paintings that Repin began to write after moving to Moscow was "Princess Sophia" (the full author's name is "The ruler of Princess Sophia Alekseevna a year after her imprisonment in the Novodevichy Monastery during the execution of archers and torture of all her servants in 1698"). Researchers believe that for a deeper immersion in the theme, the artist even chose apartments for himself, taking into account the distance from the monastery: first he lived in Warm Lane, then in Bolshoy Trubny Lane.

The work lasted more than a year; Ilya Efimovich spent a lot of time outside the workshop, studying historical documents and materials that Stasov selected for him in St. Petersburg. For a detailed acquaintance with accessories, the artist visited museums and costume workshops of theaters, making many sketches there. Valentina Serova's mother Valentina Semyonovna, the sister of the composer Pavel Blaramberg Elena Apreleva and a certain dressmaker posed for Sofia Repina. Wife Vera Alekseevna Repina made a dress with her own hand according to sketches brought from the Armory. According to art critic V.N. Moskvinov, "from the technical side," Tsarevna Sophia 'is masterfully performed ":

The figure of the princess and the silver brocade of her dress, and the twilight of a cramped and stuffy cell, and the perfectly transmitted struggle of warm lamp light with cold smoky light flowing from a 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 delight the artist's friends. The same Stasov, who invested a lot of effort in its creation, wrote that for the image of Sophia Ilya Efimovich "did not find the necessary elements," and therefore he "was forced to compose a" pose. " Mussorgsky was also disappointed, who admitted that he saw on the canvas "the woman was not fat, but all vague to the point that with her huge size (in the picture), the audience had little space." Almost the only close person who supported Repin was Kramskoy, who called "Sophia" a historical painting.

Ilya Efimovich Repin. On the Mecha. V.A.Repina with children goes along the mesha. 1879

Vechornitsi, 1881 GTG

Годовой поминальный митинг у Стены коммунаров на кладбище Пер-Лашез в Paris, 1883, GTG

Ilya Efimovich Repin. Nicholas of Myra spares the death of three innocently convicted. 1888

Ilya Repin and Natalya Nordman-Severova in Penaty with guests - Maxim Gorky and his lover, actress Maria Andreeva. 1905

Artist Ilya Repin (right) and writer Korney Chukovsky on the day of Leo Tolstoy's death in "Penates." Kuokkala, St. Petersburg, 1910. Photograph: Karl Bulla/Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow

Best work

Иван Grozny his son Ivan on November 16, 1581, 1885. GTG

L. N. Tolstoy on arable land, 1887

Surgeon Evgeny Vasilievich Pavlov in the operating room, 1888

Didn't wait, 1888, GTG

The arrest of a propagandist, 1889, 1892

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy on vacation in the forest, 1891

Cossacks write a letter to the Turkish Sultan, 1891. TIMING

Portrait of composer Nikolai Andreevich Rimsky-Korsakov, 1893, Timing

Calvary. Sketch. 1896

Приезд царей Иоанна и Петра Алексеевичей на Семеновский потешный двор города Moscow enrollment of young falconers in amusing, 1900, timing

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy barefoot. 1901. TIMING

Portrait of Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov, founder of the Gallery, 1901

Portrait of the Minister of Finance and Member of the State Council Sergei Yulievich Witte. Study for the painting Solemn meeting of the State Council. Oil on canvas. 81 × 81 cm, 1903 GTG

Portrait of the writer Leonid Nikolaevich Andreev, 1904

A.S. Pushkin at the act at the Lyceum on January 8, 1815 (1911)