Ilya Repin (1844-1930)

Ilya Repin was born July 24, 1844 in the family of a settler in the town of Chuguev near Kharkov. The boy's mother moonlighted, describing Easter eggs. Ilya helped her in this. Later, he entered the workshop of icon painter Bunakova.

After a while, Repin is already taking part in painting rural churches. Accumulating on orders of $ 100, in 1863, he went to St. Petersburg, where he became engaged in the Drawing School of the Society for the Promotion of artists from RK Zhukovsky and I. N. Archaeology .

In the drawing school of his conquered confident perfection figure, which was owned by the teachers there. He tried to imitate them, but to no avail: it seemed to him that his own drawings looked as if dirtier and worse. Lack of faith in their own uniqueness and genius in its rightful championship left in him forever. He liked to call himself "a mediocre worker" and a daily hard labor working out their big name.

In January 1864, Ilya Repin is a student of the Academy. The Academy of knowledge and communication with Kramskoy continued, a young and very serious Kramskoj taught him to understand and see the art. "The artist has a critic of social phenomena - he said it - it must be the expression of the important aspects of social life." During exercise Repin communicated with a wide range of democratically minded youth, was fascinated by the ideas of Chernyshevsky. Through Archaeology friends with the St. Petersburg Artel of Artists, been on her "Thursdays." About Repin sensitivity to social events era shows a drawing of DV Karakozova before his execution.

Early artist's work is extremely versatile. He worked on the academic "programs" religious content, treating them more psychologically than sublimely an abstract manner. Such is the picture of the "Job and his friends" (1869), marked by a small gold medal. In his spare time Repin dabbled in genre "Preparation for the exam" (1864), portrayed the family and friends. The high skill of the young artist shows portraits: VE Repin (1867), the artist's mother (1867), GD Hloboschina (1868). In the portrait VA Shevtsova, the bride of the artist (1869), the psychological accuracy and seriousness of the transmission of external and internal features of the girl combined with the special beauty subdued colors.

In November 1863 thirteen academics led by Kramskoy asked the Council of the Academy permit for the competition program for a gold medal on their own plots. Council unanimously rejected. Then all the comrades out of Archaeology of the Academy. Thanks to the support provided to them by Tretyakov, they were able to assert their view of art. At this time in Moscow at the initiative Myasoedova was formed and the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions, which was joined by members of the farm Archaeology.

Under the influence of Archaeology Repin began work on his painting "Barge Haulers". The story originated while walking near St. Petersburg in the summer of 1868. Repin's attention was attracted by two groups, one of them - the motley "flower garden" ladies and gentlemen, and the other - the ragged boatmen who were pulling a barge along the Neva River. But for real burlaks Repin has ridden along with a young artist, a gifted landscape painter Fyodor Vasilyev, on the Volga, where he completed many portrait sketches. In the late summer of 1870 he brought his sketches in the Volga Petersburg. After three years there painting "Barge Haulers on the Volga" (1873), first became famous name Repin.

The picture is constructed so that the procession moves from the bottom of the viewer, the figures do not obstruct each other. This is done masterfully. In front of us - a string of characters, each of which - an independent personality portrait. Repin managed to put together a convention art form with an amazing full-scale conviction. The artist divides the band of boatmen into separate groups, comparing the different characters, temperaments, human types.

When Repin was working on "Barge Haulers", the time came graduating from the Academy, and he had to make a picture for the award - the first gold medal. The theme was biblical - "Resurrection of Jairus's daughter." The plot was given to him a long time, as long as he did not recall feeling that gripped his little sister after the death of Usti. This picture is admired professors, academicians and artists Wanderers, has been recognized as the best graduate of the paintings, and Repin was honored for its highest award - the first gold medal.

In 1873 Repin went abroad pensioner of the Academy. Fearing the social content of art, he did not take the works of contemporary Western artists. "The French are not interested in people - he remarked. Costumes, paint, lighting - that's what attracts them. " Abroad, written by "Paris Cafe" (1875), "Sadko" (1876) (for the painting Repin was awarded the title of academician), made a number of landscape sketches. In 1876, Repin prematurely returned to Russia, he settled in Chuguev, the year he moved to Moscow.

Settling in Moscow, visited Novodevichy Convent and met with the portrait of the princess Sophia, the eldest sister of Peter the Great, who lived there in the prison. Repin painting later write: "Princess Sophia in the Novodevichy Convent." On the canvas, in the words of Archaeology, Sofia is like locked in an iron cage tigress.

During these years, commissioned by the Tretyakov Repin painted portraits Aksakova Pisemskiy, Mussorgsky, Rubinstein, Pirogov Strepetova.

This breadth of interests, responsiveness talent - the basic properties of a creative nature Repin. At the same time, he was able to work on a completely different things in a different manner. Repin was accused of artistic promiscuity: "Today, he writes of the gospel, folk scene tomorrow on a fashionable idea, then a fantastic picture of the epic, the genre of alien life, ethnographic picture, finally, biased newspaper correspondence, then psychological study, then melodrama liberal, suddenly out of the Russian the history of the bloody scene, etc. There is no consistency, no specific objectives of, all by chance and, of course, a surface ... "- so Repin himself recounted the essence of these claims, often against his art, and with great indifference, replied:" What do maybe the judges are right, but do not go away by itself. I love the diversity. "

During these years he often and long staying in the suburban Abramtzevo and is one of the most active participants of Mamontov circle - a friendly community that it was at this time is a very important focus of Russian artistic life.

See also: http://ilya-repin.ru - site of the artist Ilya Repin.