Ilya Yefimovich Repin
Ilya Yefimovich Repin is a Russian-Ukrainian artist and the author of hundreds of canvases written in realism. He was born in the village where the military lived. His father, Ilya Yefimovich, was a soldier. His mother was an intelligent and educated woman who taught children to read and write. Ilya’s love of drawing manifested itself from the moment he first saw watercolour paints.
As an eleven-year-old boy, he was assigned to a drawing school, and after its closure, to an icon painting workshop. Adult masters admired Repin’s abilities. In 1860 he moved to another workshop. Icon painters of this artel, moving from one city to another, found a lot of customers and earned more. Having saved some money, he moved to St. Petersburg to study at an art school. Kramskoy, his teacher and later his friend, played a significant role in his development as an artist.
In 1878 Repin joined a group of “peredvizhniki”, who was held up by the Soviet government as an artist to be imitated by the new school of Socialist Realists. The central theme of his work in these years is connected with the life of the Russian village. Later, he turns to the topic of the revolutionary struggle. At the same time, Repin shows himself as a brilliant portraitist: he painted portraits of V. V. Stasov (1873), M. P. Mussorgsky, N. I. Pirogov (both 1881), L. N. Tolstoy (1887). In addition, he creates his best historical canvases: “Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan on November 16, 1581” (1885), “Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks to Sultan Mehmed IV of the Ottoman Empire” (1878-1891). In the 90s. Repin temporarily broke with the “peredvizhniki”, but he returned to his former positions by the end of the XIX century. In 1893 he was elected a full member of the Academy of Arts.
During his great creative life, Repin painted almost three hundred portraits, taught at the Academy of Fine Arts, worked with the wanderers, and helped Tretyakov create the museum, which still holds his best works.
In recent years, Repin lived in Finland on his second wife’s estate and continued his paintings. The great artist was buried in the park, not far from home, as he had bequeathed.
For me, Ilya Repin is a great artist; since childhood, I have constantly seen his paintings in textbooks and creative encyclopedias. Significantly often, I came across a picture where Ivan kills his son. I can’t look at this picture for a long time because emotions are incredibly conveyed. There are always life and emotions in his paintings. And I like to feel it.
References:
https://www.theartstory.org/artist/repin-ilya/life-and-legacy/
https://www.theartstory.org/artist/repin-ilya/life-and-legacy/
https://www.wikiart.org/en/ilya-repin
https://www.wikiart.org/en/ilya-repin/ivan-the-terrible-and-his-son-ivan-on-november-16-1581-1885
November 15, 2021 at 7:11 pm
Liza,
Okay great post on this most interesting painter! You are the second student to post on him this term and a few in the past wrote about him as well. Solid info through your research and I like that you added some of your personal thoughts on him. Nice work. I’ll give you 2/2 on this post. Also your score in the mid term quiz was 32/50 which translates to a C+.
Jeff