Repin, Ilya (b Chuguyev, Ukraine, 24 July [5 Aug.] 1844; d Kuokkala, Finland [now Repino, St Petersburg region], 29 Sept. 1930). The most celebrated Russian painter of his day and a central figure in his country's cultural life. Although Bryulov and Ivanov had earlier won great renown in the West with a classical and a biblical picture respectively, and Aivazovsky had gained international success with his seascapes, Repin was the first Russian painter to achieve European fame with specifically Russian themes. In addition to portraits of a host of celebrities, he painted colourful scenes of Russian history, pictures of peasant life, and contemporary subjects in which he attacked political abuses and social ills; his friend Tolstoy said that he ‘depicts our national way of life much better than any other artist’. His main training was at the St Petersburg Academy, where he won a scholarship that enabled him to travel in Europe, 1873–6. He spent most of this time in Paris and returned there several times, becoming a highly respected figure in France (he was made a member of the Legion of Honour in 1901). Repin had mixed feelings about the Impressionists, who became a great artistic talking point during his scholarship period in Paris (their first group exhibition was in 1874). He admired their lively use of light and colour but thought their work was lacking in serious moral purpose. The importance he attached to such moral values was clearly evident in his first great success, Barge Haulers on the Volga (1870–3, Russian Mus., St Petersburg), which won a medal at an international exhibition in Vienna in 1873. He showed his social conscience in revealing the appalling working conditions of the barge haulers, but the picture also celebrates their dignity and fortitude.

In 1878–83 Repin lived in Moscow, then settled in St Petersburg, but he spent a good deal of time travelling in remote areas of Russia to gather material for his paintings. He was at his peak in the 1880s, when he produced most of his finest works, including The Zaporozhian Cossacks Writing a Mocking Letter to the Turkish Sultan (1880–91, Russian Mus.), a characteristically full-blooded evocation of Russian history; They Did Not Expect Him (1884, Tretyakov Gal., Moscow), showing the unexpected return of a political exile from Siberia; and Modest Mussorgsky (1881, Tretyakov Gal.), which is often considered his greatest achievement as a portraitist. Although he sometimes worked painstakingly for years on his big historical paintings, the portrait of Mussorgsky was a brilliant impromptu performance, produced in a few hours during a temporary improvement in the health of the dying composer; Mussorgsky himself referred to the ‘fearsome sweeps’ of Repin's brush.

In 1894 Repin began teaching at the St Petersburg Academy and became a revered figure among his pupils. Following the 1905 Revolution he resigned his post as he did not want to be associated with a government he considered ‘behind the times, stupid and ready for a complete downfall’. He returned in 1906 after pleas from his pupils but resigned for good in 1907. In 1899 he had bought a country estate at Kuokkola, which is near St Petersburg but at this time was part of Finland. After Finland declared independence from Russia in 1917 and closed the border, Repin found himself cut off from his native country and never returned. He remained highly respected there, however, and after Stalin's imposition of Socialist Realism in the 1930s he was extolled as an ‘artist-democrat’ and held up as a model for Soviet painters. Kuokkola is now part of Russia again and has been renamed Repino in his honour; his home there is now a museum dedicated to him.

REPIN, ILYA YEFIMOVICH

(1844–1930), Russia's most celebrated realist painter.

The future master of realism, whose genius with the canvas put him on par with the literary and musical luminaries of Russia's nineteenth century, Ilya Yefimovich Repin arose from truly inauspicious surroundings. His father, a peasant, was a military colonist in the Ukrainian (then, "Little Russia") town of Chuguev. His talent manifested itself early, and at age twenty, he entered St. Petersburg's Academy of Arts. His first major piece, The Raising of Jarius's Daughter, won him the gold medal in academic competition, and with it, a scholarship to study in France and Italy. Although the Impressionists at that time were beginning their critical reappraisal of representation, Repin remained a realist, although his use of light shows that he did not escape the influence of the new style. Upon his return to Russia, he developed a nationalist strain in his paintings that reflected the political mood of his era. In this work, he connected the realism of style with that of politics, bringing his viewers' attentions to the arduous circumstances under which so many of their fellow citizens labored, reflected in his first major work beyond the Academy, Barge Haulers on the Volga.

Although Repin was never specifically a political activist, he was nonetheless involved with other artists in challenging the conservative, autocratic status quo. For example, he joined with other painters who, calling themselves the peredvizhniki, or "itinerants," revolted against the system of patronage in the arts and circulated their works throughout the provinces, bringing art to the emergent middle classes. Moreover, they chose compositions that depicted their surroundings, as opposed to the staid classicism of mythology; Repin shifted from Jarius's Daughter to Russian legends, exemplified by several versions of Sadko, a popular figure from medieval, merchant Novgorod. More impressive, though, were those among his works that evoked the reality of all aspects of contemporary life, from the revolutionary movement to Russia's colonial enterprise, from The Student-Nihilist to The Zaporozhian Cossacks.

Repin also excelled as a portrait painter because he was able to communicate the psychology of his subjects. For example, his portrait of the tortured Modest Mussorgsky stuns with its ability to bring out varied aspects of the composer's personality. Repin's oeuvre includes portraits of most prominent liberals of his era, from Leo Tolstoy to Savva Mamantov, as well as the archconservative Konstantin Pobedonostsev. His paintings of historical figures, Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan and Tsarevna Sophia Alexeevna in the Novodevichy Convent, likewise stand out for their capacity to evoke the emotional.

Repin returned to the Academy of Arts in 1894, directing a studio there until 1907 and serving briefly as director (1898–1899). In 1900 he moved to an estate in the Finnish village of Kuokalla, outside of St. Petersburg, where a constant stream of visitors engendered a famously stimulating atmosphere. When Finland received its independence from the Russian Empire in 1918, Repin chose to remain there. The reacquisition of Kuokalla by the Soviet army in 1939 resulted in the renaming of the village to "Repino," a museum to the artist.

See also: academy of arts; nationalism in the arts

bibliography

Parker, Fan and Parker, Stephen Jan. (1980). Russia on Canvas: Ilya Repin. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.

Sternin, Grigorii Iurevich, comp. (1987). Ilya Repin. Leningrad: Aurora Publishers, 1987.

Valkenier, Elizabeth Kridl. (1990). Ilya Repin and the World of Russian Art. New York: Columbia University Press.

Louise McReynolds

Repin, Ilya (1844–1930). The most celebrated Russian painter of his day and a central figure in his country's cultural life. Although Bryulov and Ivanov had earlier gained great renown in the West with a classical and a biblical picture respectively, Repin was the first Russian painter to achieve European fame with specifically Russian themes. In addition to portraits of a host of celebrities, he painted colourful scenes of Russian history, pictures of peasant life, and contemporary subjects in which he attacked political abuses and social ills; his friend Tolstoy said that he ‘depicts our national way of life much better than any other artist’. His main training was at the St Petersburg Academy, where he won a scholarship that enabled him to travel in Europe, 1873–6. He spent most of this time in Paris and returned there several times, becoming a highly respected figure in France (he was made a member of the Legion of Honour in 1901). Repin had mixed feelings about the Impressionists, who became a great artistic talking point during his scholarship period in Paris (their first group exhibition was in 1874). He admired their lively use of light and colour but thought their work was lacking in serious moral purpose. The importance he attached to such moral values was clearly evident in his first great success, Barge Haulers on the Volga (1870–3, Russian Mus., St Petersburg), which won a medal at an international exhibition in Vienna in 1873. He showed his social conscience in revealing the appalling working conditions of the barge haulers, but the picture also celebrates their dignity and fortitude. In 1878–83 Repin lived in Moscow, then settled in St Petersburg, but he spent a good deal of time travelling in remote areas of Russia to gather material for his paintings. He was at his peak in the 1880s, when he produced most of his finest works, including The Zaporozhian Cossacks Writing a Mocking Letter to the Turkish Sultan (1880–91, Russian Mus.), a characteristically full-blooded evocation of Russian history; They Did Not Expect Him (1884, Tretyakov Gal., Moscow), showing the unexpected return of a political exile from Siberia; and Modest Musorgsky (1881, Tretyakov Gal.), which is often considered his greatest achievement as a portraitist. Although he sometimes worked painstakingly for years on his big historical paintings, the portrait of Musorgsky was a brilliant impromptu performance, produced in a few hours during a temporary improvement in the health of the dying composer; Musorgsky himself referred to the ‘fearsome sweeps’ of Repin's brush.

In 1894 Repin began teaching at the St Petersburg Academy and became a revered figure among his pupils. Following the 1905 revolution he resigned his post as he did not want to be associated with a government he considered ‘behind the times, stupid and ready for a complete downfall’. He returned in 1906 after pleas from his pupils but resigned for good in 1907. In 1899 he had bought a country estate at Kuokkala, which is near St Petersburg but at this time was part of Finland. After Finland declared independence from Russia in 1917 and closed the border, Repin found himself cut off from his native country and never returned. He remained highly respected there, however, and after Stalin's imposition of Socialist Realism in the 1930s he was extolled as an ‘artist-democrat’ and held up as a model for Soviet painters. Kuokkala is now part of Russia and has been renamed Repino in his honour; his home there is now a museum dedicated to him.

Repin, Ilya (1844–1930). The most celebrated Russian painter of his day, equally renowned for his portraits (his sitters included many of his most famous contemporaries) and for his dramatic scenes from Russian history, painted in a colourful, full-blooded style. He became professor of history painting at the St Petersburg Academy in 1894 and was an influential teacher, his pupils including Grabar and Serov. Jawlensky and Werefkin were among the students who reacted against what they considered his academic style. After the 1917 Revolution Repin retired to his country home at Kuokkala, near St Petersburg (now renamed Repino after him), but he continued to be a figure of massive authority in Russian art. With the imposition of Socialist Realism in the 1930s he was established as the model and inspiration for the Soviet painter.

Ilya Yefimovich Repin , 1844-1930, Russian historical and genre painter and sculptor. He studied in St. Petersburg and abroad and became the foremost representative of the realistic style in Russia. In his Volga Boatmen, The Arrest of a Political Offender, and The Terrorists Repin expressed criticism of the social order. His large historical paintings, e.g., Ivan the Terrible and The Cossacks Drafting a Letter to the Sultan, are his best-known works. Most of his pictures are in the museums of Moscow and St. Petersburg.