Artist of the Month: Ilya Repin

My my time does travel fast when your having fun. Its already February and time to feature another favourite artist. In keeping with last month, February is dedicated to another great Russian artist, and why not?, Ilya Repin. As usual I knew Repin's work long before I ever heard his name. The painting above attracted my attention as a child and I've loved it since for ever. Its called 'Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks to Sultan Mehmed IV of the Ottoman Empire' and it shows the Cossacks telling the Turkish emperor where to go after he demanded their surrender. I didn't know that when I first saw the painting though. I was attracted to the general composition of the image, and the way the various characters in it were displayed. Repin actually intended the picture to be a study in laughter, and that's quite obvious when you examine it in detail. When it was finished after 11 years of work, 'Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks...' was the most expensive painting ever sold in Russia. Czar Alexander III bought it for 35,000 rubles.


Repin is perhaps the most famous Russian artist after Kandinsky, though in point of fact Repin was born in the Ukraine so he's technically not a Russian at all. Like Vasnetsov, Repin was a key figure of the Russian revivalist movement, but his most famous works transcend that genre, showing a depth of psychology and realism that you just don't find in most Russian art of the nineteenth century. Regard the picture below as an example. It is the 'Easter Procession in the Region of Kursk' and is a mirror on contemporary Russia, showing the various social strata and the conflicts between them. '17 October' is another example of how Repin uses an apparently straight forward painting to illustrate contemporary reality. Whats interesting about '17 October' is the prominence of the Russian colours in a painting meant to illustrate the birth of communism. A lot of Repin's work is like this. Layers of obscure social detail, often hidden by the mist of time, just waiting to be deciphered by the adventurous art student.