Ilya Efimovich Repin is a world famous artist who, with the help of painting, touched upon topics that worried the public. A prominent representative of Russian painting of the XIX-XX centuries, teacher, professor, one of the key figures of Russian realism, full member of the Imperial Academy of Arts.
Biography
Childhood
Ilya Efimovich Repin was born on August 5, 1844 in Ukraine, in the Kharkov province, in the city of Chuguev. Father's name was Efim Vasilievich (he lived for 90 years). The head of the family every year was forced to travel to the Don region 300 miles away (the territory of the Rostov region), bringing herds of horses from there to resell them. Three times he participated in military campaigns in the Chuguev Uhlan regiment.
Mother's name was Tatyana Stepanovna (lived 69 years). She was a literate woman, she read to children the works of Alexander Pushkin, Leo Tolstoy, Mikhail Lermontov, and she also organized a school for peasants. She highly appreciated knowledge, was versed in painting, poetry. But the family constantly had financial problems, and the woman took on any, the dirtiest job to educate the children.
Already in childhood, the future painter met with color, watercolors. They were brought to the Repins' house by Ilya's cousin, Trofim Chaplygin. Since then, the idea of transforming the world has never left the child.
At the age of 11, the parents assigned the boy to the prestigious at that time - the Chuguev school of topographers, where they taught children drawing and filming. At the age of 13, he was transferred to the icon-painting workshop, to the icon painter Ivan Bunakov. Even then, the talent of the future artist was shown.
Youth
At the age of 19, the young man decided to study at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. But the first time I failed to enter, so I had to get a job in an evening drawing school to improve my skills. Entering the Academy for the second time, the young man was lucky.
During the time spent within the walls of the educational institution, he made many friends - this is the master of landscape Vasily Polenov, and the professor of sculpture Mark Antokolsky, and the critic Vladimir Stasov. But his main and favorite mentor, he considered Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoy.
Personal life of the master
The first marriage lasted fifteen years. His wife Vera Alekseevna gave birth to three girls and one boy. But Ilya Efimovich was ready to receive guests at any time, he was constantly surrounded by ladies who wanted to pose for new paintings. The salon guests were a burden to the wife. In one thousand eight hundred and eighty-eight, during the divorce, the older children remained with their father, the younger ones went to live with their mother.
The second wife of Ilya Efimovich was the writer Natalya Borisovna Nordman, who wrote under the pseudonym Severova. Their acquaintance took place in the artist's studio, where Nordman came with Princess Maria Tenisheva. Later, the painter moved to her in the Penata estate, located in Kuokkala. In 1914, having contracted tuberculosis, Natalya left Kuokkala. She went to one of the foreign hospitals, refusing the financial assistance that her husband and his friends tried to provide her. She died in Locarno.
Creation
Repin succeeded in all genres - painting, graphics, sculpture. He created a wonderful school of painters, declared himself as an art theorist and an outstanding writer. The three most famous paintings:
- "Barge Haulers on the Volga". The idea to paint a picture appeared in the late sixties, when he went to the Neva River and saw the barge haulers for the first time.
- "Ivan the Terrible kills his son." The creation of this canvas by the artist was inspired by the music of N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov. After he listened to his new piece "Revenge". Feelings were overloaded with the horrors of our time, he wanted to find a way out of the painful in history. It depicts the moment when Ivan the Terrible, having inflicted a fatal blow on his son, experiences a tragic moment.
- "The Cossacks write a letter to the Turkish sultan."The painting depicts the Zaporozhye Cossacks, who together make up a letter to the Ottoman Sultan. During the Russian-Turkish war, the Sultan demanded to submit to him, to which he received a letter in which the Cossacks cruelly ridiculed him.
last years of life
Having moved to Kuokkala, the painter was forced to lead a secluded life. He kept in touch with his former surroundings by means of letters. The postman brought many envelopes to the artist every day. Ilya Efimovich answered each of the letters personally.
After the October Revolution, when Kuokkala became Finnish territory, the painter was cut off from Russia. He became close with Finnish colleagues, made significant donations for local theaters and other cultural institutions. But at home, Repin did not become a stranger, moreover, he was declared a classic, and Stalin even equipped a delegation to return the artist to his homeland. Ilya Repin died on September 29, 1930 and was buried in the park of the Penaty estate.
The fate of the children
Daughter Vera, having served for some time at the Alexandrinsky Theater, moved to her father in Penates. She later moved to Helsinki (Finland). Nadezhda, who was two years younger than Vera, graduated from the Christmas women's courses for medicinal assistants in St. Petersburg, then worked in zemstvo hospitals. After a trip to the typhus epidemic zone, she began to suffer from mental illness. Living with her father in Kuokkala, Nadezhda almost never left her room. Yuri followed in his father's footsteps and became an artist. Repin's youngest daughter Tatyana taught at the school at the end of the Bestuzhev courses. After the death of her father, she and her family left for France.
