Ilya Repin. Grigori Sternin

was founded on his Barge Haulers, the artist’s thoughts on life in the Russian countryside after the reforms of the 1860s and on the lot of peasants who had to leave the land to take on seasonal work. However, this early canvas, in spite of the fact that it was based on preparatory work in open air, still shows a certain contradiction between the artist’s desire to remain true to life and his rationalistic approach to the composition of the picture which consequently acquired a somewhat spectacular quality. In the Chuguyev and Moscow years, the peasant theme, at first a simple expression of the artist’s social orientation, became an integral part of his realism.

      In 1877, Repin conceived a multi-figure composition representing the scene of a religious procession. He was attracted to this subject primarily because of the opportunity it afforded to depict a multitude of people of diverse character and appearance. The content of this composition and the complicated process involved in its completion will be discussed in more detail below. As a preliminary study, Repin painted a portrait of Ivan Ulanov, the archdeacon of Chuguyev. The result was a work far superior to what was usually achieved in such studies. Repin’s Archdeacon was soon shown at an Itinerants’ Society exhibition where it was highly praised.

      Repin’s contemporaries were astonished by the amazingly plastic quality of the picture and the artist’s ability to reproduce the vital force of human flesh. Repin himself saw in it “the echo of a pagan priest”, the “pagan” element completely dominating the picture. Archdeacon undoubtedly betrayed his knowledge of Western European art. One needs to think not of the French Impressionists – the aim of the painting is diametrically opposed to the tenets of French Impressionist art – but rather of the great masters of the seventeenth century, above all, Rembrandt and Velazquez. The artist’s desire to portray a certain type of man remained linked to the essence of the model. The strength of the living energy conveyed places the portrait of Ivan Ulanov on the borderline between art and action itself. One has the impression that the irrational elemental nature depicted is barely constrained by the artist’s wilful act of creation. While admiring Repin’s skills, contemporaries noted the awesome, almost magical power of the image. The flourish with which this portrait was executed, intimates not only the boldness of the great artist, but also some sort of frenzied invocation, the anger of the animal-tamer. The artistic power of Repin’s Archdeacon has something of the expressivity of a man-made idol. The work provoked the following comment from the composer Modest Mussorgsky, who perceived the elemental forces contained within the archdeacon’s figure: “What fearsome sweeps of the brush, what an abundance of space!”[5] This “pagan” motif probably never reoccurred with such consistent force in Repin’s work. But it is present in many of his ideas, reflecting an important aspect of the artist’s thoughts about Russia. In these thoughts two elements dominate, and both vie and interact with each other. One is a delight in the deep, primordial, “earthy” force of Russian reality; the other an awareness of the conflict between that force and the spiritual ideals of the age. In fact, Repin’s treatment of the peasant theme best illustrates this.

      Storm on the Volga, 1871–1891.

      Oil on canvas, 55 × 102 cm.

      The Russian Museum, St Petersburg.

      Repin travelled many different artistic roads in his attempts to grasp life in the Russian countryside after Alexander II’s reforms. He never lost touch with the people, with the social and moral outlook of the Russian peasant. In fact, this involvement was characteristic of the Itinerants as a body. Repin’s conceptions of epic scenes and vast multi-figure compositions are always accompanied by a desire to incorporate different typical characters.

      The artist was intensively seeking an image of his Russia – a Russia which lived in the expectation of divine benevolence. It was this innate feature of the popular consciousness which he tried to come to grips with. The Revealed Icon, The Miraculously Created Icon and A Religious Procession are the names Repin gives these different versions of his concept, each time linking – and this is very significant – the religious, ritual side of public life with historical and cultural symbolic meanings. The general narrative and compositional scheme at once took on a certain dramatic aspect: he wanted to show the different attitudes of the people towards the miracle-working icon at the head of the procession. This dominates the preliminary sketches for the canvas. Later on, however, the concept seems to have dictated the very process of its realisation, and forced the artist to change his original scheme. Thus two versions arose, differing both in form and in content.

      Vassili Grigorievitch Perov, Troika (Apprentices Fetch Water), 1866.

      Oil on canvas, 123.5 × 167.5 cm.

      The Tretyakov State Gallery, Moscow.

      Barge Haulers on the Volga, 1870–1873.

      Oil on canvas, 131.5 × 281 cm.

      The Russian Museum, St Petersburg.

      Portrait of Leo Tolstoy, 1887.

      Oil on canvas, 124 × 88 cm.

      The Tretyakov State Gallery, Moscow.

      Ivan Kramskoi, Portrait of Leo Tolstoy, 1873.

      Oil on canvas, 98 × 79.5 cm.

      The Tretyakov State Gallery, Moscow.

      Repin was to return many times to his first version, which has come to be known as Religious Procession in an Oak Wood, begun in 1877, changing individual elements and even whole groups of figures. Some scholars have rightly suggested that here he depicts the procession as if it were part of some outdated superstition. It was for this canvas that the artist needed the “pagan” image of the archdeacon. The procession itself is pageant, more reminiscent of rural mummers than of a serious ritual act.

      The second version of the picture, which Repin began later and completed in 1883, was destined to become the more popular of the two. It was called Religious Procession in Kursk Province (1880–1883). The story told in the work has been slightly altered: in a time of drought a crowd of people is moving across the parched earth. They are carrying a miracle-working icon to a nearby church or monastery, carrying it in such a way as to observe at least the outward forms of the ritual procession. It is not a homogeneous gathering – the viewer will immediately detect a great variety of social types and characters. Depicted here is not just a stream of people but the flow of life itself, a life bereft of joy, full of profound contradictions, social hostility and inequality, but a life which never stops moving for a moment. By placing rough peasant clothes and colourful holiday caftans next to a range of city attire, Repin precisely illustrates the differences in class and wealth between those participating in the procession. The behaviour of the people and their attitudes to what is happening around them, suggests equally vividly another “hierarchy” within the crowd: from the sanctimonious piety of the gentry to the impetuous absorption of the hunchback.

      One aspect of the setting is very important, as has often been pointed out. In the first version the crowd is passing through leafy woodland; in the second it is moving along a dusty hillside covered with bare tree stumps. This image of wasteland was a significant sign of the times; when Repin returned home to Chuguyev after his trip abroad, he wrote in distress: “Houses and fences seem to have sunk into the earth as if in a deep sleep, roofs have sagged… Only the exploiters of the land, the kulaks, are not sleeping. They have cut down my beloved woods, so full of childhood memories.”[6]