The Recipe for Success: Repin’s Painting Barge-Haulers on the Volga and Stasov’s Conception of Russian Art

Ariela Shimshon

doi:10.3390/arts10040085

Abstract

Barge-Haulers on the Volga is one of the most famous works of the Russian realist painter Ilya Repin. As I demonstrate in this article, on the one hand, it brought Repin resounding success and, on the other, it molded his creative conception. The Russian art critic Vladimir Stasov outlined the artist’s success. In March 1873, Stasov’s poetic depiction of Repin’s painting, where he expressed his admiration for Repin’s talent, focusing on specific aspects that he contended had to be included in a perfect work of Russian art, was published in the daily newspaper Sankt-Peterburgskie Vedomosti. I attempt to show that Stasov’s praise had a devastating effect on Repin’s creative process. By examining Repin’s post Barge-Haulers successful works for this pattern, I show how the painter tried to incorporate every one of the “ingredients” that Stasov outlined and ultimately created a typified group of paintings documenting life on the periphery of the Russian Empire with those features, which marked his entire career.

Highlights

Painting Barge-Haulers on the VolgaBarge-Haulers on the Volga or Burlaki na Volge in Russian (Figure 1) is one of the most famous works by the Russian painter Ilya Repin, who later became the most iconic Russian realistic painter of his age
It was due to the combination of the choice of subject and its unusual dimensions (3 m wide) that it was chosen to represent Russian art in that major international exhibition
Slavophile ideologues, who attributed a Byzantine origin to folk tales from the imperial territories. Stasov claimed that these traditions, which the regime and the religious establishment were at pains to attribute to Slavic origins, were associated with the various peoples who made up the Empire. He contended that the folk tales had been rewritten to convey a monolithic picture of the Moscow-based religious establishment and to support his position he needed a realistic Russian national painter from the periphery

Summary

Introduction

Barge-Haulers on the Volga or Burlaki na Volge in Russian (Figure 1) is one of the most famous works by the Russian painter Ilya Repin, who later became the most iconic Russian realistic painter of his age. Those famous works, like Barge-Haulers on the Volga, epitomize Russian realist painting and marked Repin’s entire career. The first one that he related to was the narrow landscape, serving only as a backdrop This was important in order to distance national art from the academic art traditions: paintings created in the Academy of the Arts’ traditional style featured glamorized ideal settings, overloaded with details that, he wrote, were alien to the Russian viewer.The second ingredient was the human group, made up of various powerful figures. He accepted the suggestion of poverty in Repin’s work but gave it a novel interpretation: “Repin created his work to display the life of the real Russia, not to stir pity”

Stasov’s Ideology and Mentoring

Repin’s Success as a Result of Stasov’s Article

A Taste of Foreign Cooking

Religious

Reply of the Zaporozhian

Conclusions