"Did not wait": a picture of Repin in the context of other realistic paintings by the artist

Russian reality, its "poetic truth", as Ilya Repin wrote in a letter to Polenov, carried this great painter so imperiously that today in his paintings we can study Russian history.

The beginning of the way

The artist was born in a small Ukrainian town of Chuguyev, in 1844. The family lived poorly and hard. His unusual gift Repin showed in his childhood, when he made toy horses out of wax, from paper. Exhibited on the windowsill, these creations collected a crowd of admiring admirers. Ilya took up painting after the relative gave the boy a box of watercolors for Christmas.

At a local school of military topographers, where Repin studied at the age of thirteen, he enthusiastically draws portraits of his classmates and teachers. Two years later the school is closed, and Ilya Repin goes to the pupils to the Chuguyev icon painter. The brilliant talent of the young man finds recognition far beyond the city limits. Then Repin's decision arose to go to Petersburg and enter the Academy of Arts. After accumulating money, the young man sets out on his journey.

In Petersburg

In the fall of 1863, a young man became a student of the Drawing School of the Society for the Encouragement of Artists. In 1864, when Repin was 20 years old, the beginning painter was among the volunteers of the Petersburg Academy of Arts. His unique abilities and diligence helped him to become one of the most successful students of the Academy, and given that he was forced to earn a living besides his studies, we will see an unusually persistent and talented person.

Brilliant debut

Graduation work Repin was a picture of the Gospel story: "Resurrection of the daughter of Jairus." In the center of the image - the alarm and tension, condensed in a gloomy room. Working on the canvas, Repin recalled the tragic events in his own family when his beloved sister Ustya died. What sorrow and despair prevailed then in the house! In the painting, Christ went up to the deceased, took her by the hand. Brightly lit in her head of the candle, this bright spot becomes the semantic center of the picture. In the darkness are plunged other inhabitants of the house, at the end of a complete pain and sorrow of the night. Another moment - and a miracle of resurrection will occur. The greatest spiritual glow noted this canvas of a young artist (see photo).

"We did not wait" - another complete psychological and dramatic painting. His Repin will write much later, in seventeen years. The way to it lies through a deep comprehension of reality, which excites the artist's heart and, according to him, "asks for the canvas" herself.

Passion for truth

The eerie heart of Ilya Efimovich could not fail to respond to the contrasts, which are usually called social. During the journey along the Volga, the "master of truth" was deeply struck by the disharmony between the kind of idle crowd of idle gapers and exhausted boatmen pulling a huge barge along the river. Thus, a sensational canvas "Burlaki on the Volga" was born. Master focuses on expressing the faces of these people who will not tolerate, in their eyes harbor anger and rebellion.

Not surprisingly, Repin became one of the leading participants of the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions, in the bosom of which the canvas "Not Waited" was created. Repin's painting bears the features of democracy, which the Wanderers defended.

The revolutionary moods that wandered in modern Repin society, disturbed and interested the artist. A number of his paintings are devoted to the Russian revolutionary movement. Paintings "On the Dirty Road", "Arrest of the Propagandist", "Refusal of Confession" are represented to us by the images of rebels who believe fervently in their idea, but who have not found wide response from the people. Such is the canvas "Not Waited." Repin's picture, based on the story of the return of the revolutionary after a long exile or imprisonment home, is considered one of the most famous. The artist began to write it in 1884, and finished four years later. First Repin conceived the exile as a sacrificial and courageous man, but, true to the truth, depicted him without embellishment.

Repin's painting "Did not wait." Description

On canvas before us there is an acute and dramatic scene from life: the prisoner hesitantly and nervously enters the room where his relatives are. The author pays most attention to the experience experienced at this moment by each character. The stranger, indeed, did not wait. Repin's picture expresses the emotions of the heroes in the faces, gestures, and expression of the eyes . The action occurs outside the door, which opened a moment ago, and continues before us. In the background, we see a frightened face, not a servant or a stallholder, there is a maid in the doorway, her posture and eyes express suspicion. Towards the newcomer, an elderly woman, probably his mother, rose from her chair. We almost physically feel how eagerly she peers at her son, how her hand trembles. At the table, bending over to the tablecloth, a little girl, the daughter of a prisoner, who probably never saw him, looks at the guest with frightened eyes. To her right is the enthusiastic face of a schoolboy, he knows his father, perhaps according to his mother's stories, or his image lived in a child's memory of a boy. From the piano, a young woman, wife, turns to the thin man in worn out boots and a shabby coat. Her eyes shine with amazement and joy. Each character has its own story, and the whole scene is the beginning of a new story, in which there will be excitement, sadness, rejoicing. And we understand that that fear and anxiety, a seal of suffering and hardship, which are imprinted in the person of the head of the family who has returned home, will all calm down and be smoothed in the tender rays of love of close people. How ingeniously the artist caught this feature when relatives live by the thought of the return of an expensive person, although at that particular moment they did not expect him! Painting Repin in this sense - a masterpiece of psychology.