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NLY vaguely it is known outside of Russia that there is living and painting to-day in St. Petersburg one of the foremost of modern masters. Only dimly is it realized that in Ilia Répin the shifting pageant of Slavic life and scene finds one of its ablest interpreters. Yet for personal fervor, national feeling, or plastic vigor this forceful, veracious genius deserves to rank close beside Turgenev, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy in prose and Chaykóvsky in music. The story of Répin's career and achievement is the story of Russia during the past twoscore years. On his canvases glows the history of his country with all its possibilities, all its eager, baffled effort and sullen, misdirected power. His series of portraits constitutes a Pantheon of Russia's leading spirits; his naturalistic and mediaval compositions reflect with consummate conviction a troubled present and a sumptuous, barbaric past. The art of Répin is above everything a distinctly racial expression. It is to Russia, and Russia alone, that he has consecrated the clarity of his vision and the surety of his hand. And these gifts he has not dedicated to the narrow province of æsthetics, but to a broader, more beneficent humanity. At first his message seemed merciless in its unflinching truth, yet gradually it took on more and more outward radiance and inward beauty. Gradually the stern accuser who had so long continued taciturn and sardonic exhaled sympathy and fellowship. Though he seems to stand alone, Répin in essence belongs to that great succession of academic realists at whose head remained for so long the diminutive

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yet masterful Adolf von Menzel. Once the facts of life are at his command, Répin groups them with resistless scenic appeal. He composes as well as observes. His art is both individual and typical; it is both portraiture and panorama.

Early in November, a trifle over forty years ago, there knocked at the portals of the Imperial Academy of Arts in the city by the Neva a young Cossack from the Government of Khárkov. He was pale and shy of manner, with masses of brown hair clustering about brow and ears, and under his arm carried a portfolio of sketches. The lad had come all the way from Chugúyev, an isolated village amid the steppes of Little Russia, his entire capital consisting of fifty roubles and a consuming desire to become a painter. Born in 1844 of a martial father and a gentle, solicitous mother, Ilia Répin soon displayed a taste for graphic expression. When a mere child he used to draw pictures for his sister and her playmates as well as cut figures out of cardboard and model animals in wax. Though delicate, he was sent to the communal school and later to the near-by Topographical Institute, but on the closing of the latter was apprenticed, at the age of thirteen, to Bunákov, a local painter of sacred images. So rapid was the boy's progress that within three years he was able to support himself, receiving anywhere from two to five, and even twenty roubles for a religious subject or the portrait of some wealthy villager. It was while working in the church of Sirótin that Répin first heard of the eager, ambitious life of the capital with its possibilities so far beyond the limitations of provincial endeavor. Certain of his comrades told him not only of Copyright, 1906, by Charles Scribner's Sons. All rights reserved.

the Academy, but of Kramskóy, the leader of the new spirit, who had lately paid a visit to Ostrogorsk, bringing with him the fashions of St. Petersburg and the ferment of fresh social and æsthetic ideas. When, at nineteen, he finally stood facing the twin sphinxes that solemnly guard the temple of art on the Vassíly Ostrov, Répin realized that he must begin anew, that much he had so laboriously learned by himself must be forgotten. After spending a year in preliminary study, during which he met Kramskóy, who expounded to him with compelling magnetism the gospel of reality, Répin entered the Academy, naturally finding its stilted routine cold and listless beside the rigorous, wholesome creed of his earlier master.

Exhibitions. It is to this society, with its hatred of classic and mythological themes and its frank love of refreshing outdoor scene, that Russian painting owes its present vitality. It was this clear-eyed, open-minded group of enthusiasts who first made it possible for the Slavic artist to go among the people, to listen to the secret

song of the steppe.

Although he passed six years at the Academy, Répin was never in sympathy with its ideals, nor did he in any degree absorb its traditions. Beyond everything he strove to attain an explicit truthfulness of rendering. The grip of the external was already strong upon him, the magic of visible things exercised its own imperative appeal. So conspicuous was the young radical's talent that in 1869 he was awarded the small gold medal, and the following term, for his "Raising of Jairus's Daughter," obtained the large gold medal and the travelling scholarship. The summer after winning his academic laurels Répin went on a sketching trip down the Vólga-an event which, more than anything, opened his eyes to that serene beauty of nature and sorrowful lot of man which so long proved his inspiration. On his return, boldly and without prelude, Répin, at six and twenty, proceeded to paint what is generally acknowledged to be the first masterpiece of the modern Russian school.

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Ilia Répin.

It would have been impossible for a young artist to have come to the capital at a more inspiring period. The era of reform which followed the liberation of the serfs was daily gathering impetus. Radiant ideas of freedom and progress permeated all classes of society. On every side were signs of regeneration, of a vast political and spiritual awakening. While the influence of such ardent apostles of the poor and the homely as Písemsky, Nekrásov, and Shchedrín found echo in the paintings of Pérov and Yarochénko, it was not, however, until the very month Ilia Répin journeyed northward from his distant home that the movement, so far as art was concerned, took specific shape. On November 9, 1863, under the leadership of Kramskóy, thirteen of the ablest students of the Academy rebelled against soulless officialism, left the institution, and formed themselves into an independent body. The little band struggled precariously along for a while, but by 1870 was strong enough to establish the Peredvízhnaya Vístavka, or Society of Wandering

It is difficult to realize the vast distance which separates the "Barge-towers of the Vólga" from all that went before. These shaggy, sun-scorched creatures who wearily drag their heavy grain ship along endless sandy flats signify something more than a mere band of burláky. Gathered from every corner of the empire, of different ages and different sizes, they are one in dumb resignation, in fruitless, despairing revolt,

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suggest a great symphony of suffering, a whole cycle of human endeavor which began long since and must continue forever. The effect of the canvas is that of fulfilling mastery. The composition is inevitable, each of the types is accurately individualized, and everywhere radiates the glory of the free outdoors, not the bitumen and brown sauce of the galleries. At one stroke Répin placed himself at the head of his colleagues; with a single picture he may be said to have discounted decades of rococo and roman

only served to intensify his love for his native land. The Continental museums, with their remote, grandiose appeal, held no message for his observant, nature-loving temperament. He succumbed neither to the mute antiquity of Rome nor to the gracious animation of Paris. All he cared for was the ferment of café and street life, but he could never forget those shabby, smokefilled student rooms where political and artistic questions were discussed with sacred ardor, nor those far-off stretches of waving.

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