"‘Barge­Haulers on the Volga" by Ilya Repine

WORKING AS AN ART DEALER

Lucía Casas & Antía Hermida 4º ESO 1

Table of contents 1. Introduction → ​ Page 3.

2. Formal analysis → ​ Page 3,4.

3. Formal qualities → ​ Page 4. a. Style → ​ Page 4,5. b. Interpretation → ​ Page 5. c. Context → ​ Page 5,6. d. Judgement → ​ Page 6.

4. The story behind it → ​ Page 6,7.

5. Conclusion → ​ Page 7.

6. Bibliography →​ Page 8, 9.

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1. Introduction.

In this project we are going to talk about a painting which we have chosen. We chose this painting because we thought that it expresses a lot of feelings and that it has a good and interesting story that we can talk about.

The author of this artwork is Ilya Repine. He was born on July 24 or August 5 1844 (We don’t know ​ the exact date) in Tchugueu and he died on September 29 1930 in Finland.

He’s one of the best professionals of realistic painting. His artistic formation was given by a local artist called M. Bunakov and when Ilya was fourteen years old he worked on Bucanov’s studio. Later, Ilya started to study in an academy in St. Petersburg, where he founded an association some years later. He travelled around Europe to learn more artistic techniques but he kept using human figures in his artworks. He was a teacher in the academy where he had studied when he was a child. After his girlfriend’s dead, he got invalid of his right hand and when he was 70 years old he learnt how ​ to draw with his left hand, but his paintings weren’t very good and he suffered an economic crisis.

In this project we are working as art dealers, we are analysing the ‘Barge­Haulers on the Volga’ artwork in the ​ The State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, and we are going to analyse the story and the quality of this artwork.

2. Formal analysis.

The painting we are going to talk about is called ‘Barge­Haulers on the Volga’. This painting was created during 1870­1873 when he was looking at ​ the working men ​ on the Volga river. Now, we can see this artwork at The State Russian Museum in St. ​ Petersburg, Russia.

When we first look at the painting what we can see is the sand, where there are some baskets, and eleven men working. All of them have poor, torn and dirty clothes and they look tired and sad but just the younger and blond man looks like if he’s going to protest.

The third man, starting from the right, is smoking a pipe. On the right of the background 3

we can see a big river and a big sailboat closer to the coast, it looks like a fishing boat because of the net and the working men, far away, there is a steamboat and some seagulls flying. On the left, there is another fishing boat, smaller than the closer to the coast, which is aground in the middle of the river. On the top of the background, there is a sunny sky with a few clouds.

The subject of the painting is one of the men who are working in the river, the blond and younger one. He‘s the subject because of all the men who are in the painting, he’s the one who’s protesting. It hasn’t been changed since it was made. In this artwork there are two curious symbols: the first one is the russian flag on the mast of the big sailboat, but it is upside down, with this detail, Repin shows that he’s absolutely against this hard work. The second one is the steamboat which is far away from the coast, the one in this painting, it represents the new time.

3. Formal qualities.

The materials that the painting is made of ​ is ​ oil­on­canvas, the size of the painting is 131.5 cm × 281 cm. We can see that the artwork was made in an straight on perspective. The colours that the author used change from warm to cold, for example, the sand is painted of a colour between yellow and orange, which is a warm colour, but the sky and the river are painted in blue, which is a cold colour. In general, the atmosphere of the artwork transmits us tired and sad feelings because of the men’s faces, how they are dressed and the way they are walking. We think that if the men were not in the painting, it would be a very different atmosphere, because it is a sunny day on a river coast.

a. Style.

Ilya was one of the most famous russian realist painters, he is famous because of his realistic portraits, he studied in an academy in St. Petersburg and eventually in the Academy of Fine Arts. In this artwork, Repin shows us the Barge­Haulers, who were men 4

that worked dragging boats against the current of the river, a very hard work on Repin’s time. At the beginning, other painters and critics believed that he was another normal artist, but when they saw his painting, they thought he would be one of the best.

b. Interpretation

Barge­Haulers on the Volga was the painting that gave fame to Ilya Repin. He was part of a group of painters that rejected academic painting and they always did realist painting, their artworks were based on social critic. Repin decided to create this artwork because he was against both, this kind of jobs and a country which treated their people like that. One of the things why we know that, is because he painted the Russian flag upside down.

With this painting Repin wants to express the suffering and the exhaustion of the working men. One of them is looking at us, his way of looking is defiant, it looks as if he was blaming the person who is looking at the painting of the social inequality. The warm colours and the light of the artwork help us to understand that it’s not a happy environment.

Ilya made this painting because he wanted that the people saw what was happening in this jobs, so it was made to be exposed in museums and in art galleries.

Illya uses the colours, the faces and the men’s bodies to show how extreme and hard was the situation and the work that they were going through . What we said before are the evidences that justify the interpretation of this artwork.

c. Context.

Normally, Ilya used to do portraits and he’s very famous because of that and he was followed by other painters, he used a lot of details in his artworks like in this one but the difference is that this painting is not a portrait. This painting was made at the final of the nineteenth century, but in the twentieth century Ilya’s artworks started to be the model to 5

be followed of the soviet realist painting. Ilya was part of a group of painters lead by Iván Kramskói, that rejected the limitations of St. Petersburg Art Academy.

d. Judgement. ● Antía: I think that this is a really good artwork because Ilya shows exactly how hard was men’s work, with the colours and their faces we see what he wants to show us and everybody understands it and I think that is very important in an artist and a painting. ● Lucía: I think that the painting is a very good work that expresses the bad conditions that people were going through with the colours, the men’s positions, the faces… and Ilya was a very important painter because he had many difficulties in his life and in his degree.

The criteria that we use to judge this painting is the style, what it was made for and where it was made.

4. The story behind it. ● Lucía: ​ When I saw the painting for the first time, I thought that it was a modern artwork and that the men were slaves who were working in the sea. Because of their faces I thought they were tired, exhausted, sad… They are wearing poor clothes and they are tied with a cord and because of that I thought that they were slaves who worked every day and the boat shows that they travelled a long time through a lot of countries to get money for their boss.

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● Antía: ​ When I saw the painting for the first time I thought that the people we can see are slaves who are in a european country and maybe they have come from other countries. In the artwork we can see the moment when they arrive to their new country where they are going to work, maybe making boats or cleaning things. In the artwork there is a boat, and I thought that it is the one who left them on the beach.

5. Conclusion.

In this project we have learnt how to analyse an artwork in different parts, we knew a new painter unknown for us and the story behind this painting, which we think that it is really interesting. What we liked the most about this project was researching the story behind the artwork and what we didn’t like was doing the formal qualities.

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6. Bibliography. ● J. R. Fernández de Cano. Repin, Iliá Yefímovich (1844­1930). MCN Biografías. http://www.mcnbiografias.com/app­bio/do/show?key=repin­ilia­yefimovich [27/01/2015] ● Cultural

Institute.

Barge

Haulers

on

the

Volga

1870­1873.

https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/asset­viewer/barge­haulers­on­the­volga/WAG 9_bL0sypwYQ?hl=en&projectId=art­project ​ [28/01/2015] ● V. V. Stasov. Repin’s Painting ‘The Volga Barge­Haulers’. Russian Paintings. http://www.russianpaintings.net/doc.vphp?id=782​ [30/01/2015]. ● Nineteenth­Century Russian Art: “Ideological Realism”. Dartmouth College. http://www.dartmouth.edu/~russ15/russia_PI/Russian_art.html ​ [30/01/2015] ● Prominent

Russians:

Ilya

Repin.

Russiapedia.

http://russiapedia.rt.com/prominent­russians/art/ilya­repin/ ​ [01/02/2015] ● Barge

Haulers

on

the

Volga.

Wikipedia.

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January

2015.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barge_Haulers_on_the_Volga ​ ​ [03/02/2015] ● Harteconhache. Ilya Repine­ “Los sirgadores del Volga.” Tumbrl. June 10, 2014. http://www.elcuadrodeldia.com/post/90343842398/ilya­repin­los­sirgadores­del­volga [04/02/2015] ● Pablo Méndez. Bateleros del Volga, de Ilia Repin. Planeta Historia. 18 April 2014. http://www.planetahistoria.com/2010/04/sirgadores­del­volga­de­ilia­repin.html [06/03/2015]

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● Los

Sirgadores

del

Volga.

Viaje

a

Samara.

11

September

2014.

http://tursamara.com/lugares­de­interes/monumentos/los­sirgadores­del­volga/ [10/02/2015] ● Salvalc82. Los Sirgadores del Volga, de Ilya Repin. La Memoria del Arte. 13 August 2013.

http://lamemoriadelarte.blogspot.com.es/2013/08/los­sirgadores­del­volga.html ​

[13/02/2015]

Presentation link: ​ http://antiahermida.wix.com/workingasanartdealer

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