Ilya Repin in Paris. STAGES IN THE ARTIST’S ENGAGEMENT WITH THE CITY OF LIGHTS

Historically, Paris has proved irresistible to many of Russia’s greatest cultural figures - artists, writers and musicians alike. Vibrant and inspirational, simultaneously ancient and contemporary, it has always been a place of celebration, love and beauty. Ilya Repin visited Paris on various occasions in the last three decades of the 19 th century, leaving behind a fascinating record of the rich variety of experiences, both personal and artistic, that he found there.

“And here is a town called Paris; once here, you lose your mind, hop up and run around," the young artist wrote in a letter in 1873, giving his first impression of the city shortly after his arrival.[1] He was accompanied by his wife and infant daughter, and the family had travelled there from Russia soon after Repin's graduation from the Academy of Arts, where he had been awarded the institution's Gold Medal, which brought with it a grant for an extended study trip abroad: a great deal was expected of the artist who had already painted his celebrated work “Barge Haulers on the Volga".

At first, Repin was rather lost in the city's unfamiliar and hectic environment. It took him a long time to find a suitable apartment, complete with an artist's studio; a combination of money-related issues, feelings of uncertainty for the future and responsibility for his family, as well as his sense of not quite fitting in, weighed on him. He wrote to the artist Viktor Vasnetsov: “Indeed, one gets lost here and does not know what to do. And I also have to admit that I miss home. I wish I could come back and just simply get to work. Who am I here? I won't be able to understand them, and they will not
understand me."[2] However, writing to Vasnetsov again only a month later, his tone had changed: “Before I forget, here is my advice to you: start saving money, as much as you can, before May, and come here in May (when the yearly exhibition takes place). If you have time to see things on the way here, good; if not, no matter. It is only in Paris that one may learn the value and meaning of everything."[3]

Repin was not the only Russian visitor whose feelings about Paris would prove ambivalent. The city was both enticing and repelling - like a lively celebration that was nevertheless not intended for you. No wonder that the poet Ilya Ehrenburg, a long-term resident of Paris, wrote in 1911:

“And till the morrow, over the sickly Seine,
I think about happiness and
My futile life, gone with no trace
In Paris, the confounding, alien city."[4]

Filled with such conflicting emotions, Repin seriously considered returning to Moscow, but his feeling of insecurity soon gave way to a willingness to put himself to the test: the artist overcame his misgivings and decided to stay. He wrote to Ivan Kramskoi, the celebrated painter and critic: “My first impression of Paris was frightening but perfectly true; I was scared of what I saw. Those poor [artists], I thought, each of them probably going hungry, living in cold rooms with no heat, evicted from their studios. Shaking feverishly, with an unnatural exultation brought on by hunger and other deprivations, such an artist grabs a canvas and draws something vague, then throws in the most dramatic colours of mud (he does not even have proper paints, so he cuts up old paint tubes that have been lying around)... and there you are, a ‘painting' is finished; the artist notices that he has already started to ruin it, and stops before it is too late. He takes it to the store. One is dismayed living in such a city and wants to escape as soon as possible, but it seems shameful to run away from Paris the day after one's arrival. To be the laughing stock of everyone at home. Thus, I overcame my faint-heartedness and stayed in Paris for a whole year. I see much that is good every day. The climate suits me; I am perfectly healthy, and eager to work, no matter what."[5]

Ilya Repin. The Road to Montmartre, Paris. 1875-1876
Oil on cardboard. 24.3 × 32.3 cm. Tretyakov Gallery

Repin felt that it could all be a dream: he could hardly believe that he was living in Montmartre. The theatres, the museums and the exhibitions - and the company of elegant women - both made his head spin and frightened him, too. Such sentiments lay behind his painting “Sadko (Sadko in the Underwater Kingdom)", in which he depicted Sadko, the hero of Russian epic tales, as a young Russian merchant enchanted by the sight of beautiful women from all over the world who are caught up in a fantastic dance: an incredible light illumi nates the scene, set as it is in an underwater kingdom. Repin wrote to Vladimir Stasov, the leading Russian critic of the time, about his conception: “The naive and inexperienced Sadko is enchanted, but keeps his promise to the holy man to choose the girl who comes last, the Russian peasant girl. You can see that the idea is not the most original one, but it reflects my current state of mind, and maybe even the state of all Russian art, such as it is."[6] Repin had a clear idea of what he wanted to paint, but his work progressed slowly. As time passed, the hectic life of Paris took over, and the fairy-tale theme attracted him less and less. Repin felt drawn towards painting from nature, but many people already knew about his planned “Sadko", while he was also counting on receiving the fee from the sale of the painting. When the heir to the Russian throne, the future Tsar Alexander III, formally commissioned the work, Repin complied, albeit without much enthusiasm.

The artist was much more interested in another commission: the collector Pavel Tretyakov wished to have a representation of Ivan Turgenev, who spent a great deal of his time in Paris, for his Moscow “gallery of portraits". Repin was both flattered and excited to meet the celebrated writer, and he began painting the portrait in March 1874. “I found a place to live in Paris that was close to Turgenev's, so that it was easy for me to get there," he wrote in a letter at that time. “Ivan Sergeievich [Turgenev] received me with much kindness, and the first sitting went delightfully well... I was happy, and so was Iv. Serg.; he congratulated me on my success! Next day, in the morning before the sitting, I received a long note from Iv. Serg., where he elaborated that Mme. Viardot [Pauline Viardot, the celebrated opera singer, Turgenev's long-time partner] rejected this portrait completely. I absolutely was to start anew, and on a new canvas. And so it began - I painted slowly and painstakingly, and Iv. Serg. sat for me patiently and at length, but the result was not what I had hoped for."[7] The fact that Repin was painting Turgenev opened the door not only to the writer's home, but also to Pauline Viardot's salon, which was popular with many outstanding artistic and public figures of the period.

Ilya Repin. Portrait of Ivan Turgenev. 1874
Oil on canvas. 116.5 × 89 cm. Tretyakov Gallery. Painted in Paris

Later in his life, Repin recalled: “Turgenev enjoyed having fun in bachelor company. There was a modest little restaurant in the Latin Quarter, which, according to legend, had once been popular with such famous and beloved figures as George Sand, Heinrich Heine and others; as for us, we were often joined by the brothers Vyrubov, who were chemists, [the artists] Vasily Polenov, Pavel Zhukovsky (the poet's son), Alexei Bogolyubov and a few others. Dinner was 20 francs. Great wine - real Bordeaux! Iv. Sergeievich was the life and soul of the party. His student self came alive again!.. It made us deliriously happy!"[8]

The Russian artists living in Paris formed a “colony" that was led by Bogolyubov: it was he who had helped Repin obtain the commission for “Sadko", while Viktor Vasnetsov, Vasily Polenov, Konstantin Savitsky, Alexei Harlamov, Ivan Pokhitonov and Yury Leman were frequent visitors to his studio. Repin no longer felt the dejection of solitude, and more and more diversions appeared in his life, as he described in a letter: “On Sundays we get together in a big group and go to Compiegne; we play all sorts of games, tempting the French greatly. We sing together from sheet music and learn to ride horses at the Manege."[9]

The Repins spent the summer of 1874 by the sea in Normandy and returned in autumn to Paris, where their second daughter, Nadezhda, was born. This was the happiest time in the family's life. Repin was working on the portrait of his older daughter, Vera, which he had begun in the country: “Yesterday I worked on these two studies, and in the evening took a long walk in the fields. We adorned every fold of Verun'ka's [affectionate diminutive nickname for Vera] dress with poppies, and imagine, she sat for me as a supporter of the First Republic."[10] This portrait of the young girl was long considered lost, until in the 1980s the “Portrait of V.I. Repina as a Child" from the collection of the Tretyakov Gallery was X-rayed: it revealed the original image of Vera with poppies underneath the picture of her in a hat, sitting in a chair. Repin did indeed like to paint over his works, which in this case produced an entirely different portrait “in the manner of Manet". Repin did not respond immediately to the work of the Impressionists: at the beginning of his stay in Paris he was quite enthusiastic about the work of artists such as Alphonse de Neuville and Franpois Gerard, who are now relatively unknown. However, Repin was soon captivated by £douard Manet, and began trying his hand in an impressionist manner; according to the art historian Dmitry Sarabyanov, this was rather about “the possibilities that opened up before him, not where he was really heading [as an artist]."[11]

Repin admitted that the atmosphere of Paris itself stimulated his creativity, regardless of any other factors: “I wear a coat and a hat when I work in my studio; I throw coal relentlessly into the iron stove, but to no avail - my hands are always freezing; nevertheless, I go on working, while at home, in such cold I would have sat there doing nothing..."[12] Repin was warming to the charm of the city, with its lighthearted, free atmosphere; it appeared that the artist's Russian pensiveness and melancholy would soon give way to a French nonchalance. He wrote to Kramskoi: “I am really tempted to paint from nature, just to forget about subjects and ideas... The French are an incomparable people, almost ideal: a harmonious language, unaffected and tactful courtesy, swiftness, lightness, quick wit, a Christian forgiveness for the shortcomings of their fellow men, and perfect honesty. And yes, they can be proponents of the Republic. With us, human vices are elevated as pinnacles of creation; the French could not stand for that. They believe in beauty, all kinds of it. They have created an excellent language, and they are now creating a wonderful technique in art; they have even brought beauty - clarity and ease - into everyday human relations. Would it be wise for us to judge them from our standpoint?"[13]

As his appreciation of the Parisian way of life - perhaps a little shallow, but elegant, beautiful, lively and devoid of any strict puritan morality - grew, Repin developed the desire to paint this exciting life as the poet Yakov Polonsky had described it to Turgenev:

“But look down, and you will see another Paris,
With paintings, bronze and mirrors;
With thousands of resplendent lights –
With humming sounds in its boulevards
Of teeming crowds... Enjoy the sight,
And wonder at the splendour wealth can buy..”[14]

Repin wrote to Tretyakov: “I wish I could show you my painting where I have [collected] all the main Parisian types, together in a most emblematic location."[15] He was talking about his “A Parisian Cafe", for which he painted a number of excellent studies from life; measuring 1.2 by 1.91 meters in dimension, it was first exhibited at the 1875 Salon. Even though it was hung too high on the wall, to its detriment, an American visitor showed interest in acquiring it. However, Repin's asking price was so high that the sale fell through, and the work remained in his possession until 1916, when the Swedish collector Martin Monson bought it. (Monson's grandson would sell the painting in 2011: it was auctioned at Christie's for £4.5 million, breaking all records for the artist.)

Repin had come to France not long after the fall of the Paris Commune, and emotions were still running high: the relative calm in public life appeared temporary and fragile. “Paris is bustling, everyone is much more energized than last year; perhaps things are happening again.," he wrote to Polenov in Autumn 1874, “moving forward with giant steps, the city is re-establishing itself, repairing itself, and growing more beautiful, elegant and striking."[16]

Stories about the Paris Commune thrilled the Russians who resided in the city, and Repin, emotional and passionate by nature, could not have remained indifferent. As he recalled in his memoir “Far Away, Close By": “The French Republic was still very young, and living there at that time, I was amazed that no visas or passports were needed. There were also obvious reminders of the Communards' actions: the Vendome Column still lay as a mass of ruins all across the Place Vendome, the Tuileries Palace was destroyed, too, and the City Hall, once an equally magnificent building, was a spectacular and picturesque ruin as well... The entire country represented complete freedom for its young and enlightened people to be living a joyful life."[17]

Repin was an energetic man, and he liked the dynamism of the Parisians, seeing their vigour as key for their future successes. “Paris has gained a second wind, and there is a third one still to come; everything is alive and moving, working and enthusiastic. A lot of good things are happening to our art," he wrote in 1875.[18]

When Repin visited France for the second time in 1883, he would plunge into the social life of its capital. On this trip he was accompanied by Vladimir Stasov, and they attended exhibitions and visited museums and libraries together. In “Far Away, Close By" he remembered: “Vladimir Vladimirovich and I did not miss a single meeting held by the socialists. And on May 15 we were in the crowd at the Pere Lachaise Cemetery, by the famous wall along which not so long ago the Communard heroes had been executed. Everyone was still feeling the effect of the horrible events that the city had just experienced. On that day, there was a large communal celebration by that wall, which was generously decorated with bunches of red flowers and looked so festive. Lively crowds filled all the available space in front of the wall, with new groups arriving all the time with huge bouquets of red flowers... More and more people kept coming, and the tall cemetery wall was now completely covered with flowers, looking as red as a red Persian carpet. I wasted no time in drawing the scene in my pocket sketchbook. This experience was still fresh in my memory when I returned to my hotel, and I finished my little oil painting over the next few days."[19] The work in question was Repin's “The Annual Memorial Meeting Near the Wall of the Communards in the Cemetery of Pere Lachaise in Paris".

Repin's expectations, as he rediscovered the French capital, were not disappointed. He and Stasov lived on the top floor of a hotel on the Boulevard des Italiens; the room had a small balcony with a wonderful view. Repin wrote home: “Paris is gallant and the French are merry; I should rather say: Paris is merry, the French are gallant! Paris has become even merrier, more lively and beautiful!! You should see what they have built here! How charming is the Troc- adero Palace! What a view of the Seine it has! And most importantly, there is the constant, beautiful, elegant hum of the city's joyous streets! How much this rightful capital of the world has grown!"[20]

Repin had come back to the city that he knew and loved, but he was not enthusiastic about the state of French painting. He was not satisfied with what he saw at exhibitions, as he reported in a letter to Pavel Tretyakov: “This time around, Parisian art disappointed me. It is amazing how Paris stamps things out! They cannot see how low they have fallen, that the shallowness of their subjects has led to a shallowness of artistic form, and soon they will cease to exist if they do not make a sharp correction to their course."[21]

Repin's discontent with the state of French art did not detract from the admiration he felt for the reckless and effervescent city that he loved so much. Dedicated to the centenary of the storming of the Bastille, the Paris 1889 World Fair opened in May of that year; this unique Exposition Uni- verselle, including a variety of pavilions built on the Troc- adero Hill, was highly anticipated. Repin was travelling with his son Yury, and they came to Paris by train, directly from Russia, journeying second-class; on arrival, they could not find a room, as all of the hotels were full. They finally found acceptable accommodation, as Repin described to Stas- ov in a letter: “It was only at 12, Rue Geoffroy-Marie (Hotel Geoffroy-Marie) that I found a very good place to stay. Our room is like a small cabin on a ship, but it is clean, comfortable, and costs five francs a day."[22]

As soon as they could, the father and son went out to explore the main attractions. The Exposition Universelle defied imagination, with technological miracles on display that included steam engines, factory machinery, electricity, Daimler and Benz automobiles, and a vending photo booth. Delighted, Repin wrote to Stasov: “What an experience - I am not even in the mood to write... What a giant of a nation the French are! How much they have done here!!! You will see for yourself."[23] The Eiffel Tower, built specifically for the Fair, was the height of it all. A beacon of light at the very top of the tower shone with the red, white and blue colours of the French flag. Repin and his son climbed to the top of the tower and then had their photograph taken.

A number of Repin's friends were in Paris at the time. Together with Stasov, he visited the First Congress of the Second International. The artist took great pleasure in listening to a concert of Russian music at the Trocadero, and spent time happily with his fellow countrymen. In another letter, Repin recalled an evening that he had spent at the home of the sculptor Mark Antokolsky, “where we had such a happy time together and discussed at length all things Parisian", as well as “riding through this beautifully lit, restless, and incredibly crowded city."[24] In July, Repin travelled on to London, Zurich and Munich, where he continued to introduce his son to cultural treasures from all over the world.

Repin believed that one had to see the masterpieces of world art with one's own eyes. Since his son Yury was developing a serious interest in drawing, Repin decided to take him on an extensive European tour, and they returned to Paris in 1893. It was during this trip that Repin first tried his hand at writing: in his “Letters on Art", which he began publishing that October in “Teatralnaya gazeta" (Theatre Gazette), the artist elaborated on his impressions of Poland, Vienna, Munich and Italy. Finally, he reached the long-awaited French capital: “To Paris, to Paris! It is there that the latest artistic trends are established. I was going to say ‘the last word in art', but that naturally does not exist; as for the latest trends and fashions, however, we receive all of those from Paris. Indeed, the French are both exuberant and indefatigable in their quest for novelty. So many industrious people, who love what they do, work in every kind of art here and enjoy the support and encouragement of society as a whole, that no one has been able to compete with them for quite some time now. The rest of the world quickly adopts and copies their discoveries."[25] Nevertheless, Repin was disappointed with “the incredible number of awful, sloppy paintings"[26] at the exhibitions, some of which included works by the Impressionists and the Symbolists.

Repin loved “Paris, with all the wonderful things that we admire, and the great events that take place here, stir and excite one's imagination, animate and revive us."[27] In 1900, the artist visited the Paris World Fair both to show his own work at the Exposition and as a jury member for the painting section; he received the highest hors-concours award. This World Fair was organized on a spectacular scale, and Russia had a prominent presence: the Russian section took up a sprawling 24,000 square meters, including two pavilions dedicated to Russia's remote regions that were adorned with 24 decorative panels by Konstantin Korovin and Alexander Golovin. A whole “street" of Russian peasant izbas, log huts, was erected next to the craft pavilion. Alongside the novelties of technology and exotic ethnographic objects, Russian art proved popular with the public; among the renowned artists whose work was exhibited were Ivan Aivazovsky, Nikolai Kasatkin, Konstantin Korovin, the brothers Viktor and Apollinary Vasnetsov, Isaac Levitan, Vasily Polenov, Valentin Serov and Vasily Surikov.

In his jury role, Repin spent a great deal of time at the Exposition. He wrote to Alexander Zhirkevich: “You are hungry for art, while I gorge on it here, which causes indigestion. As a member of the jury, I am required to look at paintings all day and give my opinion on them... Yet, I do not regret having landed in this international group of artists - I was not mistaken when I thought that it would be beneficial. The French artists draw wonderfully well; they are clever people with their distinct point of view, energetic and persistent, too. I have been here for 26 days, and I have attended sessions every morning."28 A special dinner was arranged to celebrate the Gold Medals awarded to Mark Antokolsky and Ilya Gintsburg, about which Stasov wrote to his family: “There were quite a few toasts made. Repin declared that I was an anchor for all of them, and later also said that I was their champagne."[29]

Repin found Paris perpetually alluring: the city and the artist shared a fierce, irrepressible lust for life. Always inspiring and elusive in its spirit, in the generations to come the image of Paris would continue to resonate in the works of other Russian artists, musicians and poets who visited the city. It was an attraction that Valery Bryusov expressed very well in these lines from his 1903 poem “Paris":

“You offer chances; you’re the spirit of vitality,
You freely spread your wings, and their shadow
Still falls on our generations,
And here any day may turn sublime.”[30]

1. Repin, I.E. “Letters to Artists and the Arts Community". Moscow, 1952. P. 12. Translator’s note: Repin alludes to “Korobeiniki" (The Pedlars), the famous 1861 folk-style poem by Nikolai Nekrasov: “There’s a town called Paris: well, / One is bound to lose one’s senses / If one goes there, I’ve heard tell: / Everything on earth ‘tis famed for.".
2. Ibid. P. 13.
3. Department of Manuscripts, Tretyakov Gallery. F. 66, item 170, sheet 1 and 1 reverse.
4. Ehrenburg, I.G. “Poems". St. Petersburg, 2000. P. 125.
5. Repin, I.E. “Selected Correspondence. In Two Volumes". Moscow, 1969. Vol. 1. P. 88. Hereinafter - Correspondence.
6. Ibid. P. 96.
7. “Ivan Turgenev in the Memoirs of His Contemporaries". Volume 2. Moscow, 1983. P. 115.
8. Ibid. Pp. 117-118.
9. Department of Manuscripts, Archive, Historical Museum. F. 344. Item 42, sheet 77.
10. Correspondence. Volume 1. P. 136.
11. Sarabyanov, D.V. “Russian Paintings of the 19th Century among the European Schools". Moscow, 1980. P. 170.
12. Correspondence. Vol. 1. P. 89.
13. Ibid. Vol. 1. Pp. 93-94.
14. Polonsky, Y.P. “Collected Poems". St. Petersburg, 1896. Vol. 2. P. 265.
15. “Artists’ Letters to Pavel Tretyakov". Moscow, 1968. P. 154.
16. Correspondence. Vol. 1. P. 140.
17. Repin, I.E. “Far Away, Close By". Leningrad, 1986. P. 276. Hereinafter - Far Away, Close By.
18. Department of Manuscripts, Archive, Historical Museum. F. 344. Item 42, sheet 78.
19. Far Away, Close By. Pp. 282-283.
20. Correspondence. Vol. 1. P. 288.
21. Ibid. Vol. 1. Pp. 280-281.
22. “I.E. Repin and V.V. Stasov. Correspondence". Moscow, Leningrad, 1949. Vol. 2. P. 142. Hereinafter - Repin, Stasov.
23. Ibid. P. 142.
24. Department of Manuscripts, Tretyakov Gallery. F. 50, item 22, sheet 1.
25. Far Away, Close By. P. 418.
26. Ibid. P. 421.
27. Repin, Stasov. Vol. 2. P. 145.
28. Correspondence. Vol. 2. P. 161.
29. Repin, Stasov. Vol. 3. 1950. P. 198.
30. Bryusov, V.Ya. “Selected Works in Seven Volumes". Moscow, 1973. Vol. 1. P. 304.