The Most Outrageous Detail From Repin’s ‘Barge Haulers’ Painting: You Didn’t Even Notice It

At school, we all wrote essays, analyzing the roles and characters of barge transporters and their connection to the surrounding landscape. But we’re willing to bet – few people seriously paid attention to a small detail on the surface of the water. And she almost cost Repin a career that had just begun!

The artist’s sympathy for the plight of barge carriers was seen in many details. Observant researchers noticed an inverted Russian flag on a houseboat, and a “cage with a mermaid” in the same place, and a stone tied with a rope in the foreground of the image – it was assumed that in these shades Repin was encrypting how rotten everything was in Tsarist Russia, and in what desperation the simple people ready for change. Maybe it was like that…

A resident of the capital, Repin, for the first time observed in detail the work of barges on the Neva. By the way, he was not the only artist interested in this complex subject. Ship carriers were written by Vasiliev, Savrasov, Vereshchagin.

In 1870, Repin, as part of a group of comrades, went to the Volga to get acquainted with textured nature and work on sketches. The artist was then very young – he was not even 30 years old, and at the Academy of Arts he turned mainly to biblical subjects. Of course, the barge transporters left an indelible impression on him. But not so much the trials of his unenviable fate, but… the artistic expressiveness of the images.

“God, how wonderfully her head is tied with a rag, how her hair is curled up to her neck and, above all, her complexion!” Described Repin Kanin, who became the prototype of the key character of the artel.

“I must frankly admit that I was not the least bit interested in the question of life and the social system of contracts between barges and shipowners; I questioned them only to give a little seriousness to my work”, frankly admitted the artist.

However, voluntarily or not, Ilya Efimovich nevertheless included a detail in the final version of the painting “Barge haulers on the Volga”, which maximally emphasized the absurdity of the exhausting work of the artel.

You can see her on the right.

The steamer, happily rushing at full speed along the surface of the water, demonstrates that modern high-speed navigation existed on the Volga in 1870. However, exhausting and humiliating human labor turned out to be cheaper . The conclusion speaks for itself!

And officials could not resist him: after the world debut of the painting at an exhibition in Vienna in 1973, Minister Alexei Pavlovich Bobrinsky, noticing the steamer, expressed his displeasure at the “mockery”. The day before, before sending the canvas to Austria, an employee of the Ministry of Railways openly criticized Repin, arguing that “such transport is reduced to zero, and you paint a picture and bring it to the exhibition” .

However, serious trouble was avoided by Repin thanks to the highest intercession: “Burlakov” for his billiard room was purchased by Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich Romanov. He appreciates the work in terms of artistic qualities, completely ignoring the social background.

The noise around the image ultimately served Ilya Efimovich well: at the age of 30 he became famous not only in Russia, but also in the world.

Photo: Wikipedia