Ilya Yefimovich Repin and What Freedom!

'What Freedom!' (1903) by Ilya Yefimovich Repin; The State Russian Museum,
St. Petersburg

I don't know that many Russian painters so this is a good opportunity to add another one to my small list of Russian painters so far. Ilya Repin, born on 5 August 1844, appears to be one of the greatest Russian painters and entered the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg at the age of 19. This coincided with an event that was important to the artistic movement in the 1860s. The event became known as 'The Riot of the Fourteen'. Fourteen young students left the Academy after having refused to use mythological subjects for their diploma work. They were strong believers that art should be close to real life. Repin would become one of the leading members of the Peredvizhniki, the so-called Wanderers, a group of Russian Realists. The painting shown here is called 'What Freedom!' and I absolutely love it. I couldn't really make the image bigger because it would then cross over the line to the right side bar so you cannot see the smile on the woman's face. But I want you to see it so click here and click again on the image to enlarge it. The woman looks so happy and the man too actually. I came across a blog where photos of the house/museum that belonged to Repin are shown. Beautiful!