Tsar and Ministers, Repin
Palace Square where Bloody Sunday occurred
Simon and I had been traveling in Eastern Europe, deciding to fly from Warsaw, Poland to St. Petersburg, Russia in the summer of 2009. It was a wise choice, given the amount of art, architecture, history and beauty that this stately city has to offer. For the most part, Russian history is full of autocracy, cruelty toward the citizens and hardship. Out of all of those difficulties came some very rich and enticing art. To the right is a painting of the last Tsar of the Russias, Nicholas II and government ministers mostly appointed by him. It was painted by Ilya Repin, a magnificently talented and prolific artist who died during communist times. This painting gave me the impression of statesmen thinking that their places would remain static in Russian society. Ironically, change was coming with the early twentieth century revolutions. The Tsar who sits superciliously as the head of state could not anticipate that only a few years later he would be forced to abdicate. He and his family would be arrested, later murdered during the Russian Civil War and his ministers would also face similar fate, being executed or needing to flee the country. “Bloody Sunday” was one event, sparking the revolution with eventual overthrow of the unjust regime. Peaceful, unarmed demonstrators marched to the Palace requesting that the Tsar improve working conditions for the lower class citizens. The Imperial Guard shot into the crowd, killing and wounding a large number of people.
The Barge Haulers
“The Barge Haulers” created by Ilya Repin also hangs in the Russian Museum, the painting implying that the young man in the center will soon look like his companions due to the hard, abusive work. Another Repin painting that I found inspiring was “The Leave – Taking of a New Recruit”. In this painting we see a young man being made to join the Tsar’s military, leaving his village and his wife most likely to fight battles. Many Russian soldiers died in wars, never returning home and if they were lucky to come back, they were still kept under the Tsar’s power with no new freedom for their sacrifices.
The Leave - Taking of a New Recruit
Sergeevich Zhuravlev created the painting “Before the Wedding”. Here we can clearly view a very unhappy bride forced to marry someone of her parents’ choosing, not to her liking. I can’t imagine being cajoled into marrying someone about whom I could give a flip! Zhuravlev was an advocate of democratic reform, thus under surveillance by the Tsarist regime.
Before the Wedding
Being trained in military tactic and participating in battle campaigns, Vasily Vereshchagin graphically painted war as he had seen it. He was badly wounded in one battle with the Turks, while his brother had been killed. Afterward he began painting battle scenes while residing in Munich, Germany. I’ve displayed one of his paintings that profoundly affected me, hanging in the Russian Museum. The Russians are deceived into believing that they had won the war, but in the foreground we can see piles of corpses from both sides, so who actually won?
Vereshchagin - Turk - Russian Surrender
Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi was the son of a Greek derived shoemaker, but lost both of his parents at six years of age. He had to work at a church building site, grazing domestic animals to support himself. He had the good fortune to study at the St. Petersburg Academy of the Arts, specializing in the emotional expression and illumination of nature as well as the pursuit of beauty. I’ve included the painting “Nocturnal”, only one of his paintings on display.
Nocturnal
Konstantin Satvitsky was the son of a physician who demonstrated an interest in art early on in his life. His parents died in his teenage years, giving guardianship to his uncle, who sent him to boarding school. He later attended art school in St. Petersburg where he was known as a realist painter. “To the War” hangs in the Russian Museum, moving me emotionally, so I’ve displayed it here.
To the War
Nickolai Ghe was born to a Russian Nobel family of French origin. He studied at Kiev and St. Petersburg Universities in the Math and Physics Departments. In 1850, he gave up his science career, entered the Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg, where he won a gold medal for his painting. This provided him with a scholarship to study abroad and later he settled in Italy. The painting, “Peter I Interrogating his Son, Alexei” is one of Ghe’s many paintings. Peter the Great is infamous for the killing of this son.
Peter the Great Interrogating his Son, Alexei
Ivan Aivazovsky was of Armenian descent, growing up in the Crimea. He entered the St. Petersburg Academy of the Arts, graduating with a Gold Medal. Although he is mostly known for his seascapes and coastal paintings, he also worked as a Court Painter for the Sultan in Constantinople (today’s Istanbul), visiting the city on eight different occasions. He was the most prolific painter of his time with 6,000 works at his death in 1900. I am presenting his most famous painting “The Ninth Wave”. The shear energy in this painting held my attention for quite some time.
The Ninth Wave
To end, I am including a photograph of “The Church of Spilled Blood,” a monument to Tsar Alexander II, assassinated on this spot. The project was funded by the Imperial family and thousands of private donations. This Tsar had been known for his reform policies, including freedom for the serfs.
By Jennifer Horton Chadwick
The Church of Spilled Blood
California Gypsy 