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Though active mainly in Russia, Ilya Repin was born in Ukraine and devoted many of his artworks to Ukrainian culture and history. At first glance, the drawing on view appears to be connected with Repin’s many paintings on the history of the Zaporozhian Cossacks—a group of people who lived in the steppes downstream from the Dnieper Rapids and were known for their fearlessness, strong military skills, and continuous struggle for autonomy.
In the statement to the left, the Soviet art historian Iosif Brodskii (1904–1980) claims that the present drawing is “one of the best preparatory sketches” from the Cossack series, and dates it to the 1900s. However, the poet and art critic Alexis Rannit (1914–1985), a friend of Whitney’s, suggested that it was a sketch for the oil painting Laughing Zaporozhets (1890). Our attempts to locate that painting have so far been unsuccessful. However, there is an old photograph of the painting, a copy of which is featured here. The art historian Igor Grabar, who published it, recounted that Repin created the painting when finishing his iconic multi-figure composition Cossacks are Writing a Letter to the Turkish Sultan (1880–1891, State Russian Museum, Saint Petersburg). The figure of the laughing Cossack had been part of that composition, but Repin eventually decided to paint a new figure over him. Before removing this figure from the scene, the artist created "Laughing Zaporozhetz," an oil painting that featured the Cossack individually.
The similarity between the drawing acquired by Whitney and "Laughing Zaporozhetz" is striking, and Alexis Rannit was right to associate them with each other. At the same time, his theory that the drawing was a preparatory sketch for the painting does not seem to be supported by the historical circumstances. While the painting was created in 1890, the drawing’s style and its so-called trois crayons technique—red, black, and white chalk on brown board—rather point to the late period in the artist’s career, which began in the 1900s. Could the drawing have been created a decade after the painting? For an artist like Repin, the process normally went in the opposite direction, from drawing to painting. It would have made no practical sense for him to transform an earlier oil painting into a new drawing.
Moreover, a number of specialists, including curators at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, believe that the Mead drawing does not reflect the high level of technical skill of the artist’s original work. Repin was recognized as one of the most talented draftsmen of his era—the virtuosity, elegance, and nonchalant confidence of his style astonished his contemporaries. It is hard to believe that at the height of his career, he could have created—to use Rannit’s words—a “blunt and heavy” drawing like the one on view. The upper right corner of the Mead drawing is also inconsistent with the 1890 painting. From the photograph of the painting, we can see that the ambiguous large piece of cloth is in fact an arm and an elbow. The producer of the Mead drawing does not seem to have realized this, as in his drawing, this fragment does not give any sense of the figure’s anatomy. While so far we do not have enough proof to assert that Repin was not the author of this work, for now we indicate our doubt by describing it as “attributed to” Repin.
Maria Timina for the exhibition "Art in Doubt: A Critical Examination of the Thomas P. Whitney Collection. Part 2" (2024)
Tags:
men; humor; rural; moustaches; dance; sketches; folk art; portraits; signatures; lines Subjects:
Men; Wit and humor; sketches; Dance; Portraits; Crayon drawing; lines (artistic concept); signatures (names) Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=AC+2001.120 |
