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The religious painting of the Itinerants was marked by an imaginative and psychological intensity that had not been seen since the days of Alexander Ivanov earlier in the nineteenth century.

During 1863, the year when the fourteen artists rebelled against the conservatism of the Academy, Nikolaï Gay’s powerful painting The Last Supper was exhibited in Saint Petersburg and roused passionate controversy. Dostoyevsky was among those who were disturbed by its realism and theatricality – the ghostly appearance of Judas, the disquieting shadows that fill the painting and, finally, the apprehension of the Apostles watching Judas leave, all contribute to the unusual atmosphere. The stakes were high, as many artists before him, including greats such as Leonardo da Vinci and Tintoretto, had tried their hand at portraying this biblical episode. But in his painting, the feelings of the characters, particularly exacerbated, deeply touched viewers. Gay set aside classical canons and yet achieved such an immense success (Emperor Alexander II himself bought the painting) that the Academy bestowed on him the title of professor. Later, he stated that it was by working on this painting that “he had at last grasped the modern meaning of the Holy Scriptures…” which was not a legend, but a real, living, eternal drama. Gay’s later pictures, which he described as an attempt to create a “Gospel in paint”, were no less shocking. In several of them Christ is shown in a very human state of torment, looking more like a political prisoner than the son of God – a notion so shocking that “Quid est veritas?” (“What is Truth?”) had to be withdrawn when exhibited in 1860 because it was regarded as blasphemous. Nikolaï Gay, contrary to Kramskoï or Polenov, did not intend to idealize the representation of Christ but wanted rather for the viewer to share in his suffering. This is apparent in The Calvary or in The Crucifixion. Christ resuscitated looks very human and he said, regarding this: “I will shake their brains by showing the suffering of Christ. I will force them to suffer without commiserating! After visiting the exposition, they will forget for a long time their small, banal concerns.” Through techniques and pictorial means such as contrast between light and dark, or the quickness of his brushstrokes, Gay managed to provide, with virtuosity expressive works that are very realistic.

13. Nikolaï Gay, The Last Supper, 1863. Oil on canvas, 283 × 382 cm, Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.

14. Alexander Ivanov, The Appearance of Christ to the People, 1837–1857. Oil on canvas, 540 × 750 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

15. Ivan Kramskoï, Laughter (“Hail, the King of the Jews!”), 1877–1882. Oil on canvas, 375 × 501 cm, Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.

16. Ilya Repin, St. Nicholas of Myra Delivers The Three Innocent Men, 1888. Oil on canvas, 215 × 196 cm, Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.

Nikolaï Gay was born into a noble family of French origin: his grandfather emigrated from France at the end of the eighteenth century during the French Revolution. The painter’s parents died when he was still a child. He was raised by his nurse, who taught him, as he later explained, compassion for the poor. All his life, he remained sensitive to the misery of others. He entered the Academy of the Arts in Saint Petersburg in 1850, after having studied physics and mathematics for some time at university. At the Academy, he took classes with Pierre Basin, a painter who specialized in portraits and historical subjects. But, according to Gay himself, he was far more influenced by Karl Briullov. This influence is obvious in works of Nikolaï Gay’s such as Leila and Khadji-Abrek (1852), The Judgement of King Salomon (1854) and Achilles Mourning Patrocles (1855).

All of these paintings, while very Romantic, correspond to the demands for classicism by the Academy. For his The Witch of Endor calling the Prophet Samuel’s spirit, he received not only the gold medal but also became an academician in 1857. He then travelled for six years. During this period, he discovered Germany, Switzerland and France and, in 1860, he finally settled in Italy. His interest in historical painting and portraits grew. In 1863 he returned to Saint Petersburg with his painting The Last Supper (1863). The following year Nikolaï Gay left the Academy where he was teaching to return to Italy, where he spent several years. He painted a portrait of his favourite Russian author, Alexander Herzen, in 1867. Upon his return to Saint Petersburg in 1870, he became one of the founders and directors of the Society for Itinerant Art Exhibitions. Then he turned his attention to the history of Russia. The painting Peter the Great Interrogates his son Alexaï in Peterhof (1871), once again provoked widespread interest. Anew, the painting told the story of a historical father-son conflict. His other historical subjects had no success, either with critics or the general public. The painter took this failure very badly and lost confidence in his talent. In 1876 he bought a domain and went to live there. He stopped painting and devoted himself entirely to breeding and farming. Early in the 1880s he came back to art thanks to Tolstoy, whom he met. The two became close friends. From this time on, he devoted himself to biblical subjects and to portraits. Among the most famous portraits are those of the writer Saltydov Shchedrin, the poet N. Nekrasov and of Leon Tolstoy and members of the Tolstoy family. Sanhedrin’s Judgement: He is guilty! (1892) was refused at the annual exhibition of the Academy of the Arts; The Calvary or Golgotha, (1893) remained unfinished, as for The Crucifixion (1894), it was banished by Alexander III. The artist died suddenly in 1894.

17. Ilya Repin, The Raising of Jairu’s Daughter, 1871. Oil on canvas, 213 × 382 cm, Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.

Kramskoï’s Christ in the Desert also caused a sensation when exhibited, in 1872. It shows Christ in a state of agonized indecision and dejection, hands clasped together out of tension, not in prayer. Kramskoï felt both impelled and daunted by the urge to paint Christ in a way that had never been attempted before, and said that he painted the picture with his own “blood and tears”. Repeatedly, the painter expressed his doubts as to what he was attempting to represent. “Is it Christ? No, it isn’t Christ, or, to be more precise, I don’t know who it is. It is more the expression of my own thoughts. (…) driven by the circumstances of life, I perceived of existence as something tragic. I very clearly saw that in the life of each man, created with variable success on the model of God, sooner or later a moment comes when he must choose which path to take: turn to the right or the left, betray God for a rouble or resist Evil.” This lends depth to the painting, which hereby represents the quest and the duty of every man rather than remaining a simple religious picture. As for the painting Laughter (“Hail, King of The Jews!”), he worked on it for five years before leaving it unfinished. “As long as we chatter lightly about Good and Honesty, we will remain on good terms with everyone. Try to put your ideas into practice and you will hear laughter spring up all around you,” he said. As the previous painting does, this piece goes further than simple picturing.

Both Repin and Vassily Polenov produced paintings of Jesus raising the daughter of Jairus. Although both admirably express Jesus’ charisma, Repin’s work is certainly richer in emotion. This is the painting that was given the gold medal of the Academy of the Arts in 1870. In it, the influence of Ivanov’s The Appearance of Christ to the People is gripping: sobriety in the relationships of colour, restraint and modesty in movements, this religious episode is solemn and profound.

Repin was born in a province of Kharkv (the Ukraine) in 1844. As of 12 years old, he joined Ivan Bounakov’s studio to learn the icon painter’s craft. Religious representations always remained of great importance for him. Later, he studied at the Academy of the Arts in Saint Petersburg from 1864 to 1873 under Kramskoï. The Tretyakov Gallery began to purchase his works in 1872. With his wife and children, he left for visits to Vienna, Rome and to study in Paris for two years, where he was strongly influenced by outdoor painting without, however, becoming an Impressionist, a style that he judged too distant from reality. Taken with French pictorial culture, he worked to understand its role in the evolution of contemporary art. From 1874 to 1875, he exhibited at the Paris Salon and participated in the Society for Itinerant Art Exhibitions in Saint Petersburg. A year later, he was named academician. Seen as one of the masters of realist painting, he devoted himself to portraying the lives of his contemporaries: the most renowned Russian writers, artists, intellectuals; peasants at work; the faithful in procession; revolutionaries on the barricades. There are also a number of portraits of his friends: Tolstoy, Gay…

18. Vassily Polenov, Returning to Galilee in the Power of the Spirit, 1887. Oil on canvas, 131 × 75.5 cm, Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.

19. Vassily Polenov, Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery, 1887. Oil on canvas, 325 × 622 cm, Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.

Two traits of Repin’s talent deserve special attention. He understood the pains of the people perfectly, the needs and the joys of ordinary lives. Kramskoï said on this subject, “Repin has a gift for showing the peasant as he is. I know many painters who show the moujik, and they do it well, but none can do so with as much talent as Repin.” In 1886, he made a good number of sketches on biblical subjects. He left to travel for a year and withdrew, in 1887, from the Society for Itinerant Exhibitions. In 1888 he worked particularly on St. Nicholas Saves three Innocents from Death to express his opposition to the death penalty. He went to Paris for the World Fair. In 1891, he was elected to the Governmental Commission for the Elaboration of New Statutes of the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts. A year later, he left the Society for Itinerant Exhibitions because he did not agree with the new statutes which limited the rights of young artists admitted to the Society. He became a member once again in 1897, the year in which he was named rector for a year of the Ecole Supérieur des Arts. Four years later he received the Order of the Legion of Honor. That same year, he painted several portraits of Tolstoy, whose spiritual authority he revered. He went as far as to immortalise Tolstoy as a ploughman. He was honoured in Helsinki in 1920, when he had been living in Finland for some time already. He worked on St. Thomas’ Doubt, The Prophet Elijah carried to Heaven, Jesus Christ and Mary Magdelena and, a year later, in 1923, a personal exhibition was consecrated to him in Prague. Next it would be Moscow and, in 1925, in the Russian Museum in Leningrad. The same year, he exhibited Golgotha in Oslo. He died in 1930 and was buried in the park of the “Penates”. Repin attained immense stature in Russia and outside of its national frontiers.

Polenov’s enormous Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery is so packed with worldly detail that it seems more like a secular painting than a religious work. During the later part of his life, Polenov produced a series of paintings inspired by Ernest Renan’s Life of Jesus (1863), a book that had a huge impact on artists and writers both in Russia and elsewhere. Indeed, David Frédérich Strauss and Ernest Renan who both wrote books entitled The Life of Jesus, brought to light the positive side of Christ’s life. This positivism had immense success throughout Russia, an even greater success than in the Occident, thanks especially to these two books. Renan’s book in particular emphasized another point that influenced many Russian artists, including Tolstoy, Nikolaï Gay, Kramskoï and, of course, Polenov. According to Renan, Jesus deserved to be called on by God, not because he possessed within himself something divine, but rather because he taught men to elevate themselves toward an ideal. Polenov was among those who were impacted by Renan. He therefore attempted to portray Christ as he was in reality. Thanks to trips he made to Syria, Egypt and Palestine, he was able to reproduce with an impressive number of historical details Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery. But his work cannot be limited to simple ethnographic, historic or geographical details. It raises the question of humanity. Christ is of the “best of men” and portraying him in this way was the objective of the painter and the historian. This work was displayed in the fifteenth itinerant exhibition.

Among the Itinerants, the evangelical theme played a very important role. Many paintings testify to Christian morals: giving of oneself, love of others, Christ’s suffering for his people… All of these scenes encourage the viewer to rise toward the ideal that he has set for himself. In addition, the theme of salvation particularly attracted Russian artists who, here again, found a way to better man and the human condition. It was more the idea of morals that had a value in and of themselves. Occidental art, to date, had never managed to raise itself to such a level of pathos.

20. Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, The Mother of God of Tenderness Towards Evil Hearts, 1914–1915. Oil on canvas, 100 × 110 cm, Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.