Ilya Repin

worm
4 Comments »



Watching a programme on Russian art the other week, I was alerted to the existence of arguably the most popular russian artist, Ilya Repin. I had never heard of him. Looking at his pictures, which are technically excellent, and powerfully political, I thought it rather shameful that here in the 'west' we have been arrogant enough to ignore most russian art as rudimentary and overly kitsch, when in fact (pre-communism) it can be of equal or even better standard than much of our own canon, and it's a shame that in this instance and others we seem to have closed our minds to the possibilty of other cultures having art of equal weight of our own.

Click on the pictures for the full effect

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4 comments:

Gareth Williams said...

The Andrew Graham-Dixon programme I assume. I only saw the one episode - the same as you I think - and thought it excellent and fascinating. I want to get to see the others so am keeping an eye on the iPlayer.

25 January 2010 at 13:05
worm said...

yes that was the episode Gaw - he talked about Repin at length, and I must say I found it fascinating like yourself. I think I like the Repin pictures so much because of the faces

26 January 2010 at 01:01
Kevin Musgrove said...

There is some superb Russian art, and we don't see enough of it in the west.

26 January 2010 at 14:29
Susan said...

A bit of decent figurative art for a change - how curiously refreshing.

26 January 2010 at 14:35

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