Ilya Efimovich Repin

E. Valkenier, "La Tentation par Ilya Répine (1844-1930)," Revue de Louvre 31, pt.2 (1981), pp. 131-133
D. Jackson, The Golgotha of Ilya Repin in Context, Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University, Vol.50, No.1, 1992, p.2-15
D. Jackson, The Russian Vision: the Art of Ilya Repin, BAI, Schoten, 2006, pp. 237, 259, 262, 281

Original canvas. There is a layer of light surface dirt and some very minor surface scratches to the top right and lower left corners and two repaired tears to the sky, to the left and right of the figure. There are areas of craquelure. UV light reveals retouching to the aforementioned tears and some other minor patches of retouching to the sky. Held in a gold painted moulded plaster frame. Unexamined out of frame.
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This dynamic and emotional oil sketch pertains to a major work with which Repin struggled throughout the 1890s during a period of intense and protracted professional introspection: Get Thee Behind Me Satan! (here described as 'Tentation' in the certification of authenticity on the reverse, signed in 1932 by Repin's children Yuri and Vera). In a decade when the artist came to question the literary-narrative character of Russian realism, quit the Peredvizhniki, and returned to the reformed Academy to institute progressive teaching methods, Repin's output was marked by the search for more aesthetic and painterly experimentation. This led him occasionally to deeply ambitious feats of combining freer techniques and intellectual depth in what might be seen as an early tendency towards expressionism. Repin's first reference to the work is made in a letter of October 1891, and the finished canvas exhibited at the Peredvizhnik exhibition of 1901. It was later destroyed by fire, during the Second World War, but was described by eye-witnesses as a curious combination of a spiritually inspiring Christ (based apparently on the Turin shroud) confronted by a theatrically vibrant Satan. The dichotomy of this vision of good resisting evil is apparent in this surviving study: light and colour serve to polarise the characters, as does the sense of tranquillity on Christ's side contrast with the explosive animation of Satan. Although opinion was divided on the work, due perhaps to Repin's modern execution of a traditional subject, with hindsight it can be seen as a courageous attempt to tackle a profound and difficult subject, the spiritual essence and philosophical significance of Christ's renunciation of worldly power.

We are grateful to David Jackson, Professor of Russian and Scandinavian Art Histories, University of Leeds, for providing this note.