With all the breadth of his artistic interests Repin was still primarily a portrait painter. A profound connoisseur of people and a psychologist, he knew how to see in his works the essence of an individual human character, while at the same time revealing in the image he created the features typical of a whole social layer, in the characteristics of an individual, allowing him to see the signs of the era.
Already on the threshold of the 20th century, Repin created a remarkable, one-of-a-kind canvas – a grandiose group portrait of the “Session of the State Council,” written by an official government order. The task set before the artist was very difficult. It was necessary to portray on the canvas more than 80 dignitaries who were present at the anniversary meeting, while respecting the strict order in the location of each of its participants.
Repin brilliantly coped with all the difficulties of the compositional and pictorial solution of the painting, avoiding a false pomp. On the contrary, the picture leaves the impression of an impartial, sharp denunciation of the true essence of the ruling elite in pre-revolutionary Russia. In the process of working on the painting Repin etudes-portraits of her characters were written. Performed in a free broad manner, most often in one or two sessions, these sketches are one of the highest achievements in Repin’s work.
The portrait of Pobedonostsev is one of the best of them. Among the high-ranking dignitaries of the autocracy, Pobedonostsev was one of the most terrible figures. A convinced reactionary, a merciless strangler of any shoots of freedom, he personified all the obscurantism of his time. Outwardly correct, restrained, dryly polite, he was as if deprived of natural human feelings. So he presented it in his portrait Repin.
The thinnest, barely perceptible shades of color, free, as if even careless, but in reality subordinate to exactly verified pattern strokes, imprinted, or rather, revealed dry, smile-free lips, cold eyes half-closed with centuries-old eyes, the whole sanctimonious appearance of a person incapable of living spiritual movement devastated and merciless. This one, painted in such an unusual way for Repin, but such a natural manner here, is one of the most powerful and artistically perfect works of Repin, completing the period of the artist’s creative flowering.
(2 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5)