Barge Haulers on the Volga

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Barge Haulers on the Volga: llya Yefimovich Repin

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Art Type: Oil Painting
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Creating Date: 1873
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llya Yefimovich Repin Oil Painting - Barge Haulers on the Volga

Keywords: Barge, Haulers, Volga

Work Overview: Barge Haulers on the Volga
Artist Ilya Repin
Year 1870-73
Medium Oil-on-canvas
Dimensions 131.5 cm × 281 cm (51.8 in × 111 in)
Location State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

Barge Haulers on the Volga or Burlaki (Russian: Burlaki na Volge, Бурлаки на Волге) is an 1870–73 oil-on-canvas painting by the Russian realist artist Ilya Repin. It depicts 11 men physically dragging a barge on the banks of the Volga River. They are at the point of collapse from exhaustion, oppressed by heavy, hot weather.[1][2]

The work is a condemnation of profit from inhumane labor.[3] Although they are presented as stoical and accepting, the men are defeated; only one stands out: in the center of both the row and canvas, a brightly colored youth fights against his leather binds and takes on a heroic pose.

Repin conceived the painting during his travels through Russia as a young man and depicts actual characters he encountered. It drew international praise for its realistic portrayal of the hardships of working men, and launched his career.[4] Soon after its completion, the painting was purchased by Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich and exhibited widely throughout Europe as a landmark of Russian realist painting. Barge Haulers on the Volga has been described as "perhaps the most famous painting of the Peredvizhniki movement [for]....its unflinching portrayal of backbreaking labor".

Repin was accepted into the Imperial Academy of Art in St. Petersburg in 1863. The academy at the time was known for its deep conservatism and leaning towards academic art, a fact that bred a sense of revolt and desire for change in many of its students.[6]

Barge Haulers was inspired by scenes witnessed by Repin while holidaying on the Volga in 1870. He made a number of preparatory studies, mostly in oil, while staying in Shiriaev Buerak, near Stavropol (Stavropol-na-Volge).[6][7] The sketches include landscapes, and views of the Volga and barge haulers.

The characters are based on actual people Repin came to know while preparing for the work. He had had difficulty finding subjects to pose for him, even for a fee, because of a folklorish belief that a subject's soul would leave his possession once his image was put down on paper.[8] The subjects include a former soldier, a former priest, and a painter.[9] Although he depicted eleven men, women also performed the work and there were normally many more people in a barge-hauling gang; Repin selected these figures as representative of a broad swathe of the working classes of Russian society. That some had once held relatively high social positions dismayed the young artist, who had initially planned to produce a far more superficial work contrasting exuberant day-trippers (which he himself had been) with the careworn burlaks. Repin found a particular empathy with Kanin, the defrocked priest, who is portrayed as the lead hauler and looks outwards towards the viewer.[10] The artist wrote,

"There was something eastern about it, the face of a Scyth...and what eyes! What depth of vision!...And his brow, so large and wise...He seemed to me a colossal mystery, and for that reason I loved him. Kanin, with a rag around his head, his head in patches made by himself and then worn out, appeared none the less as a man of dignity; he was like a saint."

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One group of Soviet Realist artists, of which today’s featured painter was one, was the Peredvizhniki, which was also known as The Wanderers or The Itinerants in English. This group of painters was formed in 1863 in St Petersburg as a protest at the academic restrictions of the official art center, the St Petersburg Academy of Arts. Sounds familiar? It should be, as in the past I have talked about the breakaway of artists from Academic control in both France and England. The St Petersburg Academy, like other Academies in Western Europe, was associated with neoclassicism. Neoclassicism was based on the ideal of beauty seen in ancient Greek and Roman art and looked to the Italian Renaissance. The St Petersburg Academy of Arts was no different. It wanted its student to depict not Russian subjects but more traditional art-historical themes: classical history, legends and myths. In 1863, fourteen artists broke away from the Academy in protest of the proposed topic for the annual Gold Medal competition, which was to be the mythological subject of the Entrance of Odin into Valhalla. These fourteen painters believed that this subject was too remote from the real life of Russia and that the academic style of neoclassicism was much too constricting. Having left the Academy, they organized themselves into a society on cooperative principles and developed their own educational program and in 1870 set up a touring group to exhibit their work known as the Society for Travelling Art Exhibitions. The Society maintained its independence from state support and their travelling exhibitions allowed them to take their art, which illustrated the contemporary life of the people from Moscow and Saint-Petersburg, to the provinces.

The artists adopted the style, which could be termed critical realism. Their aim was to depict their homeland and the life and history of their people from a truthful and democratic standpoint. The artists depicted the working class folk in a favourable and often heroic light but at the same time tore into their corrupt upper classes and aristocracy depicting them as oppressors and enemies of the workers. Their paintings often highlighted the totally unacceptable and unbearable living conditions that the working class people had to endure. It should be remembered that even though the first Russian Revolution was still more than 30 years away, and that unlike other Western European countries, Russia was a country where the political freedom to express oneself was strictly prohibited. However things were changing. Tsar Nicholas I died in 1856 and a year later the Russian armies were defeated in the Crimea. There was a hint of reform in the air but it was only in the arts, whether it be paintings, literature or the theatre that there was an opportunity to express one’s views. With this in mind the members of the Peredvizhniki believed it was their duty to effect change to the living conditions of the working class. Our featured artist today, Ilya Repin wrote succinctly that artists come from the people and that the people expect art should reflect a clear understanding of conditions and nature.

Today’s featured work is second painting by Repin which I have looked at in a blog. The first one was a painting, entitled Easter Procession in the Region of Kursk (My Daily Art Display of August 29th 2011) Today’s work is entitled Barge-Haulers on the Volga which he completed in 1873. An alternative title is Burlacks on the Volga. A burlak was a Russian nickname for a person who hauled barges and other vessels upstream from the 17th to 20th centuries. The word itself came from the Tatar word bujdak, ‘homeless’. Before us is a river scene. The barge in the painting’s title is relegated to a minor role in the right background and if you look closely you will see in the distance, behind the barge, a small steam-powered boat, which makes us realise that at the time of the painting we were at the onset of the industrial age and the days of using human beings to haul barges was coming to an end.

It is a magnificent portrayal of a group of eleven men, dressed in rags and bound with leather harnesses, who struggle with their backbreaking task at hand, the towing of a barge along the waters of the River Volga. This painting is looked upon as being one of the best works of the Peredvizhniki movement. The men we see before us are simply human pack mules. This painting focuses on the difficult life endured by the peasantry at that time. Look how Repin has portrayed the barge haulers. It is a hot day and the men seem to be at the point of collapse and exhaustion as they lean forward in a desperate effort to keep the laden barge moving. The painting is not just a testament to the peasant’s heroic efforts but it is a damning condemnation of the people that have set them this inhumane task.

The young optimist
There is an added touch of heroism. Look at the line of men. All but one of them is dressed in drably-coloured clothes. In the middle of the line one man stands out from the others. He is a fair-haired young man, dressed in slightly brighter colours. He is not exhausted and bent over like the others. He stands upright and proud as he looks out over the river. He is not humiliated by his menial and backbreaking task. His spirit, unlike the others, is not broken. He scans the horizon and in this gesture we realise he is not just scanning the river, he is looking to the future – his future.

Repin, who was twenty-six at the time he started this work, formulated the idea for this painting during a summer holiday he spent near Stavropol, close to the river Volga in 1870. He had spent three months there with his brother Vasily and friends. During that time he took a boat trip down the Volga and watched the gangs of barge haulers. Initially he made many oil sketches of the area and the men working on the riverbanks and the people we see in the painting were real people. One was a former soldier, one and artist and one a defrocked priest. The former priest’s name was Kanin, who became a good friend of Repin, and he can be seen as the lead hauler of the group wearing a bandana. From the dialogue Repin had with the barge haulers he was shocked to find that at one time most of them had held relatively important positions in society but had since fallen on hard times. Although not shown in this painting, there would often be women employed as barge haulers and the number in a barge-hauling gang would normally be more than the eleven Repin has depicted.

Vladimir Vasilievich Stasov, who was looked upon as the most respected Russian critic during his lifetime, said of the way Repin depicted the barge haulers:

“…They are like a group of forest Hercules with their dishevelled heads, their sun-tanned chests, and their motionlessly hanging, strong-veined hands. What glances from untamed eyes, what distended nostrils, what iron muscles!…’

and of the painting itself, Stasov commented:

“….with a daring that is unprecedented amongst us [Repin] has abandoned all former conceptions of the ideal in art, and has plunged head first into the very heart of the people’s life, the people’s interests, and the people’s oppressive reality… no one in Russia has ever dared take on such a subject…”

Despite its critical message of how the upper classes badly treated its workers, the painting was bought by the Tsar’s second son. After the Russian Revolution the art collection of the grand duke was nationalized and it is now housed in the State Russian Museum in St Petersburg.

Repin commented on the paintings of the Russian Social Realist artists and what they achieved, saying:

“…The pictures of those days made the viewer blush, to shiver and carefully look into himself…. They upset the public and directed it into the path of humaneness…”

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Ilya Repin, who would later become a leader of the group known as the Wanderers, was born in Chuguev, in the Ukraine. His father was a soldier and Ilya’s childhood was marked by poverty and hardship. His first lessons in drawing and painting came as he worked for an icon painter in his hometown. When he had saved enough money, he set off for St. Petersburg with the goal of entering the Academy of Arts. Within a year the young artist had developed his skills sufficiently to be accepted.
Barge Haulers on the Volga was the first painting completed by Repin after leaving the Academy. The idea for the painting came to him as he was walking along the riverbank and noticed a gang of barge haulers toiling as they passed a group of young people out on a picnic. To explore this theme further he took a boat trip down the Volga River. Although in his early sketches the haulers resemble exploited animals, as he studied their way of life, he began to see them as real people with individual personalities rather than merely caricatures in service of an idea. He also experimented with how to place them on the canvas to achieve movement and monumentality.
Like many members of the Russian intelligentsia of the day, Repin valued the physical labor of the common man as a worthy subject. His cast of characters reflects his determination to create a picture of universal, not just local, significance. All 11 are reflections of Russia itself; and no two are alike. They are men of various ages, physiques, and ethnic backgrounds, all part of the Russian Empire’s diverse mix of peoples. The depiction of the toil of peasants remained a popular and influential subject through the Soviet years, with special focus on realistic, socially concerned images of Russian life.
Repin is also known for his portraits. His subjects include peasants in his hometown, family members, and contemporary intellectuals. This exhibition features several Repin portraits including ones of his daughter Nadya, the art collector P. M. Tretyakov, founder of the Tretyakov Gallery, and the writer Vsevolod Mikhailovich Garshin, who authored many short stories with populist themes.

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llya Yefimovich Repin

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