05/08/2026
At the age of 28, he shocked the audience with "Boatmen on the Volga", at 35 - "Zaporozhtzi", at 40 - "Ivan the Terrible, killing his son."
The audience was literally bursting to see his paintings, attracted by the scandalous noise around their subjects ("a drunken priest!", "Count Tolstoy - and suddenly plows the earth"), whispered about the exorbitant sums that Repin requested for the simplest portrait, sneered at the darkening colors (dilutes, they say, out of stinginess with kerosene!).
Ilya Yefimovich was a great portrait painter.
The whole Epoch posed for him - unique people whom he loved, knew, and welcomed, and they responded in kind.
But Repin is also a tragic artist.
He wrote Mussorgsky. He died immediately.
Pirogov wrote the same story.
I wanted to write to Tyutchev, who soon fell ill and died.
He painted a portrait of Vsevolod Garshin (his Master also depicted him in "They did not Wait" and "Ivan the Terrible kills his son") - he rushed into the stairwell.
He painted Stolypin - the prime minister was soon killed.
Repin spent the last 30 years of his life in Finland, at his Penaty estate in Kuokkala.
I'll tell you about the Penates today!
Ilya Repin was born on August 5, 1844 in the city of Chuguev (Kharkov province).
REPIN IN THE "PENATES": HOW THE GREAT ARTIST BUILT HIS WORLD
In 1899, when Ilya Yefimovich Repin was fifty-six years old, he settled in a small house in the Finnish village of Kuokkala.
The bill of sale was issued in the name of the artist's wife Natalia Borisovna Nordman.
She became the owner of the land and buildings on it.
It was a gift from Repin to a woman who captivated him with her love, understanding and selflessness.
At that time, Repin was already 55, Natalia Borisovna was 19 years younger.
Repin admired Nordman's diverse interests and abilities.
She knew six languages.
At breakfast, I read Repin the news in foreign magazines — I translated it straight from the sheet.
She was an excellent photographer, was fond of theater, and studied sculpture.
She was composing, and her story "The Fugitive" was published in the Niva magazine.
In the story, Natalia Borisovna told about herself — how she, the admiral's daughter, the goddaughter of Tsar Alexander II, ran away to America at the age of 21 without parental consent, served as a farm worker, milked cows, cultivated a vegetable garden, was a governess and maid...
Natalia Nordman named the estate "Penates".
According to the beliefs of the ancient Romans, the Penates are the guardian gods of the hearth and family well–being.
Later, this word became a household word for a native home.
Not only the manor itself, but also every path, hillock, gazebo in it got their names.
For example, from the house, skirting a small pond on the right, was "Pushkin Alley", and the green lawn, framed by pine trees, was called "Homer Square".
On the day of Repin's 60th birthday, the Penates welcomed their first guests. V.V. Stasov arrived with his nieces. They liked the manor very much. Stasov wrote:
"...The day was wonderful! Mademoiselle Nordman took a lot of photos of all of us (she is a great craftswoman), we had dinner and very ceremoniously, in an 8-carbon glass huge cage that Repin had attached as a plein-air workshop, in the evening we went to the big sandy mountains above the sea, from where he wrote "What a vastness" - beautiful places!"
The estate of Repin and Nordman has become a meeting place for a wide variety of people.
K.I. Chukovsky, F.I. Chaliapin, S.A. Yesenin, V.V. Mayakovsky, V.G. Korolenko and many others visited here.
Repin received guests on Wednesdays.
On this day, at exactly 3 p.m., a flag was raised over the house, which meant that the owners were waiting for guests.
In the hallway, a brass Tam-Tam gong, imported from Paris, stood on a bamboo stand.
Above it, a poster painted by Natalia Nordman read:
"Take off your coats and galoshes yourself... Hit it merrily, harder in There-There... Open the door to the dining room yourself..."
Self-help is the motto of the Repin house.
Therefore, no one had to help anyone in anything.
In the dining room, the main attraction was a round table made by Finnish craftsman Pekko Hannikainen.
The central part of the table rotated and everyone, rotating it, could get any plate of food without resorting to outside help.
At the bottom of the table there were drawers where the guests put used dishes.
If someone violated the rules of self-help, they were subjected to playful punishment.
The culprit had to go up to the podium in the corner of the dining room and make a witty speech.
The guests often provoked Korney Chukovsky, who was a master of the conversational genre and impromptu.
The living room in Repin's house was distinguished by the simplicity of its decoration.
Sometimes it was called the "Venus room", there was a cast from the famous antique statue.
N.B. Nordman's desk was next to her, where she wrote various notes, articles and stories on ordinary days.
There was also a Becker grand piano in the living room, which the composer A.K. Glazunov had chosen for Repin.
Almost the entire second floor is occupied by Repin's workshop. The artist built it in the summer of 1906 and the following year, after giving up his professorship at the Academy of Fine Arts, became a permanent resident of the Penates.
According to Repin, he "spent the best hours of his life here in the workshop."
It was in this room that I. Glybovsky took the famous photograph of the artist with a palette on his belt.
The fact is that due to the heavy workload of constant painting, Repin's process of muscle atrophy between the thumb and index finger of his right hand progressed.
The artist has learned to paint with his left hand, which is usually used to hold the palette.
The invention, made at his request and project, was attached to the belt with straps, thereby freeing his hands for work.
Natalia Nordman died in 1914.
Since she was the legal mistress of the estate, her will is being read out, according to which the "Penates" became Repin's lifelong property, and then passed to the Academy of Arts on the condition that a museum house would be opened there.
However, the Academy was in no hurry to accept Natalia Borisovna's gift, arguing that it did not have the means to maintain such a museum.
To fulfill the will of his late wife, Repin donated 30,000 rubles to the Academy of Fine Arts.
After the death of his wife, Repin's children move in.
After the October Revolution, according to the decree on the independence of Finland, signed by V. I. Lenin, Kuokkala separated from Russia, and Repin, without leaving, turned out to be an emigrant.
In 1930, at the age of 86, Ilya Yefimovich Repin died.
According to his wish, the artist was buried here in the "Penates".
There are many photographs that show not only the house itself, but also the interiors, the park, gazebos, and more.
Most of the pictures were taken by Natalia Nordman, who was interested in photography and taught Repin how to shoot himself.
