This painting made Ilya Repin famous overnight, but it took him three years to paint it. It typifies his meticulous approach to a subject, which involved extensive research and observation, studies and sketches.
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Repin actually travelled down the Volga River, became acquainted with individual barge-haulers and familiarised himself with the tiniest details of their existence. The
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The exhibition in Groningen offers viewers the unique opportunity to see the painting in the same room with some of the sketches, just as Repin preferred. It is fascinating to see how he struggled with the composition and with the number of figures. Not until the end does he add, in a prominent place in the middle, the young blond boy Larka, who is trying to free himself from the constricting strap and is said to represent the new Russians and their hunger for greater freedom. The painting, in fact, became a part of history itself, in that it increased awareness of the plight of the poor.
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‘The Volga Barge-Haulers' also demonstrates Repin's debt to western European art. This particular composition was probably inspired by a painting by the Dutch impressionist Jozef Israels. Repin knew the European masters well, and absorbed so much from them that even when you encounter one of his paintings for the first time there's a sense of recognition. He was particularly indebted to Rembrandt, and his paintings in turn h
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