Religious Procession in Kursk Province
Encyclopedia
Realism (visual arts)
Realism in the visual arts is a style that depicts the actuality of what the eyes can see. The term is used in different senses in art history; it may mean the same as illusionism, the representation of subjects with visual mimesis or verisimilitude, or may mean an emphasis on the actuality of...
painter and sculptor Ilya Repin (1844–1930). Completed between 1880 and 1883, the work shows a seething, huddled mass attending the annual religious procession (crucession
Crucession
A Crucession, or Cross Procession , is a procession that takes place in the Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic liturgical traditions. The name derives from the fact that the procession is headed by a cross....
) carrying the famous icon Our Lady of Kursk
Our Lady of Kursk
Our Lady of Kursk is an icon of Theotokos of the Sign, apparently painted in the thirteenth century and discovered in a forest near Kursk ca. 1300. It was preserved in the Black Hermitage of the Roots , an abbey founded on the spot of its discovery...
from its home at the Korennaya Monastery to the nearby city of Kursk
Kursk
Kursk is a city and the administrative center of Kursk Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Kur, Tuskar, and Seym Rivers. The area around Kursk was site of a turning point in the Russian-German struggle during World War II and the site of the largest tank battle in history...
in western Russia.
The procession is led through a dusty landscape by robed, Orthodox
Russian Orthodox Church
The Russian Orthodox Church or, alternatively, the Moscow Patriarchate The ROC is often said to be the largest of the Eastern Orthodox churches in the world; including all the autocephalous churches under its umbrella, its adherents number over 150 million worldwide—about half of the 300 million...
priests holding icon
Icon
An icon is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, from Eastern Christianity and in certain Eastern Catholic churches...
s, festoons and banners over their heads. Behind them follow a crowd mostly of peasants, but ranging from beggars and cripples, police and military officers to figures from the provincial elite. Religious Procession lead to controversy when first exhibited due to the icon being held by a man who appears to be drunk.
The work is a continuation of Repin's social commentary in his work, and hightlights perceived abuses by both church and state. He wrote of the work, " am applying all of my insignificant forces to try to give true incarnation to my ideas; life around me disturbs me a great deal and gives me no peace – it begs to be captured on canvas..."
Description
At the right, burly peasants carry a platform holding the icon inside an elaborate neo-classical case; only gleams of light reflecting off the gold rizaRiza
A riza or oklad , sometimes called a "revetment" in English, is a metal cover protecting an icon. It is usually made of gilt or silvered metal with repoussé work and is pierced to expose elements of the underlying painting. It is sometimes enameled, filigreed, or set with artificial,...
icon-cover can be made out. Lines of peasants joining hands hold back the crowd, the foremost at the left trying to stop the crippled boy breaking through the cordon with his stick. Alongside ride peasant or priest stewards and officials and police in uniform, some of the latter beating back the crowd with their riding crops. Behind the icon follow priests and better-dressed people, carrying icons in front of their chest, and an "effete, dandified and bored priest" in vestments carefully straightens his hair. There is a comic effect with a stout middle-aged woman in a yellow dress and bonnet carrying an icon behind him, who looks very like a priest in his vestments. An empty icon-case, presumably that of the icon carried by the wealthy woman behind, is carried with as much reverence as the icon itself. The hillside at right appears to have been recently cleared of timber, with fresh tree stumps. Further back another platform, holding what appears to be a circular icon, is preceded by two large banners, and behind that a large processional cross
Processional Cross
A processional cross is a crucifix or cross which is carried in Christian processions. Such crosses have a long history: the Gregorian mission of Saint Augustine of Canterbury to England carried one before them "like a standard", according to Bede. Other sources suggest that all churches were...
can be made out through the cloud of dust.
The Procession is representative of Repin's style from the period, in that it first appears to be a scene from everyday life in Russia. In fact, it pointedly shows people from a range of social strata united and moving collectively towards their destination at Korennaya. As a painter in the late Tzarist period, Repin was preoccupied by ideas of class, and often worked in an immense, monumental scale which he saw as befitting his subject matter. By showing each social class working alongside one another, Repin implies that all the people of Russia share common responsibility for their, and their country's, faith.
Provenance and critical opinion
The painting was highly popular, but controversial. The journal publishing a favourable review by the leading critic Vladimir Stasov published an editorial in the next issue dissociating itself from his views, and a second review by the editor. Stasov had made much of the violence of the riders to the crowd. Apart from Leo TolstoyLeo Tolstoy
Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist...
, who praised the painting and regarded it as neutral in its depiction of the social system, all were agreed that it was hostile to the established social order. Another reviewer noted with disapproval the "undesirables who thronged around it at exhibition, noting a preponderance of liberated women with short haircuts, nihilistic
Nihilism
Nihilism is the philosophical doctrine suggesting the negation of one or more putatively meaningful aspects of life. Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value...
young men, and a strong Jewish element; the chief characters of Imperial xenophobia
Xenophobia
Xenophobia is defined as "an unreasonable fear of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange". It comes from the Greek words ξένος , meaning "stranger," "foreigner" and φόβος , meaning "fear."...
".
The writer Richard Brettell summarised the painting as "a sort of summa
Summa
Summa and its diminutive summula are mainly used, in English and other modern languages, for texts that 'sum up' knowledge in a field, such as the compendiums of theology, philosophy and canon law which were used both as textbooks in the schools and as books of reference during the Middle...
of Russian society, diverse members of which move uneasily but restlessly together down a dusty path through a naked landscape towards a future that cannot be seen even by the painter." Critic Christian Brinton saw a mixture of "fat, gold-robed priests, stupid peasants, wretched cripples, cruel mouthed officials, and inflated rural dignitaries". Repin is less sympathetic to the privileged members of the procession, whom he depicts as uncaring and indifferent to their struggling fellow travelers. The disenfranchised members of Russian society are represented by, amongst others, the old and young peasants in the left foreground (serfdom in Russia had been abolished in 1861).
The painting was bought by the leading collector Pavel Tretyakov
Pavel Tretyakov
Pavel Mikhaylovich Tretyakov was a Russian businessman, patron of art, collector, and philanthropist who gave his name to the Tretyakov Gallery and Tretyakov Drive in Moscow. His brother S.M. Tretyakov was also a famous patron of art and a philanthropist....
for a record 10,000 roubles, but Tretyakov wanted Repin to replace the maids carrying the empty icon-case with "a beautiful young girl, exuding spiritual rapture". Repin refused. Tretyakov's large collection was opened as a museum in his leftime, and is now, much augmented, the state-run Tretyakov Gallery
Tretyakov Gallery
The State Tretyakov Gallery is an art gallery in Moscow, Russia, the foremost depository of Russian fine art in the world.The gallery's history starts in 1856 when the Moscow merchant Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov acquired works by Russian artists of his day with the aim of creating a collection,...
in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
.