Plot
You meet many of Ilya Repin’s paintings at his retrospective exhibition, which opened at the Tretyakov Gallery on March 16, 2019, as if they were old acquaintances. Therefore, there is probably no point in retelling the plot itself. famous painting artist from his prison-prison cycle, which included “On a Dirty Road Under Convoy,” “Arrest of a Propagandist,” and “Refusal of Confession.” It’s hard to find a person who didn’t write essays on “We Didn’t Expect” at school.
“We didn’t expect”, 1884−1888. (wikimedia.org)
I would just like to draw attention to some details of the picture, because all of them are not accidental. For example, portraits hanging on the walls confirm that the person entering the room is a Narodnaya Volya member, and his family shares his beliefs. On two of them there are symbols of freethinking of that time: Taras Shevchenko and Nikolai Nekrasov. Other reproductions show no less telling images of Alexander II on his deathbed, killed by Narodnaya Volya, and “Christ on Calvary.” Art historians call this “picture within a painting” technique misanabim (from the French mise en abyme - “place a heraldic element in the center of the coat of arms”), that is, embedding one work of art to another.
Many viewers and critics drew a parallel between the picture and biblical story O prodigal son. The artist depicted one of the main characters - the mother of the returnee - with her back, but the fact that we do not see her face makes the drama happening before our eyes even more expressive.
“We didn’t expect”, fragment. (wikimedia.org)
Ilya Repin the most great importance I gave the main character a face and rewrote it three times. Having finished the painting, he literally continued to work on it. Even after “They Didn’t Expect” was shown at traveling exhibitions and took its place in Pavel Tretyakov’s collection, the artist, without warning the patron of the arts, completely remade the image of his returning son in his absence. Tretyakov was furious and returned the painting to Repin for revision. Today we know it in this form.
Context
On the one hand, contemporaries who saw the painting at traveling exhibitions understood perfectly well that this Narodnaya Volya had returned to native home from the conclusion, but on the other hand, even then there were fierce disputes about where exactly he was and for what crimes he was imprisoned. Some critics accused Repin of the fact that, in their opinion, not everything in the film could be clearly read. But for Ilya Efimovich, most likely, it was more important to show the dramatic tension of the moment and the psychological experiences of the characters. It’s not for nothing that Korney Chukovsky called Repin “...the great playwright of Russian painting.” And some understatement gives the viewer the opportunity to think out and imagine what is happening in the picture, in accordance with their life circumstances and personal experience.
The artist came up with the idea for the painting after the events of 1881, when Alexander II was assassinated. After this, many Narodnaya Volya members ended up in prison or were sent into exile. The plot of the film is often associated with the amnesty of these prisoners in connection with the ascension to the throne of Emperor Alexander III.
The question remains: why didn’t they wait for a son, a husband, a father? Why did he appear so unexpectedly? Exact date release was always known in advance to the convicted person, the warden, and, of course, relatives. On weekends, letters could be written to prisoners, and, of course, even simple peasants sent them, if they were literate. It is possible that the hero of the film wrote such a message, but it is also possible that the message with this happy news will come home later than the person released from prison, and perhaps it will get lost.
Another version: the hero of the picture could have been unexpectedly released from a pretrial prison, which was located not far from his family’s home. The 1870s were characterized by protracted processes, especially if there were many defendants in the case; the investigation sometimes dragged on for months and even years. The hero might simply not have time to warn his family that he had been released.
Repin himself sympathized with the unreliable. Korney Chukovsky’s memories of this have been preserved: “In 1913, he, together with my wife and Natalya Borisovna Nordman, helped transport a ward beyond the Beloostrovsky cordon who was threatened with prison: he provided him with a horse, a village sleigh and with his own hands equipped him for the journey.”
The fate of the artist
Ilya Repin, which, unfortunately, is very rare among artists, has a happy creative destiny. His talent was in demand from an early youth. A boy from the provincial town of Chuguev was accepted into the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg and graduated with two gold medals. If there had been a rating system in the 19th century, Repin would have occupied the highest places in it.
Ilya Efimovich was greedy for creativity, he was interested in both topical and historical subjects. He passionately undertook to transfer everything that attracted his attention to canvas and paper. For this, critics and friends even reproached him for being an omnivore. And the artist himself could not decide and understand what his purpose was. Korney Chukovsky, who long years lived next to Repin and helped him edit the book “Far and Near,” recalls that he said: “...I cannot engage in direct creativity (that is, “art for art’s sake.” - K. Ch.). To make carpets that are pleasing to the eye, to weave lace, to engage in fashion - in a word, to mix God's gift with scrambled eggs in every possible way, adapting to the new trends of the time. No, I am a man of the 60s, a backward man, for me the ideals of Gogol, Belinsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy and other idealists have not yet died. With all my insignificant strength, I strive to personify my ideas in truth; The life around me excites me too much, gives me no peace, itself, asking to be painted on canvas; reality is too outrageous to embroider patterns with a clear conscience - let’s leave that to well-bred young ladies.”
There was even a period in Repin’s life (1893-1898) when he declared war on this ideology, as if trying to destroy the very principles that underlie all of his work, which made him the author of “They Didn’t Expect”, “Barge Haulers”, “The Godfather” progress", "Arrest".
“Get away from me, Satan!”, Ilya Repin, 1860. (wikioo.org)
Korney Ivanovich writes that during this period he became interested in religious painting and began to paint the picture “Get away from me, Satan!” The picture was not given to him. What can be done to make it as successful as possible? The artist Polenov advised him the right remedy:
“You should pray well before you take up your brush.” You cannot take on a religious subject without fasting and prayer.
“And I obeyed,” Repin said later. — I write and pray. I write and pray. And I keep a strict fast.
- And what?
He laughed and didn't answer. The pause lasted at least a minute. Then he sighed and said dejectedly:
- Such rubbish came out!
Sources
- Korney Chukovsky "Repin"
- Image for the announcement of the material on home page and for the lead: wikipedia.org
1884-1888 Canvas, oil. 160 x 167 cm.
The painting belongs to the “People's Will series” by Ilya REPIN, which also includes the paintings “The Arrest of the Propagandist” (188-1889, 1892, Tretyakov Gallery), “Before Confession” (“Refusal of Confession”, 1879-1885, Tretyakov Gallery), “Gathering” (1883, Tretyakov Gallery) and others. The moment depicted in the painting shows the first reaction of family members to the return of a convicted person from exile.
Repin began working on the painting in the early 1880s, being impressed by the murder of Emperor ALEXANDER II, committed on March 1 (13), 1881, as well as by the public execution of Narodnaya Volya, which took place on April 3 (15), 1881, and at which he himself was present.
The wife of the returning man was painted from Repin's wife Vera Alekseevna, the mother from the artist's mother-in-law Evgenia Dmitrievna SHEVTSOVA, the boy from Sergei KOSTYCHEV, the son of neighbors in the dacha (in the future - a famous biochemist, professor and academician; 1877-1931), the girl from her daughter Vera, and the maid is from the Repins' servants. It is assumed that the face of the entering man could be painted from Vsevolod Mikhailovich GARSHINA (1855-1888).
The interior of the apartment is decorated with reproductions, which are important for assessing the political mood in the family and the symbolism of the painting. These are portraits of democratic writers Nikolai NEKRASOV and Taras SHEVCHENKO, an image of Emperor ALEXANDER II, killed by Narodnaya Volya, on his deathbed, as well as an engraving from the then popular painting by Karl STEUBEN “Calvary”. Analogies with the gospel story about suffering and self-sacrifice for people were very common among the revolutionary intelligentsia.
Portrait of Taras Grigorievich SHEVCHENKO (1814-1861). 1858 Photographer DENIER Andrey Ivanovich (1820-1892).
Portrait of Nikolai Alekseevich NEKRASOV (1821-1877). 1870-1877 Photographer Jacob Johann Wilhelm WEZENBERG (1839-1880).
STEUBEN Karl Karlovich (1788-1856) “On Golgotha.” 1841
Canvas, oil. 193 x 168 cm.
State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.
MAKOVSKY Konstantin Egorovich (1839-1915) “Portrait of Alexander II on his deathbed.” 1881
Canvas, oil. 61 x 85 cm.
State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.
Among all the articles about the painting, I liked this one (presented with minor changes).
Ilya Repin’s painting “We Didn’t Expect” is well known. A shabby man enters the room, not expected by the members of his family who are in it. This is a Narodnaya Volya member who returned from Siberian hard labor. The sufferer's mother, wife and two children express their emotions, forming a picturesque group. Women in black - someone died while the poor guy was in prison (his father?).
Wait! Why didn’t they “wait”? Have they forgotten when the poor guy's sentence ends? Well, okay, he was released somehow suddenly, but why didn’t he send a telegram to his family then? How and why did the artist’s return home from prison, a planned event by default, turn out to be associated with surprise? Let's try to figure it out.
First, we need to explain what the criminal correctional punishments existing at that time consisted of. Courts could sentence convicts to various types imprisonment: arrest (from 1 day to 3 months), imprisonment in a straight house (from 2 months to 2 years), imprisonment in a fortress (from 1 to 16 months), imprisonment (from 2 to 16 months), work in correctional facilities prison companies (from 1 year to 4 years), hard labor (from 4 years to indefinite), exile to settlement (indefinite) and exile to housing (indefinite, could be accompanied by imprisonment from 1 to 4 years). In addition, there was administrative exile (up to 5 years) - a punishment imposed out of court.
It is very unlikely that the character in the picture was exiled to settle or live in Siberia or was in administrative exile. The explanation here is simple: he is dressed very poorly. Exiles and settlers lived in their own or rented housing, through their labors and at their own expense, they freely had money and could receive Money transfers. The prisoners in the fortress (in fact, it was not a fortress, but a department in the prison) also sat in their own clothes. It's hard to imagine that a family renting for the summer Vacation home who has a servant, plays the piano, etc., would not send the repressed person money to allow him to dress more decently.
Consequently, the character in the picture was imprisoned. The prisoners were dressed in standard prison clothes, and upon release they were given what they were arrested in (applies only to the prison in the city of arrest, clothes were not sent to other cities), clothes were bought for them at their expense, and if the person released did not have any money, no clothes - the Prison Trustee Committee bought them clothes with donated amounts. One must think that these were second-hand clothes of ordinary townspeople, bought from a junk dealer - exactly what the hero of the picture was wearing.
Why then did not a more or less wealthy family send money to the prisoner? The answer is simple: in the prison there was no kiosk where they sold food, the number of things that a prisoner was allowed to keep was limited (cup, comb, spoon, etc.), so it was impossible to spend money. They would simply lie uselessly in the custody of the warden. Of course, upon release, the prisoners were sent money so that they could use it to get home - but for some reason our character was released suddenly.
So, the hero of the picture was either in a correctional prison not in his province - there were fewer correctional prisons than provincial prisons, or he was in hard labor in Siberia. What is more plausible - we will figure it out further.
How come the prisoner was released suddenly? There is only one possible answer: pardon. Parole did not exist until 1909, and cases in the appellate and cassation instances were conducted with the participation of lawyers, and the decision was announced in their presence (the decision of the appellate instance is also mandatory for the convicted person). And only the Supreme Pardon (and it was sometimes given without a request from the convicted person) could go directly to the administration of the place of detention without notifying the lawyers and the prisoner about it.
Why didn’t the freed man send a telegram to his family? We see that the film takes place in a country house. There were still very few post offices outside county towns in that era. Delivery of letters and telegrams to your home (even in major cities) was not included in the basic tariff of postal services, letters (outside the capitals) were not delivered to home at all (unless the recipient entered into a special agreement), and for the delivery of telegrams by courier they charged a separate fee - about 10 kopecks per mile (that is, 1 modern dollar per km). If we assume that the country house is located 50 km from county town, then the telegram would cost 5-6 rubles, which the prisoner, judging by his ragged appearance, simply did not have. This is how the unexpected appearance was formed.
But if he has no money, how did he get from Siberia? The treasury did not reimburse travel expenses for prisoners released from prison. If you had money and the warden thought you were quiet enough, you could go home at your own expense. If not, you were sent home free of charge in a convoy, that is, with the same escort team that brought new prisoners to the prison. On foot ( railway had not yet been in Siberia), with an overnight stay in prison huts, and then from the Urals in a prison carriage, but not under escort, but together with the escort.
If our poor fellow came from Siberia himself, he would have spent 50-70 rubles on it anyway. Then it would be better for him to send an expensive telegram to his family, wait on the spot until they send him money by telegraph (this would take 3-4 days), and then go home in greater comfort, and not in rags. Thus, the hero of the picture either traveled from Siberia with a convoy only because no one lent him 5 rubles for a telegram (less likely), or he was sitting in the correctional department of a prison in European Russia, and after his release it was easier for him to get home quickly as is than expecting money to be sent (more likely).
Now let's move on to the fun part. What has he done? To begin with, it must be said that the picture does not give any hints about this. Maybe it's a middle manager who was jailed for embezzlement. The viewer had to guess for himself. The viewer of the 1880s guessed unanimously - this is a “politician”, that is, for that era - a member of the People’s Will.
If the hero of the picture was imprisoned for politics, in any case he was not a serious conspirator. People who actually participated in groups that committed terrorist attacks and were planning to kill the Tsar did not receive pardons in 1883 (the year the picture was created). All of them served until either the amnesty of 1896 (coronation of NICHOLAS II) or the amnesty of 1906 (opening of the State Duma), and some were not released at all. If the state released anyone in 1883 (and at that moment tsarism was still deeply afraid of the Narodnaya Volya), it was only those who accidentally fell under the distribution, small fry - caught in relatively harmless political conversations or with illegal literature.
What exactly had to be done to get into the correctional prison companies? The most appropriate article of the Penal Code, 318th - “accomplices of illegal societies who were not among their founders, bosses and main leaders” - provided for a very wide range of punishments, from 8 months in prison to 8 years in hard labor. It was under this article that many unfortunates fell who accidentally and once wandered into the meeting, which the investigators then considered to be a People's Will circle. The severity of court decisions changed, following the political situation. At the dawn of the People's Will movement, for attending the reading of some revolutionary declaration one could get 4 years in prison. After the king was killed, this began to seem like trifles, and the most harmless of such convicts could begin to commute their sentences, forgiving the unserved part of their sentence. It was impossible to get into a correctional department for “literature” - distributors received from 6 to 8 years of hard labor, writers - from 8 to 16 months in prison, readers - from 7 days to 3 months of arrest.
So, the picture allows for a wide range of interpretations. But, in any case, it does not depict an inveterate revolutionary and courageous fighter. Rather, before us is a person who accidentally or to a small extent came into contact with the Narodnaya Volya movement, was sentenced for this to medium-term (1-4 years) imprisonment and was pardoned by the tsar before the expiration of the term. Moreover, he was pardoned not because the Tsar is kind, but because it became clear that he was not really to blame.
Painting by Russian artist Ilya Repin “They Didn’t Expect”, painted in 1884-1888. It is part of the State Assembly Tretyakov Gallery(inv. 740). The size of the painting is 160.5 x 167.5 cm.
I. E. Repin was one of the greatest Russian artists. His work has become a valuable contribution of Russian art to the world artistic development. Deeply folk, closely connected with the progressive ideas of his era, Repin's work is one of the pinnacles of Russian realistic art. Repin's painting "They Didn't Expect" has two versions. In the first version of “We Didn’t Expect,” a girl returned to the family and was greeted by two sisters. The picture was small in size. Following her in 1884, Repin began another version, which became the main one. The painting was painted quickly and was exhibited at a traveling exhibition in 1884. But then Repin refined it, changing mainly the expression on the face of the person entering and partly the expression on the faces of his mother and wife. The second version became the most significant and monumental of Repin’s paintings on revolutionary themes.
In the painting “They Didn’t Expect” Repin found a plot that allowed him to create a canvas of great ideological content, revealing his talent as a genre painter, his skill psychological characteristics.
Before us is an image of a typical intelligent family in its usual setting. Heroic revolutionary themes in Repin's painting "We Didn't Expect" appears in its primary form genre painting modern life. Thanks to this myself genre painting And modern life elevated to rank historical painting. The internal theme of the film “We Didn’t Expect” was the problem of relations between the public and the personal. The main task of the film was to convincingly show the unexpectedness of the revolutionary’s return, the variety of experiences of himself and his family members. In the film, Repin’s talent for expressive characteristics unfolded with all his might. Each of the characters is outlined and presented with exceptional strength and prominence, up to such minor characters like a servant at the door or a little girl at the table. Not only the facial expressions are remarkable, but also the poses themselves. characters, plasticity of their bodies. Particularly indicative in this regard is the figure of the old woman’s mother who rose to meet the incoming man. The dark figure of the one who returned in a brown overcoat and large trampled on the open spaces long roads boots brings into the family interior something from Siberia and hard labor, and with it, pushing apart the walls of the house, here, into the family where they are playing the piano and the children are preparing their lessons, as if the enormity of history, the harsh cruelty of the life and trials of a revolutionary, is entering. Repin builds the composition like a scene captured on the fly. The actions of all the characters are depicted at the very beginning: the revolutionary takes his first steps, the old woman just got up and wants to move towards him, the wife just turned around, the boy raised his head. Everyone is caught unexpectedly, their experiences are still vague and uncertain. This is the first step of meeting, recognition, when you still don’t believe your eyes, you still don’t fully realize what you saw. Another moment - and the meeting will take place, people will rush into each other's arms, there will be crying and laughter, kisses and exclamations. Repin keeps the audience in constant suspense. Thanks to this, the solution is not immediately given ready-made, but is thought out by the viewer himself. Repin remarkably managed to combine in the film the important with the secondary, the significant with those little things that give the scene vitality and introduce lyrical warmth. Such, for example, is the image of a girl sitting at a table with her crooked legs dangling above the floor, the entire interior painted with love, such is the soft, gentle light - summer day, pouring through the half-opened balcony door, on the glass of which drops of recently passed rain are still visible. The details of the setting have a plot-explanatory meaning. So, it is not for nothing that portraits of Shevchenko and Nekrasov, so common in this setting, are depicted above the piano, and between them is an engraving from the then popular painting by Steiben “Calvary”. The analogy with the Gospel legend of suffering and sacrifice was very common among the revolutionary intelligentsia. Repin's painting "We Didn't Expect" is an outstanding painting by Repin in terms of the beauty and skill of its pictorial solution. It was painted in the open air, full of light and air, its light coloring gives it a softening drama and soft and bright lyricism.
The picture has two options. The first, dating back to 1883, was started by Repin at his dacha in Martyshkino, near St. Petersburg. The rooms of this dacha are depicted in the picture. In the first version, a girl returned to the family, and she was met by a woman and two other girls, presumably sisters. The painting was the same small size as “The Arrest of the Propagandist” and “Refusal of Confession.”
“We Didn’t Expect” (first version of the painting, started in 1883)
Following this picture, Repin in 1884 began another version, which was to become the main one.
Ilya Repin. We didn't wait
This picture was also painted quickly, and already in the same 1884 it was exhibited at the Traveling Exhibition. But then Repin refined it in 1885, 1887 and 1888, changing mainly the facial expression of the person entering and partly the facial expressions of his mother and wife. Ten years after completing all work on the second version, Repin in 1898 again took up the first version and finalized it, mainly the image of the girl entering.
The second version became the most significant and monumental of Repin’s paintings on revolutionary themes. The artist executed it in much larger sizes, modified the characters and increased their number. The girl entering was replaced by a revolutionary who had returned from exile; the woman rising from her chair in the foreground was replaced by an old mother; instead of one girl, a boy and a little girl were depicted at the table.
Two appeared at the door female figures. Only the figure at the piano has been preserved, but its appearance and pose have changed. All these changes gave the picture a different sound and gave its plot a richer and more significant content. The purely family, intimate scene of the first version acquired a social character and meaning. In this regard, obviously, Repin increased the size of the painting, giving it monumentality.
In the painting “They Didn’t Expect” Repin found a plot that allowed him to create a canvas of great ideological content, revealing his talent as a genre painter and his mastery of psychological characterization. As in “Refusal of Confession,” Repin gives a psychological solution to the revolutionary theme in the film “They Didn’t Expect.” But here it is in the nature of action. This was dictated by the very meaning of the plot of the unexpected return. By replacing the characters in the second version and increasing their number, Repin pursued the objectives best development and showing this action. As happened in a number of Repin’s paintings, the resolution of the plot proceeded by overcoming external characteristics, artificiality and “illustrativeness” and the creation of a living scene snatched from life. So, at first Repin introduced into the picture the figure of a father, warning about the return of the exile and thus preparing those present. There was also, according to Stasov, the figure of “some old man.” But in the process of working on the painting, Repin removed what was too external in nature and focused specifically on the psychological solution to the topic. At the same time, he left figures that help maintain the effectiveness of the scene. So, for example, the figures of women in the doorway are needed to show the experience of the scene also by outsiders, and not just by family members, who in turn are shown more diversely than in the first version.
It is interesting that all changes in the composition, the removal of figures, as well as the reworking of facial expressions, were made by Repin directly on the canvas itself. The picture was thus arranged as if it were a theatrical mise-en-scène. Repin painted the first version of the painting directly from life, in his dacha, placing his relatives and friends in the room as characters. They also served as models for big picture: the wife of the returnee is based on the artist’s wife and V.D. Stasova, the old woman’s mother is based on her mother-in-law, Shevtsova, the girl at the table is based on Vera Repina, the boy is based on S. Kostychev, the maid at the door is based on the Repins’ servants. Big picture, probably, was also started in Martyshkin to some extent from life. Continuing to work on it in St. Petersburg, Repin composes and writes it, as if having a full-scale scene before his eyes, a method that he also used in “Cossacks.”
Before us is an image of a typical intelligent family in its usual setting. The heroic revolutionary theme in the film “They Didn’t Expect” appeared in the usual form of a genre picture of modern life. Thanks to this, genre painting itself and modern life were elevated to the rank of historical painting, which Stasov correctly noted. The internal theme of the picture was the problem of the relationship between public and personal, family duty. It was resolved in the plot of the revolutionary’s unexpected return to his family, which remained lonely without him, as an expectation of how this return would be perceived, whether the revolutionary would be justified by his family. This problem of justifying the revolutionary by his family was, in essence, the problem of justifying and blessing the revolutionary feat, which Repin gave in the film in the only form possible under censorship conditions.
From here it is clear that the main task of the picture was to convincingly show the unexpectedness of the revolutionary’s return, the variety of experiences of himself and his family members. It is known that Repin rewrote the face and tilt of the head of the person entering three times, giving him either a more sublime, heroic and beautiful expression, or a more suffering and tired expression. Finally, in the last, fourth version, he achieved the right decision, giving the energetic face and the entire appearance of the returnee an expression of uncertainty, combining in his face heroism and suffering at the same time. Any other solution would be wrong in the sense that it somehow simplified the complexity of the moral and psychological problem, reducing it either with an ostentatious confidence in blessing, in recognition, or with excessive pity and compassion.
In the film, Repin’s talent for expressive characteristics unfolded with all his might. Each of the characters is drawn and presented with exceptional strength and prominence, even down to such minor characters as the servant at the door or the little girl at the table.
Not only the facial expressions are remarkable, but also the very poses of the characters and the plasticity of their bodies. Particularly indicative in this regard is the figure of the old woman’s mother who rose to meet the incoming man. She is so expressive that Repin could afford to almost not show her face, giving it in such a turn that his expression is not visible. The hands of the old woman and the young woman at the piano are beautiful, characterized surprisingly individually.
The unexpectedness of the revolutionary’s appearance, his inner uncertainty is conveyed not only in his face, but also in his entire pose, in the way he stands unsteadily on the floor, and how “alien” he looks in the interior. This impression is created due to the fact that the figure looks like a dark spot on the overall light tone of the interior, especially since it is given against the background open door. He must have seemed so alien, at least in the first moments of the meeting.
The dark figure of the returnee, in a brown overcoat and large boots trampled on the expanses of long roads, brings into the family interior something of Siberia and hard labor, and with it, pushing apart the walls of the house, here, into the family, where they play the piano and the children are preparing their homework, as if entering the vastness of history, the harsh cruelty of the life and trials of a revolutionary.
The figure of the returnee also becomes unstable because it is depicted at a different angle to the plane of the floor than the figures of the rest of the family members. The composition of the picture is easily divided into two parts. In this case, you can find that the horizon level in them is different; this can be seen from the perspective of the floor boards. It is also noteworthy that all the characters on the right side, that is, the family of the returnee, are shown against a closed background of walls, while all the characters on the left side, including the returnee, are given in free space, flooded with light pouring from the balcony doors and from the door in the back. This asymmetry of the composition, as in “The Arrest of the Propagandist,” enhances the dynamics of the image, which was especially important here when conveying the surprise of the date.
Repin builds the composition as a scene captured on the fly. The actions of all the characters are depicted at the very beginning: the revolutionary takes his first steps, the old woman just got up and wants to move towards him, the wife just turned around, the boy raised his head.
Everyone is caught unexpectedly, their experiences are still vague and uncertain. This is the first moment of meeting, recognition, when you still don’t believe your eyes, you still don’t fully realize what you saw. Another moment - and the meeting will take place, people will rush into each other's arms, there will be crying and laughter, kisses and exclamations. Repin keeps the audience in constant suspense. He, as in “Ivan the Terrible,” depicts a transitional moment as eternally lasting. Thanks to this, the solution is not immediately given ready-made, but, so to speak, is thought out by the viewer himself. The justification and blessing of the revolutionary receives an even more public and generally significant sound.
The figures of the returnee and the mother are especially dynamic. Directed directly at each other, they form the main psychological and formal node of the composition. The direction of the mother’s figure’s aspiration draws our gaze to the figure of the person entering and at the same time is the connecting link between his figure and the characters on the right side of the picture. The moved chair in the foreground emphasizes the unexpectedness of the event and introduces a moment of chance into the image. At the same time, it covers the floor in this place, not allowing the viewer to see the difference in the horizons of the two parts of the picture.
Repin sought in the composition of the painting, as well as in the poses and gestures of people taken by surprise, to create the illusion of the greatest natural chance. He deliberately cuts off the edges of the picture from the chair on the right and the chair on the left. But at the same time, the monumentality of the painting, its “historicity” required a pictorial structure of the composition. This is achieved by balancing the clearly visible horizontals and verticals revealed by the architecture of the room, the figures, and the furnishings. The asymmetrical, “random” in its instantaneous arrangement of people and objects turns out to be laid out in a strict linear structure, in a linear backbone, the structure of the composition.
The format of the painting is a slightly elongated rectangle, approaching a square. When comparing this format with the vertical format of the first version, it becomes clear that the horizontal lengthening is caused by the complication of the scene, in particular, the development of a secondary episode with children at the table, additional to the main scene. This format creates harmonious attitude between numerous figures and a relatively small, but seemingly large interior due to its elongation. It is not for nothing that the picture is visually perceived and especially remembered as square, and more vertically rather than horizontally oriented. Repin remarkably managed to combine in the film the important with the secondary, the significant with those little things that give the scene vitality, genre persuasiveness, which bring lyrical warmth to the sublimity of the overall interpretation of the event. Such, for example, is the image of a girl sitting at a table with her crooked legs dangling above the floor, the entire interior painted with love, taking us into the typical environment of an intelligent family of that time; such is the soft, gentle light of a summer day pouring through the half-opened balcony door, on the glass of which drops of recently passed rain are still visible. The details of the setting, like the still life in “Princess Sophia” or the suitcase in “The Arrest of the Propagandist,” have a meaning that explains the plot. Thus, on the wall above the piano, it is not for nothing that portraits of Shevchenko and Nekrasov, so common in this setting, are depicted, and between them is an engraving from Steuben’s then popular painting “Golgotha”, furtherimage of the emperor Alexander II, killed by Narodnaya Volya, on deathbed- symbols of suffering and redemption, which the revolutionary intellectuals correlated with their mission.
Portrait of T. G. Shevchenko
Karl Steuben "On Calvary" (1841)
Portrait of N. A. Nekrasov
Konstantin Makovsky “Portrait of Alexander II on his deathbed” (1881, Tretyakov Gallery)
Details such as raindrops on glass testify to the artist’s powers of observation, the passion and interest with which he paints the picture, his purely professional artistic attention to his work, like the image of drops of wax on the cloth of the floor in “Princess Sophia.”
The canvas “They Didn’t Expect” is an outstanding painting by Repin in terms of the beauty and skill of its pictorial solution. It was painted in the open air, full of light and air, its light coloring gives it a softening drama and soft and bright lyricism. As in “The Procession in the Kursk Province,” and even, perhaps, to an even greater extent, this naturalness of lighting and plein air light tonality is generally subordinated to a certain general coloristic structure of the work, in which, along with the harmony of light bluish and greenish tones, there is a strong The contrasts of dark spots also sound.
The coloristic solution of the painting, to the same extent as its composition, represents such a successfully found, clear structure that it seems self-evident, directly natural. In fact, the natural here is ordered and brought into a certain system, all the more strict and harmonious because the apparent randomness of living reality fulfills the task of showing sublime morality, spiritual nobility and greatness of actions as natural life and feelings ordinary people. While maintaining their naturalness, they became as truly historical heroes in Repin’s portrayal as they were in the conventional exaltation of heroes historical painting of the past. Having found and shown the real heroes of his time, the artist made a big step forward in the development of both genre and historical painting. Or rather, he achieved their special fusion, which opened up the possibility of historical painting on modern themes.
Fedorov-Davydov A.A. I.E. Repin. M.: Art, 1989
Ernst Sapritsky "DID NOT WAIT"
It must have been Sunday
The mother taught the children homework.
Suddenly the door swung open
And the bright-eyed wanderer enters.
Didn't you wait? Everyone is amazed
It was as if the air had been stirred up.
It’s not a hero who came from the war,
The convict returned home.
He's all anxiously tense,
He froze hesitantly:
Will he be forgiven by his wife?
Caused her a lot of grief
His arrest, then prison...
Oh, how she has aged.
But everything is illuminated by the sun.
Not yet evening. There will be happiness.
A fine day looks out the window.
God will seal the entry in the Book of Fates.
Ilya Efimovich Repin (1844-1930) - Russian artist, painter, master of portraits, historical and everyday scenes.
16.03.2017
In order to understand the picture, you need to look at it carefully, analyze each character, i.e. pay attention to the details, listen to your emotions and feelings from a particular picture, enter into a dialogue with it, ask yourself the necessary questions that will help to fully reveal the author’s intention.
Let's do all of the above using the following picture as an example: 
I. Repin “We didn’t expect”, 1884-1887
What do we see in the picture?
Bright room. A man had just entered it. Judging by the reaction of his family, his arrival was unexpected. Everyone at home is confused.
What does this person look like? What emotions does he experience?
He has strange clothes, a tormented face and deep-sunk eyes. There is a question in the eyes, tense anticipation. There is some kind of uncertainty in the turn of his head, in his whole appearance. He paused, undecided. No one was expecting him, and his arrival was a surprise. This can be seen from the way all the people in the room reacted to his appearance.
How does the wife feel? How does she look? What are children thinking about?
The wife, the woman sitting at the piano, seems weak and sickly. She is confused and delighted.
The girl looks at him from under her brows, seriously and sternly. It is quite obvious that she does not know him or does not remember him. And with what delight the boy looks at the newcomer. He recognized him, he is glad. Another moment - and with a cry of delight he will rush to his father.
What does the mother look like? What gestures of hers describe her emotions and are telling to us?
The mother rose from her chair. She doesn't believe her eyes. Perhaps she did not even hope to see her son in her lifetime. Her hunched back, hand pressed to her chest, reveals to us the whole palette of her experiences.
What does a maid look like? What do her gestures say?
Her face expresses bewilderment: did she do the right thing by letting this unfamiliar, poorly dressed gentleman into the house? Will the hostess reprimand you for this action?
She is still holding onto the door handle. This gesture further emphasizes her fear: she slightly opened the door, but did not open it and timidly let a stranger into the room.
Having analyzed the picture, we understand that the artist wanted to tell the story of the exiles, but not the story of the horrors of the camps, but the horror inside each returning person:
- How will the family react to his return? Are they even waiting for him? Maybe the wife got married. Will she even be able to forgive him? Maybe she never approved of him revolutionary activities and warned of the dire consequences this could lead to for the family.
- Will he find his mother alive?
- What does a person experience when his own child does not recognize him?
It is very, very difficult to paint a picture with such extreme simplicity and convincingness. To convey his plot, the artist must choose a moment in which the character of each of the characters would be especially fully revealed. Let's imagine that he chose not this moment, but another:
Everyone already recognized the newcomer. The son ran up more quickly than others and hung on his father’s neck. The mother came up on one side, the wife on the other. The girl is probably still wild and perplexed, and the maid continues to stand at the door. Or maybe she’s already gone: she realized that her man had come, and left so as not to disturb.
If it were like this, would we understand what happened? That the exile has returned, that a drama has occurred... Why is the boy rejoicing, why is the girl looking from under her brows, and the mother and wife are rushing to the newcomer?
Almost everyone has the same emotions - everyone is happy. How many different emotions does the original show us?
Or the artist would have depicted an even later moment: the head of the family washed himself, changed his clothes, and in the family circle talks about something he experienced. Again, everything would not be as clear as it is now. We would think that it's all about interesting story, which everyone listens to so carefully. Is it possible to recognize in such a plot the complex drama experienced by the family? Of course not. This is why the choice of the moment that will be depicted in the picture is so important.
It is known that Repin rewrote the face of the main character several times: either making him sublimely heroic, or suffering-tired.
When preparing the material, the book by B. Ehrengross “According to the Laws of Beauty”, Publishing House: Detgiz, 1961, was used.
