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There Can Be No Doubt, However, of the Respect Which He Feels for The There can be no doubt, however, of the respect which he feels for the writers and cultural representatives of this milieu, men and women who struggled against material poverty, illness, and the world's neglect to preserve and deepen an intellectual and spiritual tradition that, but for their sacrifice, might have been lost forever. Donald Senese University of Victoria Elizabeth K. Valkenier. Ilya Repin and the World of Russian Art. New York: Columbia University Press, 1990. xiv, 248 pp. illus. $35.00. Ilia Repin, the subject Elizabeth K. Valkenier's biography, is the best known nineteenth-century Russian artist, both in the Soviet Union and abroad. In the West, recent infatuation with Russian art has elevated prices, even for very conventional late portraits, to the million dollar range. In Russia, his status is secure but complex. Regularly cited as the exemplar of "progressive realism" and long maintained on a pedestal as progenitor of Socialist Realism, Repin has been the subject of such vigorous polemics that the genuine merits of his works, ideas and role in Russian culture have been obscured. One goal of this book is to restore some objectivity to the evaluation ofRepin. Repin's long life (1844-1930) and active career spanned a period of fundamental change: in social life from the liberation of the serfs through the solidification of communism, and in the art world from the famous secession from the Academy of 1863, an event that inaugurated thefoundingof Socialist Realism as a singular acceptable style. Repin's career can be seen in correla- tion to m ajor stages in russian art. In the 1880s, he played a crucial role in the maturation of Russian realism and recogniton of the 1'eredvizhniki (the associaton formed in 1871 as an alternative to the Academy); in the 1890s he was one of few established artists to begin questioning the tenets of "critical realism" and support younger artists in their searches for new aesthetic values. The book's organization corresponds to well-defined stages in Repin's life. The first half covers his early years in the Ukraine to his arrival in St. Petersburg; his training at the Academy of Art and friendships with Ivan Kramskoi and Vladimir Stasov; his travel to Europe as Academy pensioner; his return to Russia and development into amature realist painter. The last four chapters deal with his work and interests in the 1880s, the period of his greatest contact with the liberal intelligentsia; his change of direction and work at the reformed Academy in the 1890s; his difficult position in the face of vanguard tendencies of the early twentieth century; and his final years and posthumous reputation. As Repin said, his convictions were formed in the 'sixties, through his own early experience of rural poverty and his first contacts with liberal thought in St. Petersburg. His one overriding belief was in artistic freedom, but his actions and opionions were by no means consistent. In keeping with his personality, as Valkenier points out, they were impulsive responses to events or others' words and actions rather than carefully reasoned conclusions based on a philosophical position. We know a great deal about Repin's views. He was voluble and observant, both an avid correspondent and an energetic essayist. Thanks to his extraor- dinary status, most of his letters and other writings, including his memoir Dr�lekoe blizkoe, have been published. Valkenier supplements this material with sources in archives of the Tret'iakov Gallery, the Russian Museum and the Bakhmeteff Archive at Columbia University, using the writings to support her interpretations of his experiences and attitudes. At the end of each chapter are "Selections" from writings by Repin and others. These fuller quotations help to give a taste of Repin's personal writing style. But there is an ambiguity about the choice of these pieces, something not explained in the introduction. For instance, the chapter "Encounters with the West" concludes with five selections: four concern Repin's unsatisfactory contact with Turgenev, and one shows his initial reaction to the "French art scene" at the Salon; a more accurate picture of Repin's experience in Paris might be seen in several long letters with perceptive comments on the problems of the Salon system and on the novel qualities of Impressionism. Though Valkenier notes Repin's favorable view of the new style and rightly relates it to his personal search for artistic "freedom," she uses much of the . chapter to emphasize Repin's failure either to "measure up" to French standards or to please his Russophile mentors Kramskoi and Stasov, a theme to which shereturns later in the book. In this light, the selections seem geared to a specific (and arguable) point, and should probably have been incorporated into the text. The same might be said of those for other chapters; in some cases quotations which could have been used effectively in the text seem isolated and arbitrary. The sheer quantity of material (over 600 published letters) makes selection difficult. It is doubly difficult to represent the breadth and variety of Repiri's writings, the diversity of his correspondents, and the significance of personal relationships and circumstances, while maintaining a reasonably coherent narrative. Valkenier succeeds in clarifying many aspects of Repin's career and in relatingbiogfraphical details to the larger framework of Russian culture. She devotes considerable attention to Repin's complex relationships with Stasov and Tolstoi, and gives informative discussions of the circle around Ivan Kramskoi, the intelligentsia of the 1880s, and the literary-artistic groups of ' the turn of the century, the World of Art circle and the younger Futurists. With few exceptions, she makes only brief mention of major artists who were Repin's colleagues, students, or close friends (Polenov, Vasnetsov, Surikov among others) and quickly dismisses or overlooks works by other artists which might profitably be compared with those of Repin. This neglect is most apparent in the sections on "the revolutionary theme" and on religious, literary and historical themes which occupied many of Repin's colleagues. .
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