Repin's painting "The Cossacks (Cossacks) Write a Letter to the Turkish Sultan"

There is hardly anyone who would not knowthe famous canvas of Ilya Repin, telling how the Cossacks write a letter to the Turkish Sultan. The picture is familiar to all from childhood. This is one of the most replicated works of classical Russian painting. And one of the peaks in the works of the great Russian artist. The idea of ​​creating a picture visited Repin suddenly, when among friends he read the text of this famous letter. Those present said that Repin grabbed a pencil and immediately sketched a sketch in which the Cossacks gathered at the marching camp write a letter to the Turkish Sultan Mohammed the Fourth. But in order to overcome the distance between the instant pencil sketching and the brilliant canvas, Ilya Efimovich had to work a lot.

Episode of the history of the seventeenth century

The event depicted by Repin in the picture thathow the Cossacks write a letter to the Turkish Sultan, took place in the real story. We see only how the great Russian painter interpreted this scene. Various versions of the historical document, on which the characters of the Repin painting work with enthusiasm, can be found and read. They are written very expressively and boldly. This is an open challenge to a deliberately stronger enemy, who had the imprudent stupidity of offering his freedom-loving people his feudal patronage. The Cossacks responded to the powerful monarch in such a way that this insult can only be washed off with blood. People quite understand the price of their joke. About this picture. A letter from the Cossacks to the Turkish Sultan will be completed and sent to the addressee. And the Cossacks will go their way, without waiting for an answer. He is not interested in them. They are free people and do not need the protection of the foreign monarch.

How the picture of Repin was created "The Cossacks write a letter to the Turkish Sultan"

So that we can see it becomeA textbook, the author had to do a titanic work. Repin's creative method did not recognize other approaches, except working with nature. He specially went to Zaporozhye for field sketches. In the most complex multi-figured composition of the picture there is not a single random element. When we see the Cossacks writing a letter to the Turkish Sultan, then somehow it is not even immediately realized that simple fact that we have, among other things, are also portraits of specific people, Repin's contemporaries. The artist devoted a lot of time and effort to finding suitable models.

All ethnographic elements of clothing and lifecopied from real historical costumes and museum exhibits. Many of Repin’s contemporaries who observed the process of creating this canvas were dissatisfied with its ending. They believe that the author has spoiled a lot when he put into action a hero standing with his back on the right side of the composition. His wide gray caftan covered many bright figures in this part of the canvas. But such was the decision of the artist, with this gray spot he decided to balance the overall composition. This was completed more than a decade of work on a masterpiece. Subsequently, it was acquired by Emperor Alexander the Third.