XV - Works On Paper - Marty de Cambiaire (English)

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Repin’s Paris Sketchbook The sketchbook is without doubt the most complete and important Repin sketchbook still in existence. The artist’s working method and rigorous Academic training meant that he always made many preparatory drawings before working on a canvas, and while he certainly often compiled albums such as this one, these have nearly all been split up and the individual drawings dispersed. This mostly happened after 1917, when Repin found that his house outside St. Petersburg was now in independent Finland. Separated from his public and the Imperial Academy where he had taught and been so revered, both he, and later his wife and children, were obliged to sell to make ends meet. The pages of the Paris sketchbook are numbered in red chalk; many, many Repin drawings, both in Russian Museums and in private collections, have identical red chalk numbers, suggesting that they were previously part of albums that has been broken up. Both the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, and the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg hold a few intact Repin sketchbooks, but these all contain fewer drawings and are more disparate in their subject matter. As Professor David Jackson observes in his essay, the three years that Repin spent in Paris were marked by a kind of creative schizophrenia. In his many letters to his friend and mentor Vladimir Stasov, he oscilates between the excitement of Paris 1 and terrible homesickness; sometimes in the same letter 2 . He is at once attracted and horrified by all aspects of life outside Russia. And while in Paris, he works on two major canvases, which perfectly express this state of mind; Sadko, the tale of a Russian Merchant whose musical skills bring him the chance to chose any bride from any nation while the guest of the Underwater King – of course he choses the Russian one. And Paris Cafe, a painting so French, that, as one of his models points out, no Frenchman could have painted it 3 . The sketchbook offers a fascinating picture of this state of mind, and the way the two paintings vie for his attention. He starts off with Sadko, but then Paris interrupts his visual imagination, and he puts Sadko aside for the Cafe; but then comes back to Sadko again and again, in sketches between pages of Cafe sketches. The book also offers proof for the first time of what had previously only been suspected; that the Ballet Scene at the Tretyakov Gallery 4 is infact just an early compositional sketch for Sadko. The evolution of the painting, for which Repin was to receive the honour of the title of Full Academicain when he returned to Russia in 1876, is clearly traceable in the pages of the sketchbook, from its static beginning in an architectural setting on dry land, to the moment it moves to its final underwater setting. But whereas the ethereal fairy tale of Sadko played in Repin’s mind, real Paris is vigorously and physically present in the sketchbook. These are not imaginary people, but real flesh and blood Parisians, whose names and addresses, together with remarks on their physical appearance, are recorded in the final pages of the book. One has “une jolie gorge”, another “beaux traits de figure” and “belles formes”, another a “belle tête”. In one of his letters to Stasov, he writes that “How magnificent are the Parisian models! They pose like actors; although they are expensive (10 francs a day), they are worth more!” (letter to Stasov, 4th March 1874). Repin responds to their magnificence in kind, producing in his sketchbook page after page of astonishingly life-like and well-observed drawings. 134
Complete List of the Drawings Opening cover: Self Portrait, dated 25 th October 1873; Repin had arrived in Paris at the beginning of October. The pages are numbered in red; page numbers refer to these. Pages 1-7: Sketches for Scene from a ballet; no finished version of the composition as it is shown here is known, but there are two published oil sketches; one is now in the Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, and one in a private collection. See figs. 1 and 2. All these sketches are infact clearly preliminary works towards Sadko (see fig. 7). This enormous canvas, commissioned by the future Emperor Alexander III and painted in Paris at the same time as Paris Café, depicts the merchant Sadko in the underwater kingdom, where he has been invited by its ruler to chose a bride. The Scenes from a Ballet (it is not clear where they got this title) depict the same subject, but on dry land. One of the fascinating things about this sketchbook is to see the evolution of Scene from a Ballet into Sadko. Page 8: Sketches of faces, a woman and three men Page 9: Three portrait sketches, a woman and two men Page 10: Portrait sketches of four women, labelled Josepha, Elena, Sylvia and Sarah Page 11: Sketches of two men, one with Ukrainian style moustache, one wearing a hat and seen from behind 12: Sketch for an unknown or unrealised painting entitled The sale of the Estate; dated 1874 13: Two men, probably a sketch for the same painting 14: Two sketches of “Leo”; one titled “Leo in a good mood”, the other “Leo in a bad mood”. Fig. 1 I. Repin, Scene from a ballet / Sadko oil on board, Moscow, Tretiakov Gallery. Fig. 2 I. Repin, Scene from a ballet / Sadko, oil on board, Private Collection. “Leo” looks very similar to Poporyshin in sketches made in 1870 to illustrate Nikolai Gogol’s Diary of a Madman, now in the Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow. See figures 3, 4, 5 15-19: Portrait sketches of Vera Repina, the artist’s wife, in various poses. Study for SCene from a Ballet / Sadko, p. 20 135
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Jean-Luc Baroni & Marty de Cambiair
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Works On Paper 2019
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Works on Paper Catalogue by Alexand
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Bernardino Lanino Vercelli or Morta
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Federico Zuccaro Sant’Angelo in V
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Jacopo Ligozzi Verona 1547- Florenc
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Rutilio Manetti 1571-1639 Siena 5 A
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Domenico Za_mpieri, called Il Domen
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Fig. 3 Domenichino, St. Mark, drawi
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Jacob Jordaens Antwerp 1593 - 1678
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Simon Vouet Paris 1590 - 1649 8 Hea
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Claude Gellée, called le Lorrain C
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Eustache Le Sueur Paris 1616 - 1655
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E. Le Sueur, St. Gervasius, detail,
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Fig. 2 E. Le Sueur, Study for St. G
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Pierre-Paul Sevin Tournon 1650 - 17
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Marco Ricci Belluno 1676-1730 13 A
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Giovanni Antonio Canal, called Cana
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This superbly preserved and grandly
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Giovanni Battista Tiepolo Venice 16
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Actual size
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Actual size
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the title of Figures des différent
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Fig 3. A.-F. Dennel, engraving afte
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Actual size
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Actual size
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Gaetano Gandolfi San Matteo della D
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Pietro Giacomo Palmieri Bologna 173
Page 83 and 84: Actual size
Page 86 and 87: Théodore Géricault Rouen 1791 - P
Page 88: Fig. 2 T. Géricault, Six Horses Go
Page 91 and 92: Actual size
Page 94: Carlo Bossoli Lugano 1815 - Turin 1
Page 98: William Etty York 1787 - 1849 30 Po
Page 102 and 103: Édouard Manet Paris 1832 - 1883 31
Page 104 and 105: Reconstruction of Manet’s waterco
Page 106: Édouard Manet Paris 1832-1883 32
Page 110: Edgar Degas Paris 1834 - 1917 33 Le
Page 116 and 117: However, these notations are rarely
Page 118: Sir William Orpen, R.H.A., R.A. Sti
Page 122: Amedeo Modigliani Livorno 1884 - Pa
Page 126: Amedeo Modigliani Livorno 1884 - Pa
Page 129 and 130: Repin’s Paris Sketchbook 1872-187
Page 131 and 132: Study for Un café parisien : portr
Page 133: of mainstream Western painting, Rep
Page 137 and 138: 26 -30: Sketch for Sadko; various c
Page 139 and 140: 89. Sketch for Paris Café; Man sea
Page 141 and 142: F G H I J C E F G H I J D
Page 143 and 144: Study for Slavic Composers: A Stand
Page 145 and 146: Studies of Figures, probably for Wa
Page 147 and 148: Study for A Paris Café : A Seated
Page 149 and 150: Study for A Paris Café : A Woman S
Page 151 and 152: Study for A Paris Café : A Seated
Page 153 and 154: Study for A Paris Café : Man in a
Page 155 and 156: Study for A Paris Café : Man in a
Page 157 and 158: 7 8 9 10 11 12 Jacob Jordaens 1 J.
Page 159 and 160: 2 Mémoires secrets pour servir à
Page 161 and 162: 35 36 37 Sir William Orpen, R.H.A.,
Page 163 and 164: Index Bossoli, C. Boucher, F. Canal
Page 166: Jean-Luc Baroni London Marty de Cam
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XV - Works On Paper - Marty de Cambiaire (English)

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