(1844-1930)
Unexpected Arrival
Unexpected Arrival (1884) is an outstanding work of the painter. Repin describes the unexpected homecoming of a political exile.
His sudden appearance throws the family momentarily into utter confusion and mixed feeling. The whole scene is one of restrained movement. It seems that in a second everything will change; the new arrival will move forward, the mother will rush to embrace him, the boy will jump out of the chair, the shy, frightened girl will cling closer to the table, the sun will peep out, at the moment it is just breaking through the clouds, timidly lighting up the door with a variety of hues, throwing multi-colored rays and casting as yet indistinct shadows. The light and air, delightfully conveyed by Repin, do not interfere with the clarity of form and material make-up of the subject.
The whole picture is so lifelike that it seems that all one has to do is to step through the frame and walk on to the floor, or to look and see the room extending both to the right and to the left (an impression heightened by the fact that walls and chairs are cut off by the frame; the frame, seemingly, prevents them from being seen in full). And although he has depicted but a brief moment of an unexpected arrival, Repin succeeded in painting a picture which enables us to study the life of the revolutionary intelligentsia of the seventies and eighties: typical images, a typical setting, faithful and characteristic details, right to the portraits of Shevchenko and Nekrasov hanging on the wall, showing family’s favourite poets.
In his historical pictures Repin displayed unusual talent of a realist-psychologist. He, too, was an outstanding portraitist.