There now follows a short ad for my own book, out now worldwide.
Art history should not be the exclusive domain of scholars and critics.
I've written this book for those who have ever stood before a painting or a sculpture and felt a deep emotional connection, an inexplicable pause.
This book is not about telling you what to think.
It's just helping the process along so you can make your own decisions and your own interests.
This is not intended to be a definitive history, but rather a series of essays designed to encourage readers to bring their own experiences, interpretations and questions to the table and to engage critically with the art and narrative that surround it.
Art is most powerful when it creates dialogue.
And this book, like my channel, is meant to be the start of a conversation, not the final word.
I wanted to make art accessible.
I wanted to take complicated processes, make them understandable.
And that's not about patronizing or dumbing down.
It's about making art something special to you and me.
And that's why I made this book.
This painting is one of the most controversial and shocking images in Russian art.
When it was unveiled in 1885, it caused such a scandal that the Tsar himself banned it from public view.
Since then, it has been physically attacked twice, slashed in 1913 and nearly destroyed again in 2018.
To this day, Russian nationalists denounce it, insisting it is Western propaganda, historically inaccurate and unfair to Ivan the Terrible, who even Vladimir Putin argues wasn't so terrible after all.
But the painting leaves little room for doubt.
Here, Ivan the Terrible, Russia's first crown czar, has just struck down his own son in a violent rage, moments after attacking his pregnant daughter-in-law and causing her to miscarry.
This isn't simply a historical scene.
It is a universal story of rage regret, domination and destruction, an image that still reverberates through time and is still relevant.
And the artist who dared to paint.
It was Ilya Repin, who grew up in Chiyuiv in present-day Ukraine, before moving to St.
Petersburg.
He became the most celebrated painter of the Russian Empire, but his outlook was shaped by his Ukrainian roots.
He admired ordinary people, distrusted autocrats, and saw art as a weapon of truth.
That's why his work still challenges Russian nationalism.
Repin's painting delivers a warning that when unchecked fury is combined with absolute power, the result is always violence and tragedy.
Ilya Repin was born in 1844 in Chiyuiv in present-day Ukraine, to a family of military colonists, peasants who farmed the land but were also bound to provide soldiers for the Tsar's army.
By Repin's time, Chiyuiv was officially part of the Russian Empire and under Russian rule, but still stubbornly distinct in language, customs and identity.
Repin himself spoke some Ukrainian and that dual identity, Ukrainian heritage within Russian culture informs all of his work.
And today, both nations lay claim to him, a sign of just how entangled his art and identity remain.
It's worth remembering that occupation and shifting borders blur the line between legal nationality and cultural belonging.
History shows us that empires may claim people on paper, but their art, words and legacies often tell a different story.
I think, in the case of this painting and this artist, it is crucial to understand the context, because the work has such different meaning for different people.
And geography, politics, colonialism and nationalism all play a part.
That's what makes Repin and this painting so relevant today.
Chiawev lay in Sloboda, once the land of the Zaporozhian Cossacks.
These fiercely independent warriors had carved out their own state in the 17th century, before the Russian Empire swallowed it up.
And Repin was fascinated by this heritage and by the independent spirit of its people, which he celebrated in several Cossack-inspired paintings.
The young Repin grew up experiencing the hardships of rural life cold winters, hunger and poverty, but also endless skies, rolling fields and landscapes that stayed with him for life.
And from these humble beginnings he rose to become the world's greatest realist painter.
He was already painting religious icons for village churches as a teenager.
And with the earnings he saved enough money to get to St.
Petersburg in 1863 where he began studying art. people were always his greatest subject.
He painted the gruelling labours of barge haulers, the intellectuals of Russia's cultural renaissance and the defiant spirit of the Ukrainian Cossacks.
His art fused sharp observation with expressive brushwork, capturing not just appearances but inner lives, emotions and contradictions.
To fully understand him and the fractured history of his homeland, we need to look at another great masterpiece of his, a painting that even nowadays, Russia considers to be an example of Russian heritage, while Ukraine consider it to be Ukrainian.
Ukraine's unique geographic position made it an enviable location for ambitious rulers.
A strategic gateway between Europe and the Middle East and a land of unparalleled fertile plains meant that many wanted to claim it for their own.
They still do.
Over the centuries Mongols Lithuanians Poles, Austrians and Russians all fought for a stake of the Ukraine.
Yet despite this constant reshaping of borders, the people of Ukraine clung fiercely to their own identity.
The strongest expression of that identity before the 20th century came in the 17th century with the Zaporozhian Hetmanate, an independent state rooted in military fellowship and self-rule.
Although the Hetmanate was eventually absorbed into surrounding empires, it remained a powerful symbol.
For Ukrainians it stood for independence, resilience and resistance against domination and colonization.
Although Repin largely worked within Russian artistic circles in St.
Petersburg.
He returned often to his homeland for inspiration, and his extensive research laid the groundworks for what became one of his most iconic paintings, a painting that would take him more than 10 years to complete.
He travelled through Ukraine sketching local peasants, soldiers and even criminals, to capture authentic faces.
He filled dozens of sketchbooks with laughing mouths, wrinkled eyes and wild gestures.
He didn't invent the characters and all his figures were drawn from life, using many of his friends and colleagues as models.
These life sessions went on for years, as he wanted the personalities of the Cossacks to leap off the canvas.
The result is extraordinary.
The painting is not just a historical scene, but a living carnival of human expression.
Every single face is unique, each laugh different, every wrinkle full of energy.
Repin's ability to orchestrate such a massive chaotic crowd without losing individuality is something very few artists have ever matched.
The canvas captures a moment of gleeful defiance.
In 1676, when Sultan Mehmed IV of the Ottoman Empire demanded the Cossacks submission, they responded not with fear but with ridicule.
They drafted a letter full of insults, mocking the Sultan with rude, vulgar names.
Repin seized on this episode, painting a raucous gathering of Cossacks united by laughter, defiance and unbreakable spirit.
Like all great art, its meaning is complex and fluid.
And although the image has become a well-known reference in Russian culture and has been used as a symbol of Russian pride in independent Ukraine, the painting took on new life as a national symbol of Ukrainian identity.
Suddenly, the focus wasn't on Russian spirit, but on the specifically Ukrainian Cossack tradition of freedom, humour and refusal to bow to empires.
Then, in 2022, after Russia's invasion, Ukrainian soldiers restaged the painting in a photographic tableau, using Repin's work to signal their mocking of Putin and their defiance against foreign aggression.
Over a century later, Ukrainian Cossacks still laugh in the face of tyranny.
And it is here, in this interplay of history, politics and personality, that we begin to see the complex heart of Repin's art.
Even if he saw the painting less as propaganda and more as a celebration of human spirit and unrestrained freedom.
After Repin's studies in St.
Petersburg, European travel deepened his approach.
Between 1873 and 1876, Repin lived in Paris, where he first saw Gustave Courbet's work, an artist who painted peasants with dignity and laid down the radical foundations of realism in France, a legacy Repin would take further in Russia.
He also saw the new impressionistic leanings of Edouard Manet, whose canvases broke away from academic perfection and focused on the immediacy of modern life.
Repin admired certain things about Manet's more modern approach, but was skeptical of other impressionist works and what he saw as their lack of depth and social engagement.
Paris showed Repin what was possible in terms of innovation and freedom, but his core belief was that art must serve society to illuminate injustice, to stir empathy and to provoke reflection.
Ironically, some critics in St.
Petersburg accused him of being too heavily influenced by French frivolity.
Stung by the criticism, Repin withdrew for a time to Ukraine, immersing himself in village life.
Works from this time, such as the Archdeacon, show both his painterly freedom and his ability to uncover the soul of his sitter.
Stylistically, Repin blended realism with passages of expressive, almost impressionistic brushwork.
But realism always anchored his art.
This is especially clear in the painting that shot him to fame, Barge Haulers on the Volga.
Eleven exhausted men drag a heavy barge along the riverbank.
Each is a fully realized individual old young broken, defiant.
Yet together they embody the grinding weight of poverty and inequality.
The painting raised uncomfortable questions.
What is the price of progress?
Who bears the burden of empire?
The combination of moral force and visual power gave him his first major success, and his lifelong interest in psychology, morality and social tension would reach its most dramatic expression in his work Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan.
This is a painting that is seen by some as the greatest Russian realist painting and others as the great betrayal of Russian painting.
It was a statement and it was a loud statement.
At around 6 foot 7 by 8 foot 4 or 2 meters by 25 meters.
Looking at it was and is an overwhelming and immersive experience.
The story was infamous.
Ivan the Terrible had beaten his son's wife for improper dress, causing her to miscarry.
And when his son protested, Ivan struck him with a scepter, fatally wounding him.
It was not just personal tragedy.
The only capable heir was lost, leaving behind a sickly younger brother who was unlikely to have children of his own.
It is a scene of despair.
It captures the moment Ivan IV the terrible realizes he has fatally struck his son, known as Ivan the Zavaritch, or the eldest son.
Violent rage abates, and sick realization sets in.
The Tsar cradles his dying son, his eyes wide with shock, while the son's blank stare accepts the end.
The son is bathed in light.
The father sinks into shadow.
Blood glistens on the carpet and the robe.
Repin makes sure we cannot look away.
By killing his son, Ivan had doomed the future of the dynasty.
Repin's pathos lies here.
Not just in grief, but in the realization that his uncontrolled rage destroyed not only his family but the Empire's future.
To understand the power of Repin's image, we need to understand Ivan IV himself.
In Russian, Ivan the Terrible is Ivan Grozhny, better translated as fearsome or menacing.
Born in 1530, he became Tsar at just three years old, after his father's death.
His grandfather, Ivan III, had freed Russia from Mongol rule and expanded its power ambitions, Ivan inherited
His childhood was marked by neglect and trauma.
His mother was poisoned when he was eight, leaving him at the mercy of feuding nobles.
At 13, he ordered his first execution, revenge on a family who had mistreated him.
As ruler, his cruelty became infamous.
He beat a soldier to death with his bare hands and massacred thousands in the city of Novgorod, drowning or torturing men, women and children.
He waged brutal wars against the Mongols and later against Poland and Lithuania.
Obsessed with keeping control, he created the Oprichniki black-clad enforcers, who acted as secret police, inquisitors and executioners, terrorising the country.
Ivan the Terrible's family life was marked by cruelty, suspicion and paranoia.
He abused his wives, forced marriages for political reasons and turned against his own children.
The painting encapsulates this pattern.
The ruler, who was supposed to protect his bloodline, instead destroys it.
Despite all this, Ivan the Terrible is seen by some as a national hero, because he conquered territories pushing Russia far beyond the borders it had under his grandfather.
And his fearsome image fits the narrative of Russia as a nation that survives and thrives under tough, uncompromising rulers.
Art historians have compared Repin's work to Rembrandt's Return of the Prodigal Son, with its intimate psychological drama and intense chiaroscuro.
Others see echoes of Jericho's Raft of the Medusa, or even Goya's horrifying Saturn Devouring His Son.
Themes of fathers and sons echo through art history, but few are as complex as Repin's.
Ivan is both murderer and grieving father, clinging desperately to the life he has just destroyed, and his son's face shows both pain and forgiveness.
Choosing the correct model was always the artist's priority, and he based Ivan the Terrible on the artist Grigory Misayedov and the composer Pavel Blarenberg. while the son Ivan, the Zavaritch, was modelled on the landscape painter Vladimir Menk, and the writer Zevalod Garchin.
When he was asked why he chose his good friend Garchin Repin replied he has the face of a man irreparably condemned to perish.
This is what was needed for my Zavaritch.
It's one of those paintings where you can see exactly what happened leading up to this point.
The room they are in shows all the sign of a fight between them.
The crumpled carpet suggests a struggle.
The Tsar's throne has been overturned in the scuffle.
After Ivan strikes his son, he falls in this point and is bleeding out here, hence the bloodstain.
Realizing what he has done, Ivan throws away the murder weapon, scoops him up and tries everything to stop the flow of blood.
The background is deliberately dark and murky and the subtle light streaking through the window shows us it is twilight.
So the focus remains on the father and son who are lit unnaturally, as if by a divine spotlight, magnifying emotion and heightening the psychological drama.
The light feels metaphysical, almost like divine judgment, freezing the moment in an eternal, icon-like stillness.
And we can trace these ideas back to Repin's early career making Russian religious icons.
He deliberately borrows and twists elements of Russian Orthodox iconography to intensify the horror.
The most obvious is how the composition echoes the Virgin Mary cradling the dead Christ, a classic theme in Orthodox and Western art.
But here, the roles are grotesquely reversed.
Instead of holy sacrifice, we see a father who killed his own son.
This perversion of a sacred image, a sort of inverted pieta, made the work profoundly shocking to 19th century viewers steeped in religious imagery.
Like icons, the figures are pressed forward into the viewer's space with little depth in the background.
This creates an icon-like flatness, forcing confrontation rather than offering narrative distance.
As usual, Repin made numerous sketches, studies and alternative versions.
And an early sketch shows Ivan holding the murder weapon and even more gore.
As does an early oil sketch where the pool of blood is also more pronounced.
In the final painting, the sceptre or weapon is discarded, which means that we focus on the aftermath rather than the attack.
Ivan clutches his son tightly to his chest, his fingers pressed into the wound, desperately trying to stem the flow of blood.
His face is almost glued to his son's head.
So, despite the violence, Repin frames it as an intensely familial moment, with the focus on Ivan's remorse, a father realising he has obliterated his own bloodline.
Repin uses rich colors to amplify these emotions.
Thick, saturated reds of all shades dominate in the carpets, the robes and, most shockingly, the blood which he said was inspired by the blood and gore of bullfights he saw while in Spain in 1883.
And if we go back to Orthodox iconography, red is not just a colour, but a theological statement.
It represents divine life, glory and heavenly energy.
The artist contrasts the scarlets with the sickly greenish pallor of the dying man, his kaftan and his green boots, even the beautifully rendered veins on the back of Ivan the Terrible's hands.
The visceral quality of the gore and the nauseating hues lend themselves to something even more powerful than the act of killing.
It is the remorse for a deed that cannot be undone and the horror of understanding in this moment that gives the painting its potency.
The question is considering Ivan the Terrible's reputation, is he actually concerned for his son or only his own legacy?
The Zavaraj's death was in fact the end of the Rurikid dynasty that had ruled since the 9th century.
Repin may have painted this scene 300 years after the event, But he was in part responding to the violence of his own times.
In the 19th century, Russia was in upheaval.
Revolutionary groups demanded reform, forcing Tsar Alexander II to abolish serfdom in 1861.
But unrest continued, and two decades later, the Tsar was assassinated by radicals.
Repin was in St.
Petersburg when it happened, and was deeply affected by the violence.
The new Tsar Alexander III, a strong nationalist, reversed those reforms, strengthened the secret police, censored the press, deported dissidents and unleashed pogroms against the Jews.
He also banned Repin's painting from being shown in public, afraid that it undermined respect for the monarchy by showing the Tsar as a dangerous tyrant.
Repin was dismayed to see that, like Ivan, the Terrible Tsar Alexander III had chosen to rule through fear and repression.
It is possible to read Repin's painting not just as a story about Ivan IV, but as a veiled commentary on the dangers of unchecked autocracy, the fragility of progress and the consequences of violence.
In later years, Repin lived in Finland, then part of the Russian Empire's Grand Duchy of Finland.
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, he welcomed the fall of Tsarist rule, but was horrified by the Bolsheviks' terror that followed.
Soon after the revolution, Finland declared independence, and overnight Repin's estate was no longer in Russia, but in a new country.
He effectively became an émigré without leaving home.
Although he was praised by Soviet authorities, he refused to return to Russia again, valuing independence over authoritarian demands.
His influence endured with Russian and Ukrainian painters drawing on his example.
And with both nations still claiming him today.
His Ukrainian roots, Russian career and Finnish exile make him a shared, yet contested figure.
Repin was more interested in creative freedom than any form of nationalism, showing that art could be socially engaged without becoming propaganda.
His works stand alongside Tolstoy and Dostoevsky for psychological depth and with Courbet and the Realists for their vision of ordinary lives.
From vast historical dramas to tender portraits of his children, his emotional range rivaled John Singer, Sargent or Joaquin Sorolla.
Ilya Repin resisted being confined by class, geography or ideology.
His art insists on individuality and on bearing witness to power.
That is why Ivan the Terrible and his son still shocks us today.
It is not simply a historical scene, contested or otherwise, but a universal meditation on violence, grief and responsibility.
It shows us what happens when power consumes itself.
