Мефистофель

1898

A journey to the Holy Land; an icon for Jerusalem

In 1898 he travelled to the Holy Land and painted the icon “Carrying the Cross” for the Russian Orthodox Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Jerusalem.

1898–1899

Rektor Vysshego khudozhestvennogo uchilishcha

Преподавал в училище при Академии с 1893 по 1907 год, в 1898–1899 — ректор.

1899

Buys land at Kuokkala and builds “Penaty”

In 1899 Repin bought land near the village of Kuokkala, forty kilometres north of St Petersburg, and with Natalia Nordman built the Penaty estate, which became his home for thirty years. At first it was only a summer house; after he left the Academy in 1907 it became his permanent home and studio.

January 1899

Joins the editorial board of “World of Art” — and cools

In early January 1899 he agreed to join the journal’s editorial board, won over by Diaghilev’s “fighting spirit”. By mid-January his mood had changed: the ideological platform of “World of Art” meant opposition to the Academy of Arts and to a dying Wandererism.

1900–1930 · Residence

Repino

1900–1930

Wednesdays at Penaty: Chaliapin, Gorky, Mayakovsky

The estate was eccentric: a studio under a pyramidal lantern roof, a landscape garden with a “Pushkin alley”, a multicoloured Egyptian-style music kiosk and a telescope looking over the Gulf of Finland. Repin gave vegetarian breakfasts, a habit taken from Tolstoy, and lavish Wednesday receptions attended by Chaliapin, Gorky, Glazunov, Kuprin, Polenov, Brodsky, Fechin, Mayakovsky, Rozanov and Bekhterev.