Painting by Repin “Tolstoy on arable land”


Of particular interest are portraits that reveal the writer’s spiritual world, unusual and complex. These include the painting by Ilya Repin “The Plowman LN Tolstoy in the Field”.
In the 70 years in the life of the writer is a profound change. Like the hero of his story “After the ball” to Ivan Vasilyevich, Tolstoy painfully searches for the answer to the question: “How to live?”. He seeks to withdraw from that circle of wealthy people who do not know the work, to which he belonged by birth. Tolstoy seeks to fill his life with work; except for the creation of novels, he teaches children in a school founded by him, plows the land, helps the poorest peasants, learns to sew boots, plants trees, cuts grass, etc. He considers simple physical work to be healthy for the person, both physically and spiritually.
Painting Repin “Plowman LN Tolstoy on the plow” – this is not just the image of the writer, captured in one of

life’s episodes. This is a complete story, in which the author of “War and Peace” is shown after a turning point in his outlook, in a work he considered the main business of human life.
I. Repin wrote L. N. Tolstoy on arable land. “I lived 8 days with Count Leo Tolstoy, wrote two portraits from him. I spent this time very interestingly and usefully, went with him to his work and now I clearly understand this brilliant man.” What power of the immortal spirit sits in him! “.1
The artist recalled: “On one hot August day, in the very wake, after breakfast, Leo Nikolayevich was going to plow the widow’s field… Six hours, without rest, he plied a black plow land, then climbed the mountain, then descended the gently sloping terrain to the ravine. I had an album in my hands and, without wasting time, I get in front of the middle of the line of his passage and catch the traces of the passage of the whole tuple passing by me. This lasts less than a minute, and in order to double the time, I make the transition on plowing to the opposite point, steps in twenty distances,
and I start there again in anticipation of the group, I check only the outlines and the ratio of the size of the figures, the shadows after, from one point, at one point.
Finally I asked permission to try and smell it. I barely passed the line downhill, – horribly curved, and when I had to climb a protuberance, I could not make ten steps. Terribly hard! Fingers, with an unaccustomed habit of holding these fat shafts, stiffened and could no longer bear; the shoulders of the constant raising of the plow for the adjustment of the furrow were terribly tired, and at the elbows fixed at one point of the crease, with the constant effort of this lever an unbearable pain was done. There was no urine. “Here it is, in the sweat of the face,” I thought, wiping myself.
“It’s from unaccustomed use,” said Leo Nikolayevich. “And I did not immediately get used to it; tomorrow you will have labor in your hands and shoulders. Yes, yet physical labor is the hardest, “he reasoned with a smile, good-naturedly.
And again began an endless heavy walking up and down the loose, fragrant earth. Here it is, Mikula Selyaninovich, invincible by any brave men in armor. Mikula is armed only with such patience and habit of work.
We returned to the house at dusk; has caused on a cold. It was already so fresh that I was afraid that he would catch a cold. After all, his shirt was soaked through. The light shone gaily in the windows of the house: we were expected for dinner. I could repeat for the fly: “We plowed.” 2


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Painting by Repin “Tolstoy on arable land”