Stepan Razin Vasily Ivanovich Surikov (1848-1916)

Description of Vasily Surikov’s painting Stepan Razin

The original intent of the painting Stepan Razin was the legendary romantic story of that episode in the life of the rebellious ataman when he throws his beloved, a Persian princess, overboard in a surging wave.

The demonstration of the moral victory of the leader and the preference of the interests of the led army over personal interests has fascinated many great artists and poets. But Surikov rejected the embodiment of this traditional idea, focusing on the inner world of man, whose thoughts encompass problems of a broader scale, not comparable with the personal tragedies of individual people.

The painting V. Surikov’s Stepan Razin is filled to the brim with space, air and light. The dawn is breaking over the horizon, casting a soft purple light over the whole vast expanse of the painting. A big boat with a sail and four pairs of oars is sailing swiftly along the wide river Volga. The rowers in tense poses, with concentrated faces, fully immersed in the action that gives acceleration to the vessel. The captured moment of raised oars and tense sail makes the boat look like a huge bird in flight. In the center of the painting, against the background of the rowers and the sail sits the main character, Stepan Razin, immersed in his thoughts.

His successful voyage to the Caspian region has brought great booty, which the Cossacks sitting in the foreground are rejoicing over. One of them tiredly bent his head on the side of the boat, another is holding a cup of wine. Two more, not letting their weapons out of their hands, are celebrating the victory. And only the ataman, leaning on a costly saddle, half-lying, propping his head with his hand, while his face is frozen in an expression of serious contemplation.

The artist wrote sketches for the picture on the Don and in Siberia. The appearance of the Krasnoyarsk scientist Ivan Timofeyevich Savenkov and his son Timothy was taken as a prototype for painting a portrait of Stepan Razin. Although contemporaries, who knew Surikov well, found a marked resemblance in the features of the hero with the appearance of the author himself. At least, he found the thoughts that plagued the artist to be consonant with the thoughts that ran across his hero’s forehead.