Distant Close

The talent of the outstanding Russian artist Ilya Efimovich Repin was vividly expressed not only in painting but also in literary creativity. His autobiographical book "Distant Close," which we are pleased to present to your attention in the series "By Pen and Brush," is the most interesting picture of Russian life in the mid-19th century. This illustrated edition includes the artist's memories of childhood, youth, the years of study at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, about his teacher and friend I. N. Kramskoy and other contemporaries, and about the work on the famous painting "Burlaks on the Volga." This, according to the author himself, are sketches about life, about its most interesting moments, which we "do not appreciate, let go, even silence..." We are confident that everyone who begins to read Repin's book "Distant Close" will be convinced from the very first pages that this great artist had an extraordinary literary talent, primarily the talent of a novelist, excellently mastering the figurative narrative form.