About this work
Religious Procession in Kursk Governorate (also known as Easter Procession in the District of Kursk or A Religious Procession in Kursk Gubernia') is a large oil on canvas painting by Russian realist artist Ilya Repin (1844 to 1930). Completed between 1880 and 1883, the work shows a seething, huddled mass attending the annual crucession (cross-carrying Eastern Orthodox religious procession) which carried the famous icon Our Lady of Kursk from its home at the Korennaya Pustyn Monastery to the nearby city of Kursk, western Russia. The procession is led through a dusty landscape by robed, Orthodox priests holding icons, festoons and banners over their heads.
About Ilya Repin
Ilya Yefimovich Repin was a Ukrainian-born Russian painter. He became one of the most renowned artists in Russia in the 19th century. His major works include Barge Haulers on the Volga (1873), Religious Procession in Kursk Province (1880–1883), Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan (1885), and Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks (1880–1891). Repin is also known for the revealing portraits he made of the leading Russian literary and artistic figures of his time, including Mikhail Glinka, Modest Mussorgsky, Pavel Tretyakov, and especially Leo Tolstoy, with whom he had a long friendship. Repin was born and brought up in Chuguev, then part of Russia.
Where it hangs
Religious Procession in Kursk Province is in the collection of Tretyakov Gallery.
More by Ilya Repin
Ceremonial Sitting of the State Council on 7 May 1901 Marking the Centenary of its Foundation
Ilya Repin · 1903
State Russian Museum
Saint Nicholas of Myra saves three innocents from death
Ilya Repin · 1888
State Russian Museum
Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks
Ilya Repin · 1890
State Russian Museum
Barge Haulers on the Volga
Ilya Repin · 1870
State Russian Museum
Sadko
Ilya Repin · 1876
State Russian Museum
They Did Not Expect Him
Ilya Repin · 1888
Tretyakov Gallery