After returning to Russia Repin settled in Moscow. He was a frequent visitor in Abramtsevo — the country estate of Sawa Mamontov, one of the most famous Russian patrons of art. It was a very fruitful period in his creative activity. During 10-12 years Repin created the majority of his famous paintingsIlia Efimovich Repin was born in 1844 in a small Ukrainian town of Tchuguev in the family of a military settler. As a boy he was trained as an icon painter. His arrival to the capital coincided with an important event in artistic life of the 60s, the so-called "Rio Repin is the author of many portraits, which are an essential part of his artistic heritage. Repin never painted faces, he painted real people, managing to show their natural state, to reveal their way of communicating with the world: "Portrait of the Composer Modest Musorgsky" (1881), "Portrait of the Surgeon Nikolay Pirogov" (1881), "Portrait of the Author Alexey Pisemsky" (1880), "Portrait of the Poet Afanasy Fet" (1882), "Portrait of the Art Critic Vladimir Stasov" (1883), and "Portrait of Leo Tolstoy" (1887) and many others are distinguished by the power of the visual characteristic and the economy and sharpness of execution.t of the Fourteen" when 14 young artists left the Academy having refused to use mythological subjects for their diploma works."Barge Haulers on the Volga" (1870-1873) was the first considerable work painted by Repin after graduation.