Barge Haulers on the Volga [SEP] material used
Barge Haulers on the Volga
Barge Haulers on the Volga or Burlaki (Russian: Burlaki na Volge, Бурлаки на Волге) is an 1870–73 oil-on-canvas painting by the realist artist Ilya Repin. It depicts 11 men physically dragging a barge on the banks of the Volga River. They are at the point of collapse from exhaustion, oppressed by heavy, hot weather.
The work is a condemnation of profit from inhumane labor. Although they are presented as stoical and accepting, the men are defeated; only
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Initially they were drawn with realistic proportions, but then they became exaggerated into cartoonish proportions. He also used the same motifs to draw a variety of characters; for example, the skinny guy and the fat guy in the city.
A top hat over a character used to refer to the incumbent cabinet and ministers.
One cartoon, based on Ilya Repin's painting "Barge Haulers on the Volga", created an international hubbub in 1958: Nikita Khrushchev, on the barge pulled by Eastern bloc countries,