"When [Ilya Repin] got old and his hand withering, he should have stopped on health grounds, and his family tried to stop him. They took his paints away, and when they came back from a walk one day and found that the artist dipped a cigarette in an ink well and painted on the wall. So, they gave him his paints back." --"
David Jackson Talks About Ilya Repin"
Wow, great story. It's like Moliere that almost died on the stage.
ReplyDeleteThank you Mister Gurney your blog and your advices on art are amazing!
Live by the sword, die by the sword.
ReplyDeleteSad that they didn't understand him better. The story that has always haunted me is the one about Anna Pavlov who refused surgery when it was discovered that she had, I believe, cancer of the hip and continued dancing to almost the very end. Her last performance was The Dying Swan where she finished the piece and it took people awhile to realize that she had actually collapsed at the end on stage.
ReplyDeleteA cigarette… I’ll have to try that! -RQ
ReplyDelete(Wall Painting, the last refuge of a broken man;)