
If Instagram existed in 19th-century Russia, Ilya Repin wouldn’t be posting latte art — he’d be painting revolutions.
In this episode, Youki unpacks the artist who made realism radical: how Repin’s portraits of peasants, revolutionaries, and tyrants blurred the line between art and activism — and why his obsession with truth got him censored, celebrated, and occasionally terrified of his own audience.