The painting “Hohot”, Kram – overview 
- Posted by Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskaya
- Museum: Russian Museum
- Year: 1870-1880
Overview of the painting :
Hochot – Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskaya. 1870-1880. Oil on canvas. 373 x 501 cm
Ivan Kramskaya addressed the figure of Christ more than once. His most famous religious canvas is Desert Christ.
It would seem that such a deep work conveys all the philosophical thoughts of its author, but the painter was not enough. His letter to the artist Fedorov Vasiliev has been preserved, where he mentions the need to write Jesus, and not even him, but to the crowd, laughing in full power, with the forces of “their huge animals of the lungs.”.
The idea was great and large-scale, so the painter did not dare to start work for a long time, and after starting, until the end of his days he worked on the picture for twelve hours a day. However, no matter how hard Kram, the plan defeated the performance. The author did not cope with the multi-figure composition, and it really upset him, even tormented him.
Even an unfinished canvas is striking in its grandeur. Heroes in the square look like actors on the stage of the opera stage. The composer’s architectonics consists of horizontal lines broken by sharp verticals. Each hero is endowed with a psychological characteristic in order to present to the audience one uniform feeling – anger, cruelty. Among the soldiers and the crowd, the figure of Christ is simply lost.
The picture is full of expression, relief and novelty with subtle historical flair. “Hohot” received admirable reviews from many contemporaries, including Ilya Repin.