07/09/2026
The painting is Ilya Repin’s Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan on 16 November 1581, which was created between 1883 and 1885.
It portrays Russian Tsar Ivan IV holding his severely wounded son in a moment filled with shock, grief, and regret. Repin painted the scene more than 300 years after the event was believed to have occurred, and historians continue to debate whether Ivan was actually responsible for the injury that led to his son’s death.
Both Repin and Dostoevsky examined some of the most troubling aspects of the human experience in their work. Their art explored themes such as guilt, suffering, remorse, violence, and the fragile nature of human life.