Describe the characteristics of the A representation of power in Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan's Analysis.
The political significance of the painting cannot be eluded because of the reactions to which it was immediately the subject. Repin combined Ivan the Terrible's killing of his son with the assassination of Alexander II. Neither Repin nor Russian art critics expanded upon this point.French critics wrote about the point. According to Alain Besançon, the tsarevich's murder by the tsar is a central scene of the Russian myth, which Repin was the first to represent: the history of Russia would be built on the sacrifice of sons killed by their fathers.Pierre Gonneau supports a converging position, stressing this sacrificial vision refers "to the symbolic roots of the monarchy because the sacrificed tsarevich finds himself in a position to embody the forces opposing the authority of the tsar". It makes a link with the trial of Tsarevich Alexis, son of Peter the Great, and his death as a result of torture. This other conflict between a father and his son is the theme of  Nikolai Ge's 1871 painting Peter the Great interrogates Tsarevich Alexis in Peterhof.
Alain Besançon Russian Peter the Great Alexander II Tsarevich Alexis Peter the Great interrogates Tsarevich Alexis in Peterhof Nikolai Ge Tsarevich Ivan the Terrible Russia