Ilya Repin
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Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan on November 16, 1581 by Ilya Repin, 1883
The tsar's government wanted this out of sight — it was apparently barred from public display for a while not long after it turned up. Part of what's said to be behind it is the political killing going on in Russia at the time, so it isn't really a history lesson so much as a picture about violence the painter was living through. It's also been attacked by visitors with a blade twice, decades apart.
Erisava: It's all murk except the blood, which is far too bright to sit with.
Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks by Ilya Repin, 1890
The story goes that a Turkish sultan sent these men a demand to surrender and they wrote back something so filthy it stayed famous for centuries — nobody seems sure the letter ever really existed. Repin kept at this for something like a decade, from what I can find, using friends and neighbours as models; the one bent over the paper was apparently a historian he knew who fed him the details.
Erisava: Everyone's caught mid-laugh, and holding it that long makes it look unhinged.
Barge Haulers on the Volga by Ilya Repin, 1870
Two summers of travelling up and down the Volga went into this, from what I can find — following the hauling crews around and sketching them. When it turned up in an exhibition some critics called it a slander on the country, and a grand duke bought it anyway and hung it in his billiard room.
Erisava: The sand and sky look almost pretty. That feels wrong, under what's happening.