Abstract: The article reveals the specifics of the revolutionary populist image in Russian painting of the late XIX - early XX centuries, its transformation from the intellectual to the proletarian types under the influence of russian political and historical events. The author analyzes the development of the Russian revolutionary utopia, tracing the transition from the evangelical idea of sacrifice to its meaningful denial, and then to the denial of God. The author's attention focused on the works of artists, members of Russian realist school: Repin I., his disciple Verhoturov N. and Kasatkin N.