Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Repin Cossacks

Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks to Sultan Mehmed IV of the Ottoman Empire

Original - Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks to Sultan Mehmed IV of the Ottoman Empire is a painting by Ilya Yefimovich Repin. Created over 11 years, from 1880 to 1891, it shows a scene set in 1676, based on a legendary reply that the Cossacks sent the Sultan of Ottoman Empire in response to their demand that the Cossacks submit to Turkish rule. The Cossacks, led by Ivan Sirko, replied with a letter full of insults and profanities, and the painting exhibits the Cossacks' pleasure at striving to come up with ever more base vulgarities. During Repin's time, the Cossacks enjoyed great popular sympathy. Repin also admired them: "All that Gogol wrote about them is true! A holy people! No one in the world held so deeply freedom, equality, and fraternity." (Caption adapted from Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks)

Reason: Do I really need to give a reason for why I tink this is one of the best images on Wikipedia, and encyclopedic to boot? It is one of the great artworks, wonderfully reproduced, with historical interest, wide usage, and a liveliness that few artworks manage.
Articles this image appears in: Ukraine, Cossacks, Ukrainians, Mehmed IV, Flag of Ukraine, Khokhol, Ilya Repin, Zaporozhian Cossacks, Islam in Ukraine, Dmytro Yavornytsky, Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, Bashlyk, 100 Great Paintings
Creator: Ilya Yefimovich Repin

Support as nominator Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 09:02, 7 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Totally blown highlights. --Janke | Talk 16:36, 7 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How can you have blown out highlights on a painting? O.o TheOtherSiguy (talk) 00:03, 10 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Depth of color in the scan of the painting. (Are there, in fact, blown highlights in this scan, or are the white areas in the original really that white?) Spikebrennan (talk) 14:29, 10 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not promoted MER-C 09:00, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]