Vasily Vasilyevich Vereshchagin- one of the largest Russian realist painters. His work has received nationwide fame and won high international prestige. In the history of world art, Vereshchagin was firmly entrenched in the fame of the famous battle painter.

However, the outstanding art critic V.V. Stasov rightly pointed out the narrowness and inaccuracy of this definition. And in fact, the range of Vereshchagin's work is much wider than the battle genre. The artist also significantly enriched everyday, historical, landscape, and portrait painting of his era. It is no coincidence that the world-famous German artist of the 19th century Adolf Menzel, amazed by the versatility of Vereshchagin's creativity and talent, exclaimed: "This one can do everything!"

Vereshchagin was born in 1842. In 1853 he entered the Naval Cadet Corps. At the end of the course, having spent no more than one month in the service, he retired and entered the Academy of Arts, where he worked under the guidance of A. T. Markov and A. E. Beideman. Having received a small silver medal for the sketch “The Beating of the Suitors of Penelope” and the praise of the Academy for the composition, Vereshchagin, without completing the course, went abroad.

In Paris, he entered the Ecole des beaux-arts and worked under the direction of the French artist Jérôme. Returning from abroad, he went to the Caucasus and for some time in Tiflis taught drawing in one of the women's educational institutions. Drawings of types and scenes that he brought from the Caucasus were subsequently published in the French magazines Le Tour de Monde and in the Russian World Traveler; some of them were at the academic exhibition of 1867. They have only ethnographic significance. In 1864, Vereshchagin was on the Danube and then again visited the Caucasus; having arrived in St. Petersburg in 1865, he asked the Academy to issue him a certificate stating that he was awarded a silver medal and that he traveled around the Caucasus and the Transcaucasian region with artistic purpose— which was done. In 1865 he again went to Paris and stayed there whole year, exhibited in the salon in 1866 for the first time one of his paintings.

In 1867, Vasily Vereshchagin went to Turkestan, where he was under the Governor-General Kaufman; by the way, he distinguished himself in military affairs near Samarkand, for which he received the Order of St. George. Returning from Turkestan, he went abroad for the third time; partly lived in Paris, partly in Munich.

Almost all Turkestan paintings by Vereshchagin were painted in Munich. The public paid special attention to "After Success", "After Failure", "Opium Eaters", as well as to the photograph from the painting destroyed by the artist himself "Bacha with his fans". Whole collection Turkestan paintings was exhibited by V. in London, in 1873, and produced strong impression. A year later, St. Petersburg saw this collection, where it was exhibited for free. In view of the rumors and accusations of tendentiousness, V. removed from the exhibition and destroyed three paintings from this wonderful collection: Surrounded - Persecuted, Forgotten and Entered. The entire collection consists of 121 numbers. In 1874, the council of the academy, in consideration of his artistic works, elevated V. to the rank of professor, about which Vereshchagin was officially notified; but Vereshchagin, considering all ranks and distinctions in art to be certainly harmful, refused this title. Then the council of the academy decided to exclude Vereshchagin from the list of its members. Vereshchagin spent two years in India, and in 1876 he settled in Paris, where he began to paint based on sketches brought from India. The following year, Vereshchagin went to the Danube; there he was with Skobelev and Gurko and was wounded while on the destroyer Lieutenant Skrydlov. Then he was present at the Battle of Plevna and during the cavalry raid on Adrianople he even served as chief of staff. He traveled almost all of Bulgaria, brought to Paris a huge number of sketches and worked there on the execution of these war paintings for two whole years. And in 1879 and 1880. he exhibited both collections (Indian and Bulgarian) in the main cities of Europe, and in 1883 in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

There are only 32 Indian paintings, and 13 Bulgarian ones. In 1884, Vereshchagin went to Palestine and Syria, continuing to write sketches. Returning to Europe, he in 1885-88. exhibited his Palestinian paintings on subjects from the New Testament in Vienna, Berlin, Leipzig and New York. Possessing a remarkable talent (a brilliant colorist), V. is a resolute adherent of realism in art, takes stories only from reality, and if he interprets them tendentiously, then only to protest against the horrors of war. In his paintings from the New Testament, he decisively breaks all connection with the tradition of religious painting.

In any case, Vereshchagin cannot but be considered one of the most remarkable artists of contemporary Europe. His exhibitions in Russia, Europe and America always aroused a lot of talk, and articles about him, in various European languages, including Russian, without exaggeration, can be said to constitute a whole literature. As a writer, Vereshchagin is known for his travels and memoirs, such as Notes, Essays and Memoirs, Trip to the Himalayas. In the journal "Artist" Vereshchagin published an article in 1890 under the title "Realism", in which he acts as an ardent defender of realism in art.

As soon as the Russo-Japanese War broke out, Vereshchagin considered it his moral duty to go to the front. The sixty-two-year-old artist, leaving his beloved wife and three young children, went to the very thick of military events in order to tell people the truth about the war again, to reveal its true essence. Being on the flagship "Petropavlovsk", he, along with Admiral S. O. Makarov, died on March 31, 1904 from the explosion of Japanese mines. And it was, in the full sense of the word, death in the line of duty. An eyewitness to the Petropavlovsk disaster, Captain N. M. Yakovlev, who miraculously escaped during the explosion, said that until the last moment he saw Vereshchagin with an album, where he brought the sea panorama that opened to his eyes.

The death of Vereshchagin caused responses all over the world. A lot of articles appeared in the press about the life and work of Vereshchagin. Among them, the article by V.V. Stasov was especially bright and informative. In the autumn of 1904, a large posthumous exhibition of Vereshchagin's paintings opened in St. Petersburg, and a few years later a museum named after him was created in the city of Nikolaev, the exposition of which included some works and personal belongings of V.V. Vereshchagin.

I. E. Repin said penetrating words about Vereshchagin: “Vereshchagin is the greatest artist of his time [...] he opens up new paths in art.” “Vereshchagin is a colossal personality, he is really a hero ... Vereshchagin is a super-artist, like a super-man.”

Mortally wounded 1873

On June 2, 1868, the 25,000-strong army of Baba-bek and the 15,000-strong Kirghiz detachment, led by Adil-Dakhti, besieged the Russian garrison of Samarkand. This garrison, including the sick and wounded, consisted of 658 people, including Ensign Vereshchagin. The forces were unequal, and the Russian soldiers immediately retreated to the citadel, located) "of the western wall of the city.

There were enough supplies of water and food in the citadel, it was also possible not to be afraid of its walls, but the two wooden gates leading into it had to be defended day and night, until on June 8 K. Kaufman's detachments arrived to help the small garrison. It is to the events related to the defense of Samarkand that we owe the appearance of the painting "Mortally Wounded". The artist himself later recalled how, during one of the battles for the gates of the citadel, a soldier, overtaken by an enemy bullet, “let go of his gun, grabbed his chest and ran around the site, shouting: “Oh, brothers, they killed, oh, they killed! Oh, my death has come...

The poor man did not hear anything anymore, he described another circle, staggered, fell on his back, died, and his cartridges went into my reserve. The artist reproduced these dying phrases of a soldier on a self-made frame of the picture.

yellow battlement wall against the background of the dusty blue Central Asian sky - the only "architectural reality" indicating the scene.

Soldier pressed his hands to his chest in an unconscious desire to calm the blood gushing from the mortal wound.

Simple, "Central Russian", the soldier's face was so tanned under the scorching sun that, perhaps, he would return alive and unharmed to his native village, he himself would be mistaken for a Basurman-bashi-bazouk.

Many of those “brothers” to whom the death cry of a soldier is addressed have already perished in an unequal battle with the enemy.

Mausoleum of the Taj Mahal in Agra 1874-1876

38.7x54 cm

State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

At the corners of the mausoleum his wife, the inconsolable Shah Jahan ordered the construction of four minarets. The construction of the mausoleum took almost twenty years, and twenty thousand workers were employed in it.

Height the central dome of the mausoleum (there are five domes in total) is seventy-four meters. Its walls are lined with polished white marble inlaid with gems.

Mausoleum stands on the banks of the Jumna River, the longest and deepest tributary of the Ganges. Jumna originates in the Central Himalayas.

Taj Mahal surrounded by high walls (the shortest wall goes to the river, from the side of which Vereshchagin wrote the mausoleum). Behind them is a beautiful regular garden,
"cut" in two by a narrow mirror pool.

In the spring of 1874, Vereshchagin exhibited his Turkestan works in St. Petersburg. This exhibition made a great impression on Petersburgers, but official circles reacted negatively to it, accusing the artist of "anti-patriotic sentiments." Vereshchagin's hopes that the government would buy the Turkestan series collapsed. In a depressed mood, he left Petersburg before the closing of his exhibition and left on a long journey through India.

Here he spent almost two years, traveling around many parts of the country and even visiting Tibet. Among the many Indian works of Vereshchagin, the “Mausoleum of the Taj Mahal in Agra” stands out, where the artist continues the tradition of “veduta” (documentary-accurate architectural landscape). This magnificent monument of the Mughal era was built by Shah Jahan as a tomb for his beloved wife in the middle XVII century. Subsequently, Shah-Jahan himself was noxonized here.

Defeated. Panikhida 1878-1879

179.7x300.4 cm

State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Standing beside with the priest, the sexton gives the last farewell to the dead soldiers. A whole regiment of rangers fell in this battle. Paired with the "Panikhida" canvas is called "Winners" - it depicts the Turks, right on the battlefield dressed in the uniforms of Russian soldiers.

Regimental priest serves as a memorial service. His black mourning robe immediately attracts the attention of the viewer, as it is the darkest spot in the whole picture.

low sky thickened in the distance with rain clouds. But in some places, the pale rays of the sun break through the gap between the lead clouds.

P. M. Tretyakov said, visiting an exhibition where Balkan paintings were presented: "Vereshchagin is a brilliant trickster, but also a brilliant person who survived the horror of human slaughter."

The Balkan war, which was aimed at liberating the "Slav brothers" from the Turkish yoke, found a lively response in Vereshchagin's heart. His position (he was in the corps of adjutants to the commander-in-chief of the Danube army) allowed him to move freely along with the troops.

He participated in several battles, was an eyewitness to the decisive battles. In one of the battles, he almost lost his life himself, in another, one of his brothers was wounded. Another brother of Vereshchagin, beloved younger brother Sergei, died in this war. His body was searched for a long time after the battle. The artist walked among the corpses, looked into the faces of the dead soldiers, afraid to recognize in one of them his little Seryozha...

Probably, it was during these searches that the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe Panikhida, one of the most famous paintings of the Balkan series, was born. Like the Turkestan canvases, they were warmly received by the public and cautiously by the official circles. Moreover, such was the reception not only in St. Petersburg, but in Europe and the USA.

In 1882, Vereshchagin wrote to his wife from America: “In response to my offer to take children to an exhibition at a cheap price, I received an answer that my paintings are capable of turning young people away from the war, and this, according to these gentlemen, is undesirable.”

Before the attack. Near Plevna 1881

179x401 cm

State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Vereshchagin was often asked why, by constantly participating in hostilities, he risks his life and his wonderful talent. The artist invariably responded to these complaints: “To fulfill the goal that I set myself, namely: to give society pictures of a real, genuine war, you cannot look at the battle through binoculars from a beautiful distance, but you need to feel and do everything yourself, participate in attacks, assaults , victories, defeats, experience hunger, cold, illness, wounds ... You must not be afraid to sacrifice your blood, your meat, otherwise my pictures will be “not right””.

But Vereshchagin did not count on the “veracity” of his canvases alone. Passionately wanting to "impress" the public with the horrors of war, to refute the very "idea of ​​war" in people's hearts, he was looking for new "exhibition solutions" that could produce the maximum emotional effect.

So, the Balkan series, which also includes the work “Before the attack. Under Plevna”, was exhibited in halls without daylight, with bright electric lighting. Pictures hung on black walls. V. P. Siloti, daughter of P. M. Tretyakov, recalled: “On a black background, under electric lighting, these paintings, alive as life, amazed, touched, horrified, fought ...”

Apotheosis of War 1871

State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Barely appearing at the exhibition, "The Apotheosis of War" became known throughout Russia. He was talked about everywhere - in high-society salons and high offices, in university auditoriums and liberal drawing rooms. But the intonations with which they discussed the picture were very different. Too defiant was the author's "epigraph" to the picture: "To all the great conquerors, past, present and future."

Such a message left no opportunity to explain the "Apotheosis of War" in a historical vein and therefore made the picture provocative, which government circles did not fail to resent and admire - all the others. The critic V. Stasov wrote about “Apotheosis”: “The point here is not only with what skill Vereshchagin painted with his brushes a dry, burnt steppe and among it a pyramid of skulls, with crows fluttering around, looking for another survivor, maybe a piece of meat. No! Here appeared in the picture something more precious and higher than the extraordinary Vereshchagin virtuality of colors: this is a deep feeling of a historian and judge of mankind ... "

Introduction

Battle genre (from the French bataille - battle), a genre of fine art dedicated to the themes of war and military life. The main place in the battle genre is occupied by scenes of battles (including naval ones) and military campaigns of the present or the past. The desire to capture a particularly important or characteristic moment of the battle, and often reveal the historical meaning of military events, brings the battle genre closer to the historical genre. The scenes of everyday life of the army and navy, found in the works of the battle genre, have something in common with the genre of everyday life. progressive trend in the development of the battle genre of the XIX-XX centuries. connected with the realistic disclosure of the social nature of wars and the role of the people in them, with the exposure of unjust aggressive wars, the glorification of national heroism in revolutionary and liberation wars, and the education of civil patriotic feelings among the people. In the 20th century, in the era of devastating world wars, the battle genre, historical and everyday genres are closely connected with works that reflect the cruelty of imperialist wars, the incalculable suffering of peoples, their readiness to fight for freedom.

Images of battles and campaigns have been known in art since ancient times (reliefs of the Ancient East, ancient Greek vase painting, reliefs on the pediments and friezes of temples, on ancient Roman triumphal arches and columns). In the Middle Ages, battles were depicted in European and Oriental book miniatures ("Facebook Chronicle", Moscow, 16th century), sometimes on icons; images on fabrics are also known ("Carpet from Bayeux" with scenes of the conquest of England by the Norman feudal lords, about 1073-83); there are numerous battle scenes in the reliefs of China and Kampuchea, Indian murals, and Japanese painting. In the XV-XVI centuries, during the Renaissance in Italy, images of battles were created by Paolo Uccello, Piero della Francesca. The battle scenes received heroic generalization and great ideological content in the cardboards for frescoes by Leonardo da Vinci ("Battle of Anghiari", 1503-06), who showed the fierce fierceness of the battle, and Michelangelo ("Battle of Kashin", 1504-06), who emphasized heroic readiness warriors to fight. Titian (the so-called "Battle of Cadore", 1537-38) introduced a real environment into the battle scene, and Tintoretto - innumerable masses of warriors ("Battle of Dawn", about 1585). In the formation of the battle genre in the 17th century. big role played a sharp exposure of robbery and cruelty of soldiers in the etchings of the Frenchman J. Callot, a deep disclosure of the socio-historical significance and ethical meaning of military events by the Spaniard D. Velasquez ("Surrender of Breda", 1634), the dynamics and drama of the battle paintings by the Fleming P. P. Rubens. Later, professional battle painters stand out (A.F. van der Meulen in France), types of conditionally allegorical composition are formed, exalting the commander, presented against the background of the battle (Ch. Lebrun in France), a small battle picture with a spectacular image of cavalry skirmishes, episodes of military everyday life (F. Wauerman in Holland) and scenes of naval battles (V. van de Velde in Holland). In the XVIII century. in connection with the war for independence, works of the battle genre appeared in American painting (B. West, J. S. Copley, J. Trumbull), the Russian patriotic battle genre was born - the paintings "Battle of Kulikovo" and "Poltava Battle", attributed to I. N. Nikitin, engravings by A. F. Zubov, mosaics by the workshop of M. V. Lomonosov "The Battle of Poltava" (1762-64), battle-historical compositions by G. I. Ugryumov, watercolors by M. M. Ivanov. Great French revolution(1789-94) and the Napoleonic wars were reflected in the work of many artists - A. Gro (who went from being passionate about the romance of revolutionary wars to the exaltation of Napoleon I), T. Gericault (who created the heroic-romantic images of the Napoleonic epic), F. Goya (who showed drama of the struggle of the Spanish people with the French invaders). Historicism and the freedom-loving pathos of romanticism were vividly expressed in E. Delacroix's battle-historical paintings, inspired by the events of the July Revolution of 1830 in France. The national liberation movements in Europe inspired the romantic battle compositions of P. Michalovsky and A. Orlovsky in Poland, G. Wappers in Belgium, and later J. Matejko in Poland, M. Alyosha, J. Cermak in the Czech Republic, and others. In France in official battle painting (O. Vernet), false romantic effects were combined with external plausibility. Russian academic battle painting from traditionally conditional compositions with a commander in the center went to a greater documentary accuracy of the overall picture of the battle and genre details (A.I. Sauerweid, B.P. Villevalde, A.E. Kotzebue). Outside the academic tradition of the battle genre were I. I. Terebenev’s popular prints dedicated to the Patriotic War of 1812, “Cossack scenes” in Orlovsky’s lithographs, drawings by P. A. Fedotov, G. G. Gagarin, M. Yu. Lermontov, lithographs by V. F. Timma.

The development of realism in the second half of the XIX - early XX centuries. led to the strengthening of landscape, genre, sometimes psychological principles in the battle genre, attention to the actions, experiences, life of ordinary soldiers (A. Menzel in Germany, J. Fattori in Italy, W. Homer in the USA, M. Gerymsky in Poland, N. Grigorescu in Romania, Ya. Veshin in Bulgaria). A realistic depiction of the episodes of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 was given by the Frenchmen E. Detail and A. Neuville. In Russia, the art of maritime battle painting flourished (I. K. Aivazovsky, A. P. Bogolyubov), battle-everyday painting appeared (P. O. Kovalevsky, V. D. Polenov). With merciless truthfulness, V.V. Vereshchagin showed the harsh everyday life of the war, denouncing militarism and capturing the courage and suffering of the people. Realism and the rejection of conventional schemes are also inherent in the battle genre of the Wanderers - I. M. Pryanishnikov, A. D. Kivshenko, V. I. Surikov, who created a monumental epic of the military exploits of the people, V. M. Vasnetsov, who was inspired by the ancient Russian epic. The greatest master of the battle panorama was F. A. Rubo. In the XX century. social and national liberation revolutions, unprecedented destructive wars radically changed the battle genre, expanding its boundaries and artistic meaning. In many works of the battle genre, historical, philosophical and social issues, problems of peace and war, fascism and war, war and human society, etc. were raised. In the countries of the fascist dictatorship, brute force and cruelty were glorified in soulless, falsely monumental forms.

In opposition to the apology of militarism, the Belgian F. Maserel, the German artists K. Kollwitz and O. Dix, the Englishman F. Brangwyn, the Mexican J. C. Orozco, the French painter P. Picasso, the Japanese painters Maruki Iri and Maruki Toshiko and others, protesting against fascism , imperialist wars, cruel inhumanity, created vividly emotional, symbolic images of the people's tragedy.

In Soviet art, the battle genre received a very wide development, expressing the ideas of protecting the socialist fatherland, the unity of the army and the people, revealing the class nature of wars. Soviet battle painters brought to the fore the image of the Soviet patriot warrior, his stamina and courage, love for the Motherland and the will to win.

The Soviet battle genre was formed in the graphics of the period civil war 1918-20, and then in the paintings of M. B. Grekov, M. I. Avilov, F. S. Bogorodsky, P. M. Shukhmin, K. S. Petrov-Vodkin, A. A. Deineka, G. K. Savitsky, N. S. Samokish, R. R. Frentz; he experienced a new upsurge during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45 and in the post-war years - in posters and "TASS Windows", front-line graphics, graphic cycles by D. A. Shmarinov, A. F. Pakhomov, B. I. Prorokov and others. , paintings by Deineka, Kukryniksy, members of the Studio of military artists named after M. B. Grekov (P. A. Krivonogov, B. M. Nemensky and others), in sculpture by Y. Y. Mikenas, E. V. Vuchetich, M. K Anikushina, A. P. Kibalnikova, V. E. Tsigalya and others.

In the art of the countries of socialism and in the progressive art of the capitalist countries, works of the battle genre are devoted to the depiction of anti-fascist and revolutionary battles, major events national history(K. Dunikovsky in Poland, J. Andreevich-Kun, G. A. Kos and P. Lubarda in Yugoslavia, J. Salim in Iraq), the history of the liberation struggle of peoples (M. Lingner in the GDR, R. Guttuso in Italy, D . Siqueiros in Mexico).

vereshchagin artist battle war

Main part

Vasily Vasilyevich Vereshchagin (1842-1904) - an outstanding Russian battle painter, who gained world fame during his lifetime.

Vasily Vereshchagin was the author of cycles of paintings that truthfully and with deep drama depicted the wars waged by Russia, captured the brutal everyday life of the war, the severity and heroism of military affairs. Vasily Vereshchagin created paintings of the battle cycle on the themes of the Patriotic War of 1812, the Turkestan campaign and the war in the Balkans. In hundreds of genre, landscape paintings, Vereshchagin reflected his impressions of traveling through the countries of the East. Traveling a lot, the artist mastered the genre of documentary-ethnographic painting.

Vasily Vereshchagin is one of the relatively few Russian artists of the second half of the 19th century who achieved world fame during their lifetime. His exhibitions were repeatedly arranged in Western Europe and America. Only in the last ten years of his life he had more than thirty solo exhibitions, half of them abroad. Often his exhibitions were banned, they were often accompanied by scandals, in the press Vereshchagin was either scolded or called a genius. Both the Russian provinces and European capitals were equally interested in his work.

Vereshchagin was more attentive than other Russian artists to exhibiting his paintings, introducing a lot of new things to this area: at his exhibitions, exotic household items and weapons, collections of minerals and stuffed animals could be shown next to his paintings, music sounded - piano, organ, harmonium. Indeed, exhibitions were, perhaps, the true medium for the existence of his paintings, although, of course, they later ended up in museum collections. But not the collection of an art lover, not the walls of a rich salon, as it could be in the 18th - early 19th centuries, were their true haven, but a public review, a meeting with a large number of spectators, an active influence on the minds and hearts of the "masses". The most important feature of 19th century painting - the desire for the relevance of the plot, for the journalistic sharpness of the artist's position - appeared in Vereshchagin almost in its extreme form. The topicality of the plot was for him one of the main criteria for creativity. The artist saw his task in demonstrating various negative phenomena in the life of mankind that impede progress: the horrors of war, injustice, obsolete morals. The artistic value of a picture is thus necessary for the value of the evidence contained in it, but creativity itself is subject to a necessity that goes beyond the scope of art itself. The desire to surpass purely artistic tasks is also an essential feature of Russian art of this time. And in this, as well as in the enlightening pathos of his work, Vereshchagin is the most characteristic figure of Russian painting of the second half of the 19th century.

However, Vereshchagin remained a figure standing apart in Russian art - primarily due to the fact that he never joined the Wanderers. He repeatedly motivated his refusal by the fact that his paintings should "say something", while other canvases will only divert attention from them, "... I developed my technique, I have a lot of interesting things to say and accustomed society to the fact that in my paintings there is no lie and falsehood; people will always come to see me - why do I need company? - not without pride, he wrote to V.V. Stasov.

The biography of Vereshchagin from its eventual side is quite picturesque. He was born into a poor landowner's family; at the insistence of his parents, he graduated from the St. Petersburg Naval Cadet Corps. Having no desire to become an officer, Vereshchagin, being an extremely purposeful and proud person from childhood, graduates from the corps as the first student, despite the fact that since that time he has been seriously engaged in drawing. Having resigned, he studied at the Academy of Arts for three years, but then left it, marking this fact by burning a cardboard approved by his superiors on a theme from ancient mythology. In the future, Vereshchagin will burn his works more than once - this will become for him one of the forms of protest., Upholding his right to independence. Dropping out of the Academy. The artist goes to the Caucasus. where he fills three thick albums with watercolors and drawings, then to Paris. There he has been studying at the Jerome Academy for three years. By the end of the sixties, he was already a fully formed artist.

Vereshchagin traveled a lot, participated in many wars, his fate is almost adventurous. “Give society a picture of a real, genuine war. - It’s impossible to look at the battle through binoculars from a beautiful distance, but you need to feel and do everything yourself, participate in attacks, assaults, victories, defeats, experience hunger, cold, illness, wounds ... One must not be afraid to sacrifice one's blood, one's meat, otherwise the pictures will be "not right," the artist wrote. For the first time, he participated in hostilities in 1867-70, when, as a volunteer, he was seconded to the Russian army, standing on the Russian-Chinese border in Turkestan. Participating in battles, Vereshchagin showed extraordinary courage and determination, "on all sorties he was ahead," as contemporaries say, he was often close to death. There is a known episode when he alone, with a saber and a revolver in his hands, fought from a whole detachment of steppe dwellers, which was later reflected in the pictures "Attacked by surprise" and "Surrounded - pursued". The St. George Cross for personal courage - and this was the only award that he did not refuse in his entire life.

According to Turkestan impressions, already later, during the years of his stay in Munich, Vereshchagin created a series of paintings. Along with them, there are etudes, which are distinguished by almost the same measure of completeness. Vereshchagin is characterized by work in series, each of which seemed to him in the form of a kind of "epic poem". Pictures were often created by him as a pair - "After luck (Winners)" and "After failure (Defeated)", "At the fortress wall. Let them enter" and "At the fortress wall. Entered." All this changed the traditional ideas about the picture, as well as the fact that Vereshchagin's canvases were often accompanied by inscriptions on the frame, explaining and commenting on the content of the picture. Thus, the central item of the Turkestan series - "The Apotheosis of War" (1871) - is endowed with the text: "Dedicated to all the great conquerors, past, present and future." This gives the picture a pathos that goes beyond the description of a specific historical fact (initially, the picture was supposed to be called "The Apotheosis of Tamerlane") and turns it into an allegorical accusation of war in general.

Vereshchagin, therefore, chose war as a subject of depiction precisely because he fought war as a manifestation of inhumanity, unnaturalness, and evil. The position of the educator manifests itself in this quite consistently and convincingly. Vereshchagin himself was a man of courage and courage. Taking part in hostilities, he more than once performed feats, bold sorties, for which he received awards. His courage also extended to creativity, manifesting itself in a frank display of the disasters of war, the severity of a soldier's life. For this, Vereshchagin was persecuted, subjected to public condemnation, and forced to destroy his works. Nevertheless, the artist, as a true enlightener, courageously continued his work, neglecting the danger. He owned the true truth of the document. Vereshchagin did not invent a single detail from his head, not a single military situation reproduced by him in the picture was invented. Everything was checked by him to the smallest detail, tested on his own experience. He carried a living, reliable evidence of the war. And that was the key to his success.

The very task of anti-war journalistic performance with the help of painting determined the pictorial system that Vereshchagin developed and the method of work that he used. They were also the reason why Vereshchagin differed from other realist artists of the second half of XIX century, which predetermined the independence of his performances outside of traveling exhibitions. Vereshchagin worked on a whole series of paintings and exhibited the series at exhibitions. Work on each series stretched sometimes for several years. And sometimes it was postponed due to the fact that it was interrupted by a war that had begun somewhere. Usually the artist immediately went to the theater of military operations and, when possible, took part in the war himself (this was the case in Central Asia in the late 60s and on the Russian-Turkish front in 1876-1877). Having collected extensive etude material directly during the war, he retired to his studio (besides Russia, Vereshchagin worked in Munich and Paris) and painted pictures and created series. After finishing work, he exhibited his paintings both in Russia and abroad, he accompanied his exhibitions around the world, explaining the principles of his work and the meaning of his works. At the first such large exhibition dedicated to Turkestan, the artist demonstrated not only paintings and sketches, but also household items, weapons of local peoples. Thus, the exhibition acquired an ethnographic and historical connotation. For one of the later exhibitions dedicated to the Patriotic War of 1812, the artist wrote a special historical essay, explaining his point of view on this war, its nature, driving forces, etc. All these documents and display principles are completely subordinate to the implementation of the educational tasks set by the artist.

It is indicative that the large series, which consisted of several tens or even hundreds of exhibits, contained "within themselves" small series. Such small series was a story about a clash between Russian soldiers and Turkestan troops, consisting of a good dozen canvases, or a "triptych" "Everything is calm on Shipka" from a series of works dedicated to the Russian-Turkish war. Small series were a kind of "stories with a sequel." None of the Wanderers used this technique. Vereshchagin, as it were, lacked one picture. In one picture, he could not put a long and complex story about some military event in its plot. By expanding the time frame, this technique freed Vereshchagin from the need to concentrate both action and action in one situation. psychological condition characters. This was another reason for the freedom of the artist from psychologism, which Kramskoy complained about.

Vereshchagin's activities unfolded very intensively over four decades. The artist was born in Cherepovets in noble family in 1842, and died in 1904 during the Russian-Japanese war in Port Arthur during the explosion of the battleship Petropavlovsk - he died along with Admiral Makarov. Vereshchagin entered the St. Petersburg Academy in 1860, against the wishes of his parents. Prior to that, he studied in the cadet corps. After studying for several years at the academy with A.E. Beideman, Vereshchagin left her and went to Paris on his own, where he studied at the academy, and also took lessons from the famous academic painter Jerome. Since the mid-60s, Vereshchagin's independent activity began. Even before the Turkestan campaign, he managed to make two trips to the Caucasus and create several works typical of the 60s. The most significant of them are the drawing "Religious Procession at the Feast of Maharem in Shusha" (1865) and sketches and sketches for the painting "Barge Haulers" (mid-60s). The last of the two themes is quite common in Russian art and literature. Vereshchagin's sketches open up a whole series of works created even before Repin's famous "Barge Haulers on the Volga". This series consists of paintings by P.O. Kovalevsky "Tow line on the Izhora River" (1868) and A.K. Savrasov "Barge haulers on the Volga" (1871). Vereshchagin, as it were, sets the tone for this line. The plot of "Barge haulers" was chosen in all these cases for the sake of critical goals. Artists denounced the fact of a crime against people who were likened to working cattle. In Vereshchagin, this tendency is expressed, perhaps, to a greater extent than in his contemporaries. His barge haulers are exhausted, exhausted; they can barely move their legs. The same enlightening pathos fills the above-mentioned drawing depicting a religious procession of fanatics. The denunciation of the darkness of the people, their religious prejudices is adjacent to the criticism of social injustices. Vereshchagin, like any other member of the sixties, used any pretext for denunciation. In The Religious Procession, one more feature characteristic of the 60s should be singled out - ethnographicism, which gave a special color to the art of the Enlightenment decade. Genre painters in those years went to different countries or to remote corners of Russia to capture scenes of folk life. Enough a large number of this kind of ethnographic works was reproduced in the "Art Sheet", published by V.F. Timm in 1851-1862. Thus, already at the beginning of his artistic activity, Vereshchagin managed to synthesize in his work various features of contemporary art. To implement his positions, he took advantage of the generally accepted at that time in European painting the language of somewhat academized realism. As we saw earlier, this language was the starting point for many of the sixties. But from Vereshchagin, he acquired some features in comparison with his Russian contemporaries, for the artist experienced some influence of Jerome and other French painters.

Vereshchagin's first success was associated with the Turkestan series (1868-1873), which showed the artist's mature skill. Unlike the Balkan one, this series is, as it were, divided between ethnographic and military subjects. From the first, Vereshchagin begins (for example, "Opium-eaters", 1868), subordinating them to the tasks social criticism. In the future, the artist creates several more paintings of this kind - "Sale of a slave child" (1871-1872), "Samarkand zindan" (1873). These paintings still bear noticeable traces of the sixties. But next to them - even outside the purely battle scenes - there are already works that demonstrate other trends. Such works include, for example, "A rich Kyrgyz hunter with a falcon" (1871). In this one-figure composition, a new approach, characteristic of many artists of the 70s, makes itself felt - an interest in the phenomenon as such. The proud pose of a hunter holding a beautiful falcon on his raised hand, the bright brilliance of the canvas, which distinguishes it from the paintings of the 60s - more dry and stingy in color, also testify to the artist’s well-known admiration for the subject of the image. True, Vereshchagin's "protocolism", which also manifests itself in this work, fetters the artist's ability to reveal his attitude to the object. But the object itself clearly expresses its own positive connotation.

Two other paintings, testifying to the ethnographic interests of the artist, "The Doors of Tamerlane" (1872-1873) and "At the Doors of the Mosque" (1873) also belong to the works of a new type. These paintings are connected with each other by the general principles of composition and pictorial interpretation, the objects of the image. But one is written in historical, and the other in modern plot. Vereshchagin managed to convey this difference by the very structure of the paintings. The first of them expressively recreates the image of medieval oriental symmetry, immobility, monumental stiffness. Two warriors dressed in magnificent clothes, their weapons - bows, arrows, shields and spears, sharp shadows falling on the floor and walls and as if nailing the figures to the door frame - everything is in a kind of numbness and testifies to strength, power, traditionality, rituality of culture. Vereshchagin's manner - careful finishing of every detail (carved door, clothing), equivalent in all parts, intense "coloring" of all objects turns out to be suitable for such a historical image of the medieval east. In the second painting, the genre-interpreted figures of two travelers, who have come to the doors of the mosque and are resting near them, give the whole scene an everyday tone.

The basis of the Turkestan series are battle compositions, which, like the two above-mentioned works, are combined with each other: sometimes in pairs ("After success", "After failure" (both 1868), "At the fortress wall. Let them enter", "At the fortress wall . Entered" (both 1871)), and sometimes large groups. At the center of the entire Turkestan exposition was a series of paintings called "Barbarians", consistently showing the episode of the death of the soldiers of the Russian detachment, taken by surprise by the cavalry of the Emir of Bukhara. As in cinematography, Vereshchagin changes the scene several times throughout the series and the depicted observers of the scene. First, Bukhara scouts are shown, who are looking out for Russian positions, so that later they can unexpectedly attack them. In this picture, a view is given from the point of view and from the position of these Bukhara scouts, which almost coincides with the point of view of the viewer of the picture. In the following pictures, the viewer becomes the only observer - he sees the scene of an unexpected attack by the Bukhara cavalry and the defending Russian soldiers. Then - in the next scene - the pursuit of these soldiers. After that, the scene of action is transferred to the camp of the enemy: trophies are presented to the emir - the severed heads of Russian soldiers, then these heads, planted on high poles, are shown to the people near the mosque. The series ends with the painting "The Apotheosis of War" (1871-1872), in which the viewer sees a mountain of skulls that make up a whole pyramid against the backdrop of a scorched desert and an abandoned ruined city. It's like a timeless scene; it is associated with wars and conquests of a grandiose scale that took place on the territory of Turkestan in old days. At the same time, it is dedicated, as it is clear from the inscription of the artist himself, "to all the great conquerors, past, present and future." As you can see, Vereshchagin's series is not just a sequential story in pictures, it is rather a montage that provides for different places of action, different positions of the observer, and even a difference in time to which the scene shown belongs.

The plots chosen by Vereshchagin are extremely effective. They refer to the most acute situations, to the most "bloody" episodes, eloquently testifying to the horrors of war and the barbarity of the victors. The choice of episodes is one of the most important means by which the artist achieves the expressiveness and effectiveness of his paintings. The artist strives to use, first of all, what reality itself gives, and it is due to this that he achieves the effect.

Concerning psychological characteristics characters, then this task in the paintings of Vereshchagin is narrowed. A significant role in his paintings is played by the identification of the originality of figures and poses, which, as it were, replaces facial expressions. The artist captures poses and gestures with almost photographic accuracy. In this regard, the picture is especially characteristic, which is not included in the "Barbarians" series, but in the general Turkestan exposition occupied important place, - "mortally wounded" (1873). Unlike most other paintings in this close-up, as if next to the viewer, a soldier is depicted, throwing a gun to the ground and pressing his hands to his chest, where an enemy bullet hit. He runs, apparently taking his last steps before dropping dead. This mechanical death run, the gesture of the hands holding the wound, is seen by the artist sharply, accurately and convincingly. We find the same techniques in the paintings of the "Barbarians" series.

The composition of the paintings in the series is not built "from the inside" by processing natural material, but is likened to the method of "cropping" nature. But this “framing” is done in such a way that in the very piece of reality captured by the artist (even if sometimes this scene was not before his eyes), there already exists a certain symmetry, or at least a general balance of parts. Indicative in this regard is the painting "Triumph" (1871-1872), where the basis of the composition is the facade of the mosque, near which people are depicted, naturally forming a figure that is in itself balanced. The same can be said about the composition of the "Apotheosis of War", where the center is accentuated, marked by a pyramid of skulls, on the sides of which a landscape unfolds, stretching into the distance. Such composition system reminiscent of a traveler. However, in Vereshchagin, the element of naturalness is strengthened, while the Wanderers still change nature in many ways, building a composition, and not just content with the opportunity to find a composition "in the frame."

The differences between Vereshchagin and the Wanderers are also noticeable in the color interpretation of the paintings of the Turkestan series. In the 70s Russian realistic painting parted with the chiaroscuro system and turns to the tonal system in order to soon take the path of the plein air. Vereshchagin, who accepted the experience of not only Russian, but also French painting, was perhaps the first to turn to the tasks of the tonal and plein-air system. He depicts scenes in bright sunlight, seeks to combine all colors, bringing them closer to each other and finding in gray and yellow colors the basis of the pictorial composition, which makes it possible to unite the pictorial canvas as a whole. However, at the same time, Vereshchagin does not reach the true open air. He is more satisfied with the external effect: he likes to cast thick shadows from objects on the ground, creating the appearance of lighting; in the distance, it rather weakens the colors, but does not modify them; the interaction of light and color is hindered by the clear contours of objects and figures. The color of objects is conveyed by the artist accurately, but to a certain extent photographically. Only a few works - such as the natural study "Kyrgyz wagons in the valley of the Chu River" (1869-1870) - are an exception to this rule. In "Kibitki", despite the fact that some details are written out in the foreground, the distances are interpreted more freely and intricately according to the picturesque proportions of blue, white-pink, and purple colors. This work testifies to the great possibilities of the artist in the field of plein air, which were not used in his further work. In 1874 Vereshchagin went to India. This trip was not related to the war. Rather, it was caused by the ethnographic interests of Vereshchagin. But the artist did not stop only at ethnographic tasks. He also created a number of historical paintings (written, however, later), interpreted in an edifying way, in which the artist's educational ideas were further developed. The Indian cycle is thus divided into two parts. One was made up of paintings, sketches, landscapes - that is, works from nature. The other is from historical scenes composed by the artist. The first part was mainly created during his stay in India - in 1874-1876. The second one was only begun during these years, continued at the turn of the 70-80s (after the artist returned from the Balkan front), and completed after the second trip to India, which took place in 1882-1883.

It should be said right away that these historical paintings, with some exceptions, did not work out for the artist. Having set out to depict the story of "the capture of India by the British" (as the artist himself put it), Vereshchagin turned out to be too edifying and demonstrative in the historical genre. In addition, his paintings look composed, cumbersome. The only exception is big picture- "The suppression of the Indian uprising by the British" (1884), which he already included in another series - "The Trilogy of Executions", created in the mid-80s. Vereshchagin in this picture depicted the rebellious Indian sepoys, tied with their backs to the muzzles of cannons and waiting for a shot in the back. Here again a sharp plot is chosen, a moment is found that causes the viewer to shudder and horror.

Among the natural works created in India, such sketches as "Kuli" (1875) stand out noticeably - soft in painting and deep in their interpretation of the figure and head of an Indian. In some landscapes ("The Main Temple of the Tassiding Monastery", 1875), the artist continued the plein-air tradition of such works as "Kibitki". But in most natural works, other tendencies are felt - the desire for color richness, intensity and variegation. This trend was vividly expressed by such works as "The Mausoleum of the Taj Mahal in Agra" (1874-1876) and "The Horseman in Jaipur" (1881-1882). In the Taj Mahal, the artist sharply contrasted the even blue color of the sky, almost repeated in the blue of the water, with the white and red colors of architecture. The reflection of buildings in the water almost completely preserves this contrast and only slightly softens the sharpness of the contours and the clarity of the lines that are used in the plastic characterization of architecture. The brightness of Vereshchagin does not open the way for him to the open air, but, on the contrary, moves him away from him. At the same time, one cannot deny this work its effectiveness and accuracy in the transfer of nature. As for the Horseman in Jaipur, this study, to a greater extent than any other work of the artist, reflected the influence of French salon painting.

At the end of the 70s, the time for creating a series of paintings dedicated to the Russian-Turkish war falls. Perhaps, in these works, Vereshchagin became closest to the Wanderers, who experienced their heyday in those years. The Balkan paintings no longer form extensive series, like the Turkestan ones, and the emphasis is shifted to a separate painting. Only some plots are realized in several pictures. These include the triptych "Everything is Quiet on Shipka" (1878-1879), which depicts an episode of the death of a Russian sentry soldier, gradually covered with snow. In other cases, even when combining paintings in a series, each of them looks more independent, containing the most important meaning. This can be said about two canvases - "Before the attack" and "After the attack" (both 1881). There is no longer the old principle of "story with continuation." The first of the paintings shows the courage and concentration of Russian soldiers, their readiness for battle. The second demonstrates the difficult fate of a soldier, the horrors of war. Both of them could exist separately. The same can be said about another "pair" of paintings - "Winners" (1878-1879) and "Defeated" (1877-1879). The latter is one of the best works in the series. It depicts a regimental priest performing a memorial service for the dead, whose mutilated corpses dotted the snowy field. Against the background of this field and the gray sky, two male figures. Their poses, the grey, dreary landscape, its emptiness - all this creates a horrific scene of the victims of the war, the senseless death of hundreds of people.

Compared to the paintings of the Turkestan cycle, the Balkan ones are enlarged in size. They have no catchy showiness; the colorful gamut is more modest, which is certainly explained not only by the evolution of the master, but also by the nature of the Balkans. The very subject of the image contributed to the changes that brought the artist closer to the Wandering genre. Vereshchagin's paintings began in many ways to resemble the "choral" compositions of Myasoedov or Savitsky, while retaining the old documentary, truthfulness and accuracy of the depiction of the war. These features were most fully manifested in the painting "Shipka-Sheinovo. Skobelev near Shipka" (1878-1879). In the background, the artist showed a solemn minute of the parade of troops on the occasion of the victory. The soldiers throw up their hats, greeting Skobelev, who is rushing past on a white horse. The dead are depicted in the foreground - again with the same cruel truthfulness and rigorous accuracy. The bodies of the dead lie as it can only be in reality - some are crooked, others are strangely curved, others with raised arms. Singing the Russian soldier, Vereshchagin sympathizes with him with all his heart. The composition of the picture looks more thoughtfully built than in previous works. There is no complete symmetry in it, but there is a general balance of the sides.

Ways of creative development brought Vereshchagin closer and closer to the historical genre. Since the 80s historical genre not only "equalized" his rights with the genre of everyday life, but also got the opportunity to express such ideas that the genre of everyday life could not realize. The historical picture became a way for public thought to realize the historical originality of the people, the ways of Russia, and its future. This new trend manifested itself most consistently in the work of Surikov. To a lesser extent, she touched other artists, in particular Vereshchagin. Evidence of this was his "series of executions", which included the above-described "Suppression of the Indian uprising by the British", "Crucifixion by the Romans" (1887) and "Execution of conspirators in Russia" (1884-1885). last picture dedicated to the First of March, but at the same time, the topic that worried Russian society so much is, as it were, hidden by the "research" of the types of execution.

The last large cycle of paintings by Vereshchagin was the series "1812. Napoleon in Russia", on which he worked from the late 70s until his death. Creating this series, the artist traveled around Russia, selected models for his paintings, studied Russian people, their characters, and made numerous sketch portraits. In the series "1812" the experience of a battle painter was combined with an interest in a historical picture. True, in these last works, Vereshchagin did not achieve noticeable success. Exaggerated monumentalism and a touch of props are felt in large-sized canvases. The series is more interesting in its concept, choice of episodes, characterization of the role of the peasant partisans than in its artistic qualities. That desire for showiness of the depicted situations, which we noted above in the Turkestan series, is absent here. But with the rejection of showiness, the expressiveness of Vereshchagin's paintings also disappears, because the place of the former, built on effects, has not been replaced by a new one, based on the psychological relationships of the characters, on the methods of plastic composition.

Conclusion

The period of the highest prosperity in the work of Vereshchagin was the 70s - the time of the creation of the Turkestan and Balkan series. At that time, those educational foundations of his worldview, which were laid in the 60s, and the new tasks of art put forward by the historical and artistic development Russia. But the further Vereshchagin moved away from the 70s, the more complex, despite external success, the relationship between his work and the art of other Russian realist artists turned out to be.

Vereshchagin was outstanding artist a battle painter, I would even say one of the best of his time, and each of his works was a masterpiece, and he is one of a small number of those artists who became famous during his lifetime. And on the one hand, it was good for the battle painter, but on the other hand, constant persecution and criticism did not allow him to live in peace, and this artist always traveled and saw all the military events with his own eyes, and it seems to me that this is why his works were so realistic, because their the author experienced everything on himself and only after that he painted.

• ·1. Lebedev A. K. V. V. Vereshchagin. Life and art. M., 1972.
• 2. Lebedev A. K. V. V. Vereshchagin. Life and art. - M., 1958.
• 3. Vereshchagin VV Memoirs of the artist's son. - L .: Artist of the RSFSR, 1978
• ·4. Lebedev A. K., Solodovnikov A. V. Vasily Vasilyevich Vereshchagin. - L .: Artist of the RSFSR, 1987
• 6. List of illustrations

Apotheosis of war. 1871<#"176" src="doc_zip2.jpg" />

Before the attack. Under Plevna. 1881 V.V.Vereshchagin

After failure. 1868<#"justify">

In conquered Moscow (Arsonists or Execution in the Kremlin). 1897-1898<#"164" src="doc_zip5.jpg" />

Night halt of the great army. 1896-1897<#"182" src="doc_zip6.jpg" />

With a weapon in hand - shoot. 1887-1895 V.V. Vereshchagin

Vereshchagin Vasily Vasilyevich

Vasily Vasilyevich Vereshchagin(1842-1904) - Russian painter, battle painter, traveler. Almost all his life V.V. Vereshchagin spends on expeditions, military campaigns, traveling and traveling. He studied and lived in St. Petersburg, Tashkent, Munich, Paris, at the end of his life - in Moscow. Participates in long expeditions and travels - in the Caucasus, Turkestan, western China, Semirechye, India and Palestine. Traveled in Europe and Russia. Was in the Philippines and Cuba, the Tien Shan, America and Japan.

As a military man, he volunteers to participate in all the wars and military campaigns of Russia that took place at that time. Vasily Vasilyevich graduated from the naval cadet corps, was a participant in military campaigns (the Turkestan campaign), as part of a small Russian garrison, withstood a heavy siege of Samarkand. For which he was awarded the Order of St. George 4th Art. (the only award he wore and was proud of).

"Turkestan series"bright paintings written by Vereshchagin in Munich in 1871-1874. Consisted of a whole group of battle (almost documentary) paintings, such as" Let them in", "Entered", "Surrounded", "Pursued", "Attacked by surprise". Since Vasily Vasilyevich himself believed that the best way to address the audience is a personal thematic exhibition, his exhibitions were a huge success in Europe and Russia.

The talent of the artist reflected the true value of the emperor's imperial ambitions in Middle Eastern companies. The death of soldiers in foreign countries, the struggle with the eastern armies and the constant uprisings of the local population. Life and wild customs of the local population.

Participation in military campaigns formed the artist's own vision of the war, the attitude towards the death of ordinary soldiers. His paintings are filled with a special philosophy and a critical attitude towards the war. This style often led to criticism of his paintings, and even condemnation of the artist by the emperor and his entourage.

After the exhibition and demonstration of his "Turkestan" series of paintings, he was subjected to constant attacks, criticism and even displeasure of Tsar Alexander II (at an exhibition in St. Petersburg in 1987). And the future Emperor Alexander III spoke of Vereshchagin himself in this way:

His constant tendentiousness is contrary to national pride and one can conclude one thing from them: either Vereshchagin is a beast, or a completely crazy person”.

But Vereshchagin highly valued his own opinion, freedom and dignity and did not seek the support of those in power, he generally avoided " high society"Despite his fame in Europe and Russia. In 1874, Vereshchagin was offered the title of professor at the Academy of Arts. But he publicly refuses it, citing what he considers" all ranks and distinctions in art are certainly harmful".

Paintings by Vasily Vereshchagin:

Biography of Vereshchagin:

Vasily Vasilyevich Vereshchagin was born on October 14, 1842 in the family of the marshal of the nobility of the city of Cherepovets, Novgorod province. Just like his brothers, he is studying for a military man and at the age of 9 he enters the naval cadet corps in St. Petersburg. At the end, he served for a short time, but resigned to enter the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts (he studied from 1860 to 1863). Having not completed his studies, he leaves St. Petersburg and leaves for the Caucasus to write from nature. But then, Vereshchagin decides to return to his studies and studies painting in Paris under the guidance of Jean-Leon Gerome (French artist, an ardent supporter of academicism in art, opposition to impressionism) from 1864 to 1865.

Then the young Vereshchagin has a strange period. He leaves Paris and leaves again for the Caucasus, works hard, and in the fall of 1865 goes to St. Petersburg (where, perhaps, he received critical comments on his work). Then, he returns to Paris where he continues his studies at the Paris Academy. In the spring of 1866, Vasily Vereshchagin returned to the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts and completed his official studies.

In 1867, Vereshchagin accepted the invitation of the Turkestan Governor-General K.P. Kaufman to come to Samarkand (as a military artist) with the rank of ensign. And almost immediately finds himself in the center of hostilities. A small Samarkand garrison of Russian soldiers (left behind in the city) is forced to heroically defend against the rebels local residents. Vereshchagin managed to distinguish himself in defense, raising the fighters to counterattack. For which he was awarded the Order of St. George 4th Art.

In 1869 he organized a "Turkestan exhibition" where he demonstrated his works. Upon completion, he returns to Turkestan. Then he travels to western China, observes the brutal suppression of the Dungan uprising, and participates in the conquest of Turkestan.

In 1871, Vereshchagin traveled to Munich, where he worked on paintings for the Turkestan Series. Holds exhibitions 1871-1874. and had a huge success in Europe. In 1873, he arranged a solo exhibition of paintings at the Crystal Palace in London.

In the spring of 1874 he returned to Russia and held an exhibition in St. Petersburg, where he was criticized by Emperor Alexander II and his entourage.

In 1874-1876. Vereshchagin lives in India, also traveling to Tibet, and in the spring of 1876 returns to Paris.

With the beginning of the Russian-Turkish war of 1877, he volunteered for the army, received the post of adjutant with the possibility of free movement among the troops. And in the same year, Vereshchagin was seriously wounded aboard the destroyer Pike.

In 1878-1879. in Paris, the artist works with paintings called "Balkan Series".

In 1882-1884, Vereshchagin again traveled to India, Syria, and Palestine.
In the summer of 1894, Vasily Vereshchagin travels and draws the Russian north (White Sea, Northern Dvina, Solovki).

In 1896, the artist worked on a series of paintings dedicated to the war of 1812.
In 1899 he spent the summer in the Crimea. In 1901 he visited the Philippine Islands, in 1902 he visited the USA and Cuba. And in 1903 he visited Japan.

With the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War, Vereshchagin finds himself in the active fleet.
Vasily Vereshchagin died on March 31, 1904. The battleship "Petropavlovsk", on which the artist was, was blown up by a mine on the outer roads of Port Arthur.

Vasily Vasilyevich Vereshchagin in the workshop of his house:

House in the village Nizhnie Kotly (nearest suburbs of Moscow at the beginning of the 20th century).

Attention! In the history of Russian fine arts, there was another Russian artist Vereshchagin Vasily Petrovich(painter and portrait painter). Who was also a talented painter and lived at the same time (1835-1909) with Vasily Vereshchagin Vasilyevich(1842-1904)! And he graduated from the same imperial academy of arts. On the Internet, you can find examples when some paintings by Vereshchagin V.P. mistakenly attributed to Vereshchagin V.V. Especially paintings with religious subjects.

Story national culture often remains a mystery to the majority of the population. But many artists not only possessed an unprecedented talent, but also lived an amazing life.

An exhibition of the artist Vasily Vasilyevich Vereshchagin has opened in the Russian Museum.

An interesting person, an amazing painter, an excellent writer, a brave man, awarded the St. George Cross for the fact that he, an artist, led soldiers into attacks and saved the situation in besieged Samarkand, for which the soldiers nicknamed him, a guard, Vyruchagin. An observant traveler who visited China, America, India, Central Asia, Japan, who created a mass of masterpieces, of which the public only knows the Apotheosis of War, and even then not in the right way. A man who fundamentally refused awards and titles. However, he was given a ride on the Nobel Peace Prize, saying that he was Russian and therefore was a spy. Well, nothing has changed, even though more than 100 years have passed.

Jackals. Dead city.

Lots of work that I haven't seen before. The ruins of the theater in the destroyed city of Chuguchak.
(The uprising was Chinese Muslims - Dungans and Kirghiz, the loss of the killed from 9 to 15 million people).

Garden gate. Chuguchak

Ruins of houses. Chuguchak.

Broken statue. Chuguchak.

Mausoleum of Shah and Zinda

Tomb of Sheikh Selim Chishti at Fatehpur Sikri.

As I thought - no queue.
At all.

Dervishes at the door of the mosque.

Do not compare with the queue at Aivazovsky. Well, this is understandable. There are more than 20,000 Armenians in our city, and they, of course, honored their fellow tribesman with a visit, plus sailors, who are ordered by trade union duty to appear on a famous marine painter.

And Vereshchagin - he is Russian, Russians, of course, will not itch. Just think, shit, the great Russian artist, eka! Yes, put a hundred times. Well, we don't give a damn about everything, right?

(Here's something very characteristic in LiveJournal - an ethnic Pole is given a marvel at our citizens - completely deserved.

http://szhaman.livejournal.com/1960336.html

The European does not understand us. albeit a smart person)

And in addition, Vereshchagin - he does not fit into the format, and even intolerant in all respects.
For that Russian intelligentsia She didn't love him then and she doesn't love him now. And he doesn't like the authorities either.

Beggars in Samarkand.

I liked the exhibition itself, of course, because he is a genius and a real master. But the trouble is that, according to Vereshchaginsky’s plan, he did not create paintings one at a time - but made up series, it turned out something like a completed work, now they call such a slide show, but I don’t know an analogue in Russian. Therefore, when the series are fragmented and scattered, the impression drops sharply.

The Spanish fleet drowned by the Americans.

Well, to make it clear: here is a series of American works. There he also painted the war, since peace-loving America fought and fights always and everywhere. Then the USA, too, of course, fought.

In general, traditions are a strong business.

“In America, the artist was carried on his hands, but this did not stop the merchants - “pimps of art” - from peeling him like sticky. He was convinced that the gigantic prices reported in the newspapers were a fake, which the merchants needed, so that later it would be more profitable to sell works of art. The artist did not make a deal with the businessmen, and they, having agreed, brought down the prices at the auction, and more than a hundred paintings were bought at a low price.
“A great artist and a perfect baby for practical life,” Stasov used to say about Vereshchagin.

And the artist needed money. There was a big change in his life. In America, he found his happiness...
She was twenty-three years old, Vasily Vasilyevich - forty-six. Quiet, thoughtful, diligent, Vereshchagin liked her, but he did not immediately discern her discreet beauty, especially since Lidia Vasilievna had a closed character.

When was Lidia Vasilievna's femininity captivating him? Was it then, when he decided that she should sit at the piano in Russian folk costume, and the pearls of an elegant kokoshnik made her bright eyes glow turquoise? Or during long conversations, when he was amazed at her deep knowledge of painting and literature? Be that as it may, but Lidia Vasilievna, Lida, became necessary to him every hour, every minute, and with the birth of his first child, a girl, worries about own house, which I certainly wanted to build in Russia. Children should grow up in their homeland. This is where he needed the money...

The artist did not immediately get a divorce, but it did not matter. He was overwhelmed with tenderness for Lida and the children with whom he moved to live near Moscow, in Nizhnie Kotly, where a large house with a spacious workshop grew up, "says the writer, researcher of V.V. Vereshchagin's work Dmitry Zhukov, about the beginning of the artist's family life and Lydia Vasilievna Andreevskaya.

Hospital.
By the way, the artist painted the nurse from his wife.

Mother's letter dictates.

The letter is not finished.

Email not sent...

If you look at one picture from the entire series, then the impression does not come out at all. The artist himself called his series "an epic poem in which pictures replace chapters."

And if this picture separates two from another cycle?

After good luck.

Bukhara sarbaz collect trophies - clothes and cut off heads of Russian soldiers.

After failure.

They should be next to each other, but if they are apart - not already.

Here the Sarbaz failed.

These early ones are the Turkestan cycle, a campaign in Central Asia, in which Vereshchagin participated. By the way - then we had the state of DAISH on the border, only it was called a little differently - the Kokand Khanate, Bukhara, Khiva. And the morals and habits are exactly the same - and cutting off heads, and slavery and other joys of obscurantism. By the way - think about how then the refined public was fucked up when they were shown severed heads?

Now people have seen everything, but reports from Iraq and Syria are under the cut and in the corner. And here - balls - and the ladies faint in front of the picture. And the journalists are outraged, how is it possible?!

There was also such a series drawn, dedicated to the sad fate of a small Russian detachment that had strayed from the column.

looking out

They attack by surprise.

(He himself got into such a situation. “As soon as I didn’t turn gray here, I confess, the minute was terrible,” Vereshchagin recalled. Enemies strove to “hack with a saber or prick with a pike,” he wrote. “I decided, if possible, to shoot back, and if it’s impossible, it’s easy for them to get it. Suddenly everything receded and rushed away. It was soldiers who ran up to us to the rescue ... ".

Parliamentarians.
- Give up!
- Go to hell!

Surrounded. Persecuted.

Trophies are presented to the Khan.

Fragment

They triumph. (And again, as in Daesh, the old traditions are heads on poles for the public to see)

Apotheosis of war.
At the end of such a series, the sound of the picture changed, huh? By the way - this was done by Tamerlane, this - though with fewer heads - was done in more civilized times. Customs, traditions.

Bacha in Turkestan. the edge of boys-dancers, engaged in the same profession as our public women.

Bacha with fans.

Sale of a slave.

Opium eaters.

Politics are being discussed.

It is clear that the realism of Vereshchagin's paintings in no way corresponded to the then accepted battle norms - with flying banners, beautiful generals in full dress, lush powder smoke and slender rows of ironed soldiers with a couple of beautifully lying cheerful wounded. For this, the artist was strongly disliked by the jingoistic patriots and the generals. And not only ours. By the way, German Field Marshal Moltke categorically forbade German officers to visit Vereshchagin's exhibitions.

"Cattle or crazy" - Alexander the Third about the artist VV Vereshchagin.

mortally wounded

But exactly the same hated Vereshchagin and our liberals - Westerners. Because the Russian people were presented to them not as slaves and cattle, but as normal men and women, often prettier than the foreign public, as can be seen from the portraits. And the generals are not stupid butchers, and the soldiers are heroes, this was unbearable for the liberals. And to Western civilization as a shrine and paradise Vereshchagin did not belong.

Lacemaker.

The Roman execution on the cross - caused very angry responses from the clergy, it did not turn out to be a canon. And not only our clergymen, the western ones showed solidarity.

The execution of the Narodnaya Volya in St. Petersburg - well, everything is clear here anyway.

But the “Suppression of the Indian Rebellion by the British” caused a real sumum of hatred in England.

The artist was once again accused of slander, but there were also witnesses and even participants in such executions.

“Modern civilization was scandalized mainly by the fact that the Turkish massacre was carried out close, in Europe, and then the means of committing atrocities were too reminiscent of Tamerlane times: they chopped, cut their throats, like sheep.
The British have a different matter: firstly, they did the work of justice, the work of retribution for the violated rights of the victors, far away, in India; secondly, they did a grandiose job: hundreds of sepoys and non-sepoys who rebelled against their rule were tied to the muzzles of cannons and without a shell, with gunpowder alone, they shot them - this is already a great success against cutting the throat or tearing open the stomach.

I repeat, everything is done methodically, in a good way: guns, how many there will be in number, line up in a row, slowly bring to each muzzle and tie one more or less criminal Indian citizen by the elbows, of different ages, professions and castes, and then command, all guns fire at once.
- V. Vereshchagin. Skobelev. Russian-Turkish war 1877-1878 in the memoirs of VV Vereshchagin. - M.: "DAR", 2007. - S. 151.

“They are not afraid of this death, and the execution does not frighten them; but what they avoid, what they are afraid of, is the need to appear before the highest judge in an incomplete, tormented form, without a head, without hands, with a lack of members, and this is not only likely , but even inevitable when shooting from cannons.
A remarkable detail: while the body is shattered into pieces, all the heads, breaking away from the body, spirally fly upwards. Naturally, they are later buried together, without a strict analysis of which of the yellow gentlemen this or that part of the body belongs to. This circumstance, I repeat, greatly frightens the natives, and it was the main motive for the introduction of execution by shooting from cannons in especially important cases, such as, for example, during uprisings.
It is difficult for a European to understand the horror of an Indian of a high caste, if necessary, only to touch a brother of a lower one: he must, in order not to close his opportunity to be saved, wash himself and make sacrifices after that without end. It’s also terrible that under modern conditions, for example, on railways you have to sit elbow on elbow with everyone - and here it can happen, no more, no less, that the head of a Brahmin with three cords will lie in eternal rest near the spine of a pariah - brrr ! From this thought alone the soul of the hardest Hindu shudders!
I say this very seriously, in full confidence that no one who was in those countries or who impartially familiarized himself with them from the descriptions will contradict me.
- V. Vereshchagin. Skobelev. Russian-Turkish war 1877-1878 in the memoirs of VV Vereshchagin. - M.: "DAR", 2007. - S. 153.

Again a breakdown in time - now the heads of suicide bombers are flying upwards in a spiral.

And the British destroyed the picture, apparently, as is customary among the Anglo-Saxons. They all try to cross out what they think shames them. And yes - now by the way it is perfectly visible on the Internet.

In Soviet times, they also did not understand how to relate to Vereshchagin. On the one hand, he seemed to criticize tsarism and imperialism. On the other hand, he sang royal army and violated internationalism by showing. for example, the same Turkestans are dirty, torn and lousy.

It seems that tsarism aggressively oppressed the local peoples, but the massacre of the heads of kefirs and slavery with banditry in relation to neighbors ... Basmachism was a serious problem for the Reds. I had to follow in the footsteps of the king ... again, they flirted with the Turks then, and Vereshchagin did not put the neighbors in the best light. although they seem civilized, they are the same wild thugs as the sarbazes of the Bukhara emir.

This period of our history is now little known - no stories, no films. But the most interesting events. Sharp competition with the British for influence in the region.

God forbid from new friends!

Even the uniform of the Russian troops is unusual and functional. A kepi with a nape, a canvas yermakovka-tunic and leather red pants with high boots holding the bites of snakes, tarantulas, scorpions and pricks of the thorns of local plants.

Let them come in. Defense of Samarkand.

Entered! (The painting was destroyed by the artist due to sweeping criticism).

Soldier and vultures

Russian-Turkish war - in the works of Vereshchagin. He was severely wounded there. it was the same Sklifosovsky who operated on him and saved him from gangrene. Younger brother Sergei - was killed there. The artist's third brother was also wounded.

Before the attack.

After the attack. Infirmary near Plevna.

Fragment. Our wounded.

Fragment. Turkish wounded are waiting for help from our doctors.

Captured Albanians - bashi-bazouks.
The position of the Shipka defenders was critical and was aggravated by the lack of supplies - agents of the Gorwitz, Greger, Kogan and Co. partnership, which was engaged in supplying food to the army, fled from the pass at the first rumors of the approach of the Turks. On August 9, 10, 11 and 12, the soldiers did not receive hot food, being content with breadcrumbs. Dressings also quickly came to an end, and by August 11, we already had to save cartridges. However, the most important deficit for the Russians was water - there was a forty-degree heat, and water from mountain springs could only be taken at night with a great risk to life.

The Turks set up ambushes not only at the springs, but also along the entire highway leading from Gabrov, from where they were waiting for saving reserves. The road was shot through, and one of its sections was called the “paradise valley”, because everyone who stopped there went to the forefathers. On August 9 alone, 40 people were wounded and killed on the road to Gabrov. No one could understand where the fire was coming from, since even gunpowder smoke was not visible. On August 16, the Russians managed to unravel this mystery - a cave was accidentally found from which a group of Turks fired. All of them were pierced with bayonets.

Trenches at Shipka.

“Commanders began to order warm clothes for soldiers, but already on September 26 the first cases of frostbite appeared. In October, the peak incidence for the entire campaign was reached in the Minsk regiment - 515 cases, that is, almost every sixth in the regiment was sick. Finally, in November in the mountains real frosts set in. By that time, the exhausted Orlovsky regiment was replaced by units of the 24th Infantry Division of Adjutant General K. I. Gerschelman, but on December 19 this division had to be lowered from Shipka, since it was almost completely frozen. Gershelman's non-combat losses amounted to more than 50% of the regular strength of the division.By the second half of December, the frost in the mountains reached such strength that the hoods broke off in pieces, and the oil froze in the rifles

Hourly. (From the series "Everything is calm on Shipka!" - a typical message from there. In three pictures - how a Russian sentry freezes in a snowstorm)

Winners (Our chasseur regiment near Telish fell into a trap and was defeated. The Turks finished off the wounded, mocked the corpses in every way, taking off all their clothes and shoes.)

«
restored with terrifying accuracy, with epic realism, the true image of the war: blood ..., the insolent infamy of the massacre appeared quite full picture Turkish atrocities...
Here one could see with what refined cruelty the Turks amused themselves, shredding the bodies in every way.

Straps were cut from the backs and hips, whole pieces of skin were taken out on the ribs, and on the chest the bodies were sometimes charred from a kindled fire.

Some of the prominent parts of the body were cut off and put into the mouths, the noses were knocked to the side or flattened, and the soldiers who had a mark for good shooting on their shoulder straps had cruciform notches carved on their foreheads ")