Vasily Vasilyevich Vereshchagin is one of the largest Russian realist painters. His works gained nationwide fame, and in the world of art he was firmly entrenched in the glory of an outstanding battle painter. However, the range of creativity of Vasily Vasilyevich was much wider than the battle theme. The artist significantly enriched the historical, everyday, portrait and landscape painting of his era. For contemporaries, Vereshchagin was not only a famous artist, but also a desperate revolutionary, breaking with generally accepted canons both in creativity and in life. “Vereshchagin is not just a painter, he is something more,” wrote the art critic, the ideological leader of the Wanderers Ivan Kramskoy. “Despite the interest of his paintings, the author himself is a hundred times more instructive.”
Vasily Vasilyevich was born in Cherepovets on October 14, 1842 in the family of a landowner. He spent the first eight years of his life on his father's estate near the village of Pertovka. The large family of the future artist lived at the expense of corvee and dues of serfs. And although Vereshchagin's parents were known among the landowners as relatively humane people, Vasily himself often observed scenes of oppression of serfs and lordly arbitrariness. The impressionable boy painfully perceived the humiliation of people and the violation of human dignity.
At the age of eight, Vasily's parents sent Vasily to the Alexander Cadet Corps for juveniles. The order in the educational institution during the time of Nicholas I was distinguished by rough drill, cane discipline, despotism and callousness, which did not contribute to the cadets' desire for service. It was during the years of study that the main character traits of Vereshchagin were discovered. He reacted sharply to any injustice or humiliation of a person. The estate swagger and arrogance of the cadets, the goodwill towards students from the noble families of the leaders of the corps aroused a feeling of furious indignation in Vereshchagin.
After graduating from the Alexander Cadet Corps, Vasily entered the Naval Corps in St. Petersburg. It should be noted that during the entire time of study, Vereshchagin was among the best pupils, and he graduated from the educational institution by the number of points in first place. Here the growing will of the future artist was expressed, in the struggle for superiority he had to sacrifice rest and entertainment, regularly lack sleep. However, the acquired knowledge, especially fluency in French, German and English, was very useful to him in subsequent years.
In 1860, Vasily Vasilyevich was promoted to midshipmen. Before him opened a brilliant career as a naval officer. However, while still studying at the Marine Corps, Vereshchagin firmly decided to become an artist. He had a desire to draw from childhood, since 1858 he already regularly attended the school of the Society for the Encouragement of Artists. Vereshchagin's desire to leave the service ran into serious difficulties. First, his parents revolted against this act in the strongest possible way. The mother said that painting was humiliating for a representative of an old noble family, and the father even promised to refuse material assistance to his son. And secondly, the naval department did not want to part with one of the most capable graduates of the Naval Corps. Contrary to the will of his parents and superiors, Vasily Vasilyevich left his military career, enrolling in 1860 at the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg.
V.V.Vereshchagin - student of the Academy of Arts 1860
The academic leadership immediately allocated a much-needed cash subsidy to Vereshchagin, and he, with all his spiritual ardor and diligence, devoted himself to his beloved work. Already in the first years of his studies, Vasily showed remarkable success, his drawings regularly received promotions and awards. However, the longer Vereshchagin studied at the Academy, the more dissatisfaction with local "studies" matured in him. The dominant system of education was based on the traditions of classicism, which included the obligatory idealization of nature. Students in their works were supposed to refer to the themes of antiquity, religion and mythology. Even the figures and events of national history had to be depicted in an antique way. Meanwhile, the situation in Russia at that time was distinguished by the exceptional acuteness of socio-political life. The crisis of the feudal system escalated, a revolutionary situation arose. The autocracy was forced to prepare and implement a peasant reform. Many vivid paintings, poems, dramatic works appeared in the country, exposing the unbearable living conditions of the urban poor and peasants. However, education at the Academy of Arts continued to be cut off from the progressive views of the era, which caused discontent among some members of the artistic youth, including Vereshchagin.
Vasily Vereshchagin at the end of the Naval Cadet Corps. Photos of 1859 - 1860s
The democratic views of Vasily Vasilyevich, his commitment to realism grew stronger and developed every day. The artist's educational sketch on the theme of Homer's Odyssey received praise from the Academy Council, but the author himself was completely disillusioned with the teaching system. He decided to put an end to classicism forever, in connection with which he cut and burned the sketch. Vereshchagin left the educational institution in the middle of 1863, shortly before the famous "revolt of the fourteen", who created an independent artel of artists.
Vasily Vereshchagin during the first trip to the Caucasus
The young painter went to the Caucasus, eager to paint national images, scenes of folk life and southern nature, unusual for his eyes. By the Georgian Military Highway, Vasily Vasilyevich reached Tiflis, where he lived for more than a year. He earned a living by giving drawing lessons, and devoted all his free hours to studying the peoples of Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, trying to capture everything interesting and characteristic with sketches. A true reflection of real life, the issuance of a “sentence” to it - this is what Vasily Vasilyevich began to see the meaning and purpose of art.
In those years, Vereshchagin worked only with pencil and watercolor, he had neither experience nor knowledge to use oil paints. In 1864, Vereshchagin's uncle died, the artist received a large inheritance and decided to continue his education. To do this, he went to France and entered the Paris Academy of Fine Arts, starting to train with the famous artist Jean-Leon Gerome. Diligence and enthusiasm allowed Vasily Vasilyevich to achieve considerable success in a short time. The Frenchman highly appreciated the talents of the new student, who, nevertheless, did not want to unquestioningly obey his instructions. Jerome offered endless sketches of antiques, advised to copy the paintings of the classics of painting. In fact, the techniques of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts were also cultivated here. Vereshchagin, on the other hand, attached importance only to work from nature. In the spring of 1865 he returned to the Caucasus. The artist recalled: “From Paris I escaped as if from a dungeon, with some frenzy began to draw in the wild.” Within six months, the young artist visited many places in the Caucasus, he showed particular interest in the dramatic stories of folk life.
The drawings of this period depict the savagery of local religious customs, denounce religious fanaticism, using the ignorance and darkness of the people.
At the end of 1865, Vereshchagin visited St. Petersburg, and then again went to Paris, where he again began to study with zeal. From his travels in the Caucasus, he brought back a huge number of pencil drawings, which he showed to Jérôme and Alexandre Bida, another French painter who took part in his training. Exotic and original paintings from the life of peoples little known in Europe made a favorable impression on skilled artists. However, this was not enough for Vasily Vasilyevich, he wanted to present his work to a mass audience.
Throughout the winter of 1865-1866, Vasily Vasilyevich continued to work hard at the Paris Academy. For fifteen or sixteen hours, the artist's working day lasted without rest and walks, without attending concerts and theaters. The technique of his drawing became more perfect and confident. He also mastered painting, coming to grips with work with paints. Vereshchagin's official training ended in the spring of 1866, the artist left the Academy and returned to Russia.
Vasily Vasilyevich spent the summer of 1866 in the estate of his deceased uncle - the village of Lyubets, located in the Cherepovets district. Outwardly, the calm life of the estate, located near the Sheksna River, was disturbed by the anguished cries of the barge crowds pulling the barges of merchants. The impressionable Vereshchagin was struck by the tragic pictures he saw in this place from the life of ordinary people turned into draft animals. Only in our country, according to the artist, barge work has become a real disaster, acquiring a mass character. On this subject, Vereshchagin decided to paint a huge picture, for which he made sketches of barge haulers with oil paints, created sketches with a brush and a pencil - several hauling teams of two hundred and fifty or three hundred people, following one after another in a train. Despite the fact that Vereshchagin’s canvas is significantly inferior to Repin’s famous painting “Barge Haulers on the Volga”, it is worth noting that Vasily Vasilyevich conceived the theme of the painting a few years before Ilya Efimovich (1870-1873). In addition, Vereshchagin, unlike Repin, tried to reveal the drama of the burlak fate not by psychological, but by epic means. A large-scale conceived work aimed at drawing public attention to one of the social ulcers of Russia at that time was not completed. The inheritance he received ended, the artist had to give all his time and energy to odd jobs. In the history of art, only sketches and expressive sketches of barge haulers, created directly from nature, remained forever.
In the middle of 1867, Vasily Vasilyevich set off on his new journey - to Turkestan. The artist wrote about the reasons that prompted him to leave the house: “I went because I wanted to find out that there is a real war, about which I heard and read a lot, near which I lived in the Caucasus.” At this time, active hostilities of the Russian army against the Bukhara Emirate began. The events that took place interested Vereshchagin not at all from the side of tactics or strategy of battles, but only as a socio-political event in which the people of each of the warring parties struggle, live and suffer. At that moment, Vasily Vasilyevich still had no anti-militarist convictions, no ideas and prevailing opinions about the war. He was invited by the commander of the Russian troops Konstantin Kaufman and served with him in the rank of ensign.
Vereshchagin used the long journey to Tashkent and countless trips around Turkestan for eighteen months to write a series of sketches and drawings showing the life of the peoples of Central Asia; local fortresses, cities and towns; historical monuments. Vasily Vasilyevich carefully studied customs, got acquainted with people, visited inns, mosques, teahouses, bazaars. In his albums there were colorful types of Tajiks, Uzbeks, Kirghiz, Kazakhs, Jews and Gypsies, as well as Persians, Afghans, Chinese and Indians who came across to him - people of different social status and age. At the same time, the artist noted the beauty of southern nature, majestic mountains, fertile steppes, stormy rivers. A series of sketches and drawings made by Vereshchagin in the late 1860s is a unique work, in fact, a visual encyclopedia of the life and life of the peoples of Central Asia in the middle of the nineteenth century. At the same time, the technique of the artist himself became more confident and impressive. Drawings have learned to convey the subtlest lighting effects and light and shade transitions, and have become distinguished by the maximum accuracy of kinship with nature. The artist's skill in working with oil paints also increased.
Samarkand, 1869
In the middle of spring 1868, Vereshchagin learned that the Emir of Bukhara, who was in Samarkand, had declared a “holy war” to Russia. Following the army, the artist rushed towards the enemy. Vasily Vasilyevich did not catch the battle that unfolded on May 2, 1868 on the outskirts of Samarkand, but shuddered at its tragic consequences: “I have never seen a battlefield, and my heart bled.” Vereshchagin stopped in Samarkand, occupied by Russian troops, and began to explore the city. However, when the main forces under the command of Kaufman left Samarkand, continuing the fight against the emir, the city's garrison was attacked by numerous troops of the Shakhrisabz Khanate. The local population also rebelled, the Russian soldiers had to lock themselves in the citadel. The situation was catastrophic, the opponents outnumbered our forces by eighty times. Vereshchagin had to change his brush to a gun and join the ranks of the defenders. With amazing courage and energy, he participated in the defense of the citadel, repeatedly led the fighters into hand-to-hand combat, and participated in reconnaissance sorties. Once a bullet split the artist's gun, in another it knocked his hat off his head, in addition, in the battle he was wounded in the leg. Composure and courage created a high reputation for him among the soldiers and officers of the detachment. Russian soldiers survived, after the siege was lifted, Vereshchagin was awarded the St. George Cross of the fourth degree. Vasily Vasilyevich constantly wore it. By the way, he resolutely refused all subsequent awards.
Apotheosis of War, 1871
The defense of Samarkand tempered the will and character of Vereshchagin. The horrors of battles, the suffering and death of people, the looks of the dying, the atrocities of enemies who cut off the heads of prisoners - all this left an indelible mark on the mind of the artist, tormented and worried him. In the winter of 1868, the artist visited Paris, and then arrived in St. Petersburg. In the northern capital, Vereshchagin developed an active activity in organizing and holding the Turkestan exhibition. Thanks to Kaufman's support, mineralogical, zoological and ethnographic collections from Central Asia were exhibited in the city. Here Vereshchagin first presented a number of his drawings and paintings. The exhibition was a great success, the press started talking about the artist's work.
After the closing of the exhibition, Vasily Vasilyevich again went to Turkestan, this time by the Siberian routes. A trip through Siberia allowed him to see the difficult life of political exiles and convicts. In Central Asia, Vereshchagin constantly traveled, worked tirelessly. He traveled around Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, traveled along the Chinese border, visited Samarkand again, visited Kokand. During his travels, the artist repeatedly participated in battles with bandits of local sultans. And again, Vereshchagin showed extraordinary courage and courage, exposing himself to mortal danger during hand-to-hand fights.
In order to summarize the material collected in Turkestan, the artist settled in Munich at the beginning of 1871. Constant exercises in the field of painting were not in vain. Now the artist was fluent in colorful harmony, sonorous colors easily and accurately conveyed space and light and air environment. A significant part of the canvases, as before, the artist devoted to showing the life of Central Asia in the second half of the nineteenth century. The plots of other paintings were episodes of the war for the annexation of Turkestan to Russia. In these works, with incorruptible truth, the heroism of ordinary Russian fighters, the barbarism and savagery of the customs of the Bukhara Emirate are conveyed.
The famous collector and philanthropist Pavel Tretyakov, visiting Munich, visited the workshop of Vasily Vasilyevich. Vereshchagin's works made a strong impression on Tretyakov, he immediately wanted to buy them. However, Vereshchagin wanted to organize a show to the general public before selling the canvases, to test his artistic and social convictions. An exhibition of Turkestan works by Vereshchagin was opened in 1873 in London at the Crystal Palace. It was the artist's first solo exhibition. The works surprised the audience. Unusual and new in content, powerful and expressive in artistic and realistic form, which broke with the conventions of salon-academic art. The exhibition was a great success for the English public, and for the Russian artist it was an unprecedented success. Magazines and newspapers published accolades.
Mortally wounded, 1873
In early 1874, Vereshchagin presented Turkestan paintings in St. Petersburg. To attract a low-income public, he set up free admission several days a week. And this exhibition was a huge success, evoking lively responses from leading figures in Russian culture. Mussorgsky, based on the plot of one of Vereshchagin's paintings, wrote the musical ballad "Forgotten", and Garshin composed a passionate poem about unknown soldiers who died in this war. Kramskoy wrote: “This is something amazing. I don’t know if there is an artist equal to him here or abroad.”
However, the tsarist dignitaries, together with the highest generals, reacted sharply negatively to the pictures, finding their content slanderous and false, discrediting the honor of the Russian army. And this was understandable - after all, until that time, battle painters depicted only the victories of the tsarist troops. It was very difficult for the generals to come to terms with the episodes of defeat shown by Vereshchagin. In addition, presenting in his paintings the historical epic of the annexation of Turkestan to Russia, the impudent artist nowhere immortalized either the reigning emperor, or at least one of his generals. Soon after the start of the exhibition, the ruling circles launched a real persecution of its organizer. Articles began to appear in the press accusing Vasily Vasilyevich of anti-patriotism and treason, of a "Turkmen" approach to events. The sale of reproductions of paintings by Vereshchagin was not allowed, even Mussorgsky's ballad was banned.
Under the influence of unfair and outrageous accusations, Vereshchagin, in a state of nervous attack, burned three of his beautiful paintings, which provoked special attacks from dignitaries. However, the conflict between him and government circles continued to intensify. He was accused of lying, presented as a troublemaker and nihilist. They recalled individual episodes of the artist's biography, for example, how he refused to serve in the navy, left the Imperial Academy of Arts without permission. The Turkestan series was generally presented as an open challenge to the centuries-old tradition of presenting military historical events.
"Attack by surprise", 1871
The atmosphere of persecution became so unbearable for Vereshchagin that he, without deciding the fate of his Turkestan paintings, left St. Petersburg before the closing of the exhibition, setting off on a long journey through India. After that, he gave the task to a trusted person to sell this series, subject to the buyer observing several mandatory conditions, such as: preservation of the paintings in their homeland, their availability to the public, and the continuity of the series. As a result, Tretyakov bought the Turkestan works, placing them in his famous gallery.
With the departure of Vasily Vasilyevich from Russia, his conflict with government circles did not fade away. A new impetus was the demonstrative refusal of Vereshchagin, who was in India, from the professorship awarded to him in 1874 by the Imperial Academy of Arts. Vereshchagin motivated his refusal by the fact that he considers all awards and titles in art unnecessary. A number of Academy artists took this as a personal insult. The severity of the situation was concluded in the fact that the Academy of Arts, which in essence was one of the court institutions, headed by members of the imperial family, at that time was going through a deep crisis. Cultivating the obsolete views of late classicism, the Academy lost its authority. Many leading Russian artists departed from it. Vereshchagin's public refusal further lowered the prestige of this government institution. The authorities tried to muffle the discussion of Vasily Vasilyevich's act in the print media. It was forbidden to publish articles criticizing the Academy and even more expressing solidarity with Vereshchagin.
Warrior rider in Jaipur. Around 1881
In India, the artist lived for two years, visited many regions, traveled to Tibet. At the beginning of 1876 he returned to France, and in 1882-1883 he again wandered around India, since the materials collected during the first trip were not enough. As in his previous travels, Vereshchagin carefully studied folk life, visited monuments of culture and history. Vasily Vasilyevich worked sparing neither health nor strength. He happened to repel the attacks of wild animals, drown in the river, freeze on mountain peaks, and get sick with severe tropical malaria. The culmination of the Indian cycle was the accusatory picture "The suppression of the Indian uprising by the British", showing the cruelest scene of the execution of recalcitrant Indian peasants by cannons by the British colonialists.
In early 1877, the Russian-Turkish war began. Upon learning of this, the artist immediately abandoned his paintings in Paris and went to the army. Without government support, but with the right to free movement, he was among the adjutants of the commander-in-chief of the Danube army. Vasily Vasilyevich took part in a number of battles, witnessed many battles. Every free minute he grabbed a pencil and paints, he often had to work under Turkish bullets. To the questions of friends about why he voluntarily participates in battles and risks his life, the artist answered: “It is impossible for society to give pictures of a real war, looking at the battle through binoculars ... You need to feel everything and do it yourself, participate in assaults, attacks, victories and defeats, to know cold, hunger, wounds, illnesses... One must not be afraid to sacrifice one's meat and blood, otherwise the pictures will be "not right."
Before the attack. Near Plevna
On June 8, 1877, while participating on the Danube as a volunteer in the attack of a small destroyer against a huge Turkish steamer, Vasily Vasilyevich was seriously wounded and almost died. Still not recovered, the artist rushed to Plevna, where Russian troops stormed the stronghold for the third time. The Battle of Plevna became the basis of a number of famous paintings by the artist. At the end of the war, the headquarters of Commander-in-Chief Vereshchagin was asked what award or order he would like to receive. “Of course, none!” - answered the artist. The Russian-Turkish war brought him great personal grief. His dearly beloved younger brother Sergei died, and another brother, Alexander, was seriously wounded. Trouble for Vereshchagin was also the loss of about forty of his sketches. This happened due to the negligence of a number of persons whom he instructed to send the work to Russia.
The Balkan series of Vereshchagin is the most significant in his work, both in terms of artistic skill and ideological content. It depicts the inexpressible torment, hard work and horrendous disasters that war brings to the masses of soldiers and peoples. In connection with the opening of the Vereshchagin exhibitions in St. Petersburg in 1880 and 1883, many articles supporting the artist appeared in the press: solemn processions. All that fascinating, ceremonial setting that humanity has come up with to cover up the most disgusting of its deeds is unfamiliar to the brush of the artist, before you is only naked reality. Interest in Vereshchagin's paintings in society was unusually high. In private houses, clubs, in theaters and on the streets, there was a lively discussion of them. Critic Vladimir Stasov wrote: “Not all of Vereshchagin's paintings are equal - he has both weak and mediocre ones. Although where is the artist seen, who in a number of works had only pearls and diamonds of the highest caliber? This thing is unthinkable. But who in Russia does not feel the grandeur of the Vereshchagin exhibition, which has nothing like it not only here, but throughout Europe? Their best contemporary war painters are still far from our Vereshchagin in boldness and depth of realism .... By technique, by expression, by thought, by feeling, Vereshchagin has never risen so high. Only those who are completely devoid of artistic meaning and feeling do not understand this.
Snow trenches (Russian positions on the Shipka Pass)
Nevertheless, the authorities still accused the artist of being anti-patriotic, of sympathizing with the now Turkish army, of deliberately discrediting the Russian generals. There were even proposals to deprive Vasily Vasilyevich of the title of Knight of St. George, arrest and send him into exile. By the way, not only in our country, but in Europe, and later in America, the ruling circles were afraid of the accusatory, anti-militarist influence of Vereshchagin's paintings. For example, later the artist wrote from the USA: “When I was offered to take children to the exhibition at a low price, they told me that my paintings could turn young people away from the war, which, according to these“ gentlemen ”,is undesirable.” And to a journalist’s question about how famous modern generals relate to his works, Vereshchagin replied: “Moltke (Helmuth von Moltke, the largest military theorist of the nineteenth century) adored them and was always the first at exhibitions. However, he issued an order forbidding soldiers to view the paintings. He allowed officers, but not soldiers. To the reproaches that fell upon some military men that Vereshchagin in his works too thickens the tragic sides of the war, the artist replied that he had not shown even a tenth of what he actually observed.
Due to severe emotional experiences, Vasily Vasilyevich developed a serious nervous breakdown, which led to internal doubts. In a letter to Stasov in April 1882, he said: “There will be no more battle pictures - that's it! I take my work too close to my heart, crying out the grief of each killed and wounded. In Russia, in Prussia, in Austria, the revolutionary orientation of my military scenes was recognized. Well, let not the revolutionaries draw, but I will find other plots. In 1884, Vasily Vasilyevich went to Palestine and Syria. After the trip, he created a series of paintings on absolutely unusual gospel stories for him. However, the artist interpreted them in a very original way, completely different from the traditions adopted in European fine art. It must be added that Vereshchagin was a materialist and atheist, did not believe in supernatural miracles and mysticism. As a result of long reflections, he tried to materialistically present the gospel legends, which the church recognized as sheer sacrilege. The Catholic clergy were terribly “offended” by the paintings: the archbishops wrote whole appeals against them, groups of fanatics were looking for the artist, wanting to settle accounts with him, and one monk poured acid over the paintings “The Resurrection of Christ” and “The Holy Family”, almost destroying them. In Russia, all the gospel canvases of Vasily Vasilyevich were banned.
Workshop of Vasily Vereshchagin in his house in Nizhnye Kotly. 1890s
In 1890, the artist's dream of returning to his homeland came true. He settled in a new house on the outskirts of the capital, but lived there for a very short time, going on a trip to Russia. As in his youth, he was interested in monuments, the life of the population, nature, folk types, ancient Russian applied art. Among the paintings of the Russian cycle (1888-1895), the most outstanding were the portraits of "unremarkable Russians" - the faces of ordinary people from the people.
Napolen on the Borodino field
In 1887, Vasily Vasilyevich started a new monumental series dedicated to the Patriotic War of 1812. The twenty paintings he created were a truly majestic epic full of patriotic pathos about the Russian people, about their national pride and courage, hatred for the conquerors and devotion to the Motherland. Vereshchagin did a gigantic research work, studied many memoirs of his contemporaries and historical materials written in different European languages. He personally explored the field of the Battle of Borodino, got acquainted with the relics of the era, created a lot of sketches and sketches. The fate of a series of paintings about 1812 remained unresolved for many years. Designed for large palace halls and museums, the paintings did not appeal to private patrons. The government looked at Vereshchagin's new works with hostility and distrust, also stubbornly refusing to buy all the paintings at once, and the artist did not agree to sell one or two from an integral and indivisible series. Only on the eve of the centenary of the Patriotic War, under the pressure of public opinion, the tsarist government was forced to purchase canvases.
Vereshchagin at the easel, 1902
At the end of his life, Vasily Vasilyevich made a number of long trips. In 1901, the artist visited the Philippine Islands, in 1902 - in Cuba and the United States, in 1903 - in Japan. Unusually picturesque Japanese sketches have become a new stage in the work of Vereshchagin, testifying to his tireless work on the development of skill. The artist's journey through Japan was interrupted by the deteriorating political situation. Afraid of being interned, Vereshchagin left the country in a hurry and returned to Russia.
In his speeches, he warned the government of the impending war, but as soon as it began, the sixty-two-year-old artist considered it his moral duty to go to the front. Vereshchagin left his beloved wife and three children at home and went into the midst of hostilities in order to once again tell people the whole truth about the war, to show its true essence. He died along with Admiral Stepan Makarov on March 31, 1904, while on board the flagship Petropavlovsk, which had flown into Japanese mines. It was death at a military post in the full sense of the word. Captain Nikolai Yakovlev, who miraculously escaped during the Petropavlovsk disaster, said that before the explosion he saw Vasily Vasilyevich, entering into the album the sea panorama that opened to his eyes.
The death of Vereshchagin caused responses around the world. Magazines and newspapers published articles about his life and work. At the end of 1904, a large posthumous exhibition of the artist’s paintings opened in St. Petersburg, and a couple of years later a museum named after him was built in Nikolaev. Vasily Vasilyevich became one of the first who managed to express in the visual arts the idea that war should not and cannot be a means of resolving international conflicts. He believed that education and science were the main engines of progress. All his life he remained a fierce enemy of "barbarism", despotism and violence, a defender of the oppressed and destitute. Ilya Repin said about Vereshchagin: "A colossal personality, truly heroic - a super artist, a superman."
Monument-bust on the forecourt of the city of Vereshchagino
Based on materials from the site http://www.centre.smr.ru
Vasily Vereshchagin is known throughout the world as an unsurpassed battle painter. He painted from nature, right on the battlefields. He created amazing documentary and artistic annals of military operations.
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Vereshchagin Vasily Vasilyevich (Vereshchagin Vasily), Russian artist, master of battle painting. Born in Cherepovets on October 14 (26), 1842 in the family of a landowner. In 1850-1860 he studied at the St. Petersburg Cadet Corps, graduating with the rank of midshipman. Sailed in 1858-1859 on the frigate "Kamchatka" and other ships to Denmark, France, England. In 1860, Vereshchagin entered the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, but left it in 1863, dissatisfied with the teaching system. He attended the workshop of Jean Leon Gerome at the Paris School of Fine Arts (1864).
All his life Vereshchagin was a tireless traveler. In an effort (in his own words) "to learn from the living chronicle of the history of the world", he traveled around Russia, the Caucasus, the Crimea, the Danube, Western Europe, twice visited Turkestan (1867-1868, 1869-1870), participating in colonial campaigns of Russian troops, twice - in India (1874-1876, 1882). In 1877-1878 he participated in the Russian-Turkish war in the Balkans. He traveled a lot, in 1884 he visited Syria and Palestine, in 1888-1902 the USA, in 1901 the Philippines, in 1902 Cuba, in 1903 Japan. The impressions from the trips were embodied in large cycles of sketches and paintings. In Vereshchagin's battle paintings, the underside of the war is revealed in a journalistic way, with harsh realism.
Although his famous “Turkestan series” has a well-defined imperial-propaganda orientation, in the paintings over the winners and the vanquished, a sense of tragic doom gravitates everywhere, emphasized by a dull yellowish-brown, truly “desert” color. The painting Apotheosis of War (1870-1871, Tretyakov Gallery), depicting a pile of skulls in the desert, became a famous symbol of the entire series; on the frame there is an inscription: "Dedicated to all the great conquerors: past, present and future."
The "Turkestan" series of paintings by Vereshchagin is not inferior to the "Balkan" series. In it, the artist, on the contrary, throws down a direct challenge to the official pan-Slavist propaganda, recalling the fatal miscalculations of the command and the terrible price paid by the Russians for the liberation of the Bulgarians from the Ottoman yoke. The Defeated canvas is especially impressive. Memorial service (1878–1879, Tretyakov Gallery), where under a cloudy sky a whole field of soldiers' corpses is spread, sprinkled with only a thin layer of earth. His series Napoleon in Russia (1887–1900) also won wide acclaim. The artist Vereshchagin was also a gifted writer, the author of the book At War in Asia and Europe. Memories (1894); The Selected Letters of the Artist Vereshchagin (republished in 1981) are also of great interest.
Vereshchagin died during the Russo-Japanese War, on March 31 (April 13), 1904, during the explosion of the battleship Petropavlovsk on the roadstead of Port Arthur.
The history of national culture often remains a mystery for 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 this, the Russian intelligentsia did not love him then and does not 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 a 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, there were worries about his own house, which he wanted to build without fail 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 Vereshchagin did not treat Western civilization as a shrine and paradise.
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 of the tsarist army and violated internationalism, 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. The 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, a fairly complete picture of Turkish atrocities appeared ...
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 ")
