Vasily Vereshchagin | |
|---|---|
| Василий Верещагин | |
 | |
| Born | (1842-10-26)26 October 1842 |
| Died | 13 April 1904(1904-04-13) (aged 61) Port Arthur, Russian Empire (nowLüshunkou, China) |
| Alma mater | St. Petersburg Academy of Arts |
| Occupations |
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| Notable work | The Apotheosis of War (1871) Suppression of the Indian Revolt by the English (1884) |
| Style | Realism |
| Awards | Order of St. George (4th Class) |
Vasily Vasilyevich Vereshchagin (Russian:Васи́лий Васи́льевич Вереща́гин; 26 October 1842 – 13 April 1904) was aRussian painter,war artist, and traveller. Thegraphic nature of hisrealist scenes led to many of them never being printed or exhibited to the public.[1]
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Vereshchagin was born atCherepovets,Novgorod Governorate,Russia, in 1842 as the middle of three brothers. His father was a landowner of noble birth, while his mother was of common origin and hadTatar roots.[2][3][4] When he was eight years old, he was sent toTsarskoe Selo to enter the Alexander Cadet Corps. Three years later, he entered theNaval Cadet Corps atSt. Petersburg, making his first voyage in 1858.[2] He served on thefrigateKamchatka, which sailed toDenmark,France, andEgypt.
Vereshchagin graduated first in his list at the naval school, but left the service immediately to begin the study of drawing in earnest. Two years later, in 1863, he won a medal from theImperial Academy of Arts for hisUlysses Slaying the Suitors. In 1864, he proceeded toParis, where he studied underJean-Léon Gérôme, though he dissented widely from his master's methods.[2]
In theParis Salon of 1866, Vereshchagin exhibited a drawing ofDukhobors chanting their Psalms. In the next year, he was invited to accompany GeneralKonstantin Petrovich Kaufman's expedition inCentral Asia andTurkestan. He was granted the rank of ensign. His heroism at thesiege of Samarkand from 2–8 June 1868 resulted an award of theCross of St. George (4th Class).[2] He was an indefatigable traveller, returning to St. Petersburg in late 1868, to Paris in 1869, back to St. Petersburg later in the year, and then back to Turkestan viaSiberia at the end of 1869.
In 1871, Vereshchagin established an atelier inMunich,German Empire. He gave a solo exhibition of his works (later referred to as his "Turkestan Series") at theCrystal Palace inLondon,United Kingdom in 1873. He gave another exhibition of his works in St. Petersburg in 1874, where two of his paintings, namely,The Apotheosis of War, dedicated "to all conquerors, past, present and to come," andLeft Behind, the picture of a dying soldier deserted by his fellows,[2] were denied a showing on the grounds that they portrayed theRussian military in a poor light. In late 1874, Vereshchagin departed inNorthern andEastern Asia for an extensive tour of theHimalayas,British India,Mongolia, andTibet, spending over two years in travel. He returned to Paris in late 1876.
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With the start of theSecond Russo-Turkish War, Vereshchagin left Paris and returned to active service with theImperial Russian Army. He was present at thecrossing of the Shipka Pass and at thesiege of Plevna (1877), where his brother was killed. He was dangerously wounded during the preparations for the crossing of theDanube nearRustchuk. At the conclusion of the war, he acted as secretary toGeneral Skobelev atSan Stefano.[2]
After the war, Vereshchagin settled inMunich, where he produced his war pictures so rapidly that he was freely accused of employing assistants. The sensational subjects of his pictures, and their didactic aim, namely, the promotion of peace by a representation of the horrors of war, attracted a large section of the public not usually interested in art to the series of exhibitions of his pictures in Paris in 1881, and subsequently inLondon,Berlin,Dresden,Vienna, and other cities.[2]
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Vereshchagin painted several scenes of imperial rule inBritish India. His epic portrayal ofThe State Procession of the Prince of Wales into Jaipur in 1876 is at196 in × 274 in believed to be the second-largest oil painting in the world.[5] He traveled again to India in 1882–1883.[6]
He aroused much controversy by his series of three pictures: firstly, of aRoman execution (theCrucifixion by the Romans (1887)); secondly,Suppression of the Indian Revolt by the English; and, thirdly, of the execution ofNihilists in St Petersburg.[2] WhenSuppression of the Indian Revolt by the English was first exhibited, many in America and Britain believed that it depicted executions ofsepoyscarried out by tying victims to the barrels of guns. Vereshchagin's detractors argued that such executions had only occurred in theIndian Rebellion of 1857, but the painting depicted modern soldiers of the 1880s, implying that the practice was then current. Because of its photographic style, the painting appeared to present itself as an impartial record of a real event. In fact, Vereshchagin's work did show a more contemporary though lesser known execution; in 1872 Deputy-Commissioner J. L. Cowan ordered the execution of a group ofNamdhari Sikhs at the parade grounds inMalerkotla by blowing from guns.[7] In 1887, Vereshchagin defended himself inThe Magazine of Art by saying that if there were another rebellion then the British would use this method again.[8]
A journey to theOttoman provinces ofSyria andPalestine in 1884 furnished him with an equally discussed set of subjects from theNew Testament.[2] Vereshchagin's paintings caused controversy over his portrayal of the figure of Christ with what was thought at the time to be an unseemly realism. The1812 series onNapoleon'sRussian campaign, on which Vereshchagin also wrote a book, seems to have been inspired byTolstoi'sWar and Peace, and was painted in 1893 inMoscow, where the artist eventually settled.[2][9]
Vereshchagin was in the Far East during theFirst Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895, and waswith the Russian troops inManchuria during theBoxer Rebellion of 1900.[2] In 1901, he visited thePhilippines, in 1902 the United States andCuba, and in 1903,Japan.
During theRusso-Japanese War, he was invited by AdmiralStepan Makarov to join him aboard Makarov's battleship,Petropavlovsk. On April 13, 1904,Petropavlovsk struck two mines while returning toPort Arthur and sank, taking with it most of the crew, including both Admiral Makarov and Vereshchagin. Vereshchagin's last work, a picture of a council of war presided over by Admiral Makarov, was recovered almost undamaged.[2][10]
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This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Vereshchagin, Vassili Vassilievich".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 27 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 1021.
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