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The year 2004 marks the centenary since the death of the glamorous painter
of battle-scenes Vasily Vereshchagin.
A graduate of a nautical school, Vasily Vereshchagin was destined for a
military career. His passion for  art,
however, changed everything. Vereshchagin went to study at the St.Petersbrug
Academy of Fine Arts and the Paris School of Fine Arts. But even though
he chose to be an artist, battle scenes became central in his work.
In 1863 Vereshchagin set out for the Caucasus, a dangerous place, even
in those days. Caucasian mountaineers were too fanatical in their religion
and lifestyle to leave their neighbours in peace. So trophies such as cut
heads were considered the brand mark of a skilful Caucasian horseman.
In the Caucasus Vereshchagin saw the undisguised repercussions of war.
He was so awash with the impressions of war that he resolves to dedicate
himself as a painter of the war theme to show war as it is - the torments
and sufferings of soldiers and mass extermination of people.
“Can a war be judged from two viewpoints: one suggesting the attractive
and beneficial aspect to it and the other – the ugly and revolting one?”
Vereshchagin wrote. “No,” he replied, “there is only one war, in which
the enemy is made to lose as many as possible killed, wounded and captured
and in which the stronger party strikes at the weaker one until the latter
pleads for mercy.”
In 1867 Vasily Vereshchagin visited Turkestan, where Russia was engaged
in military operations. Following his trip he painted a series and made
a presentation of them at his first exhibition. The public was left dumbfounded
– the unvarnished truth of the war revealing the barbarity of backward
peoples and the emir’s soldiers committing acts of vandalism over the bodies
of killed Russian soldiers was nearly too much to bear. A
painting that produced the strongest impression was “Apotheosis of War”.
The barren scorched steppe with a pyramid of skulls in the center and ravens
flying over created a lasting impact. But what caused yet more shock was
when the visitors learned that in this pyramid of skulls was the skull
of a famous traveler and researcher of Central Asia, Adolf Shlaginweit,
who was executed on the khan’s orders.
In April 1877 Russia went to war with the Turks in the Balkans. Vereshchagin
left for the theatre of war to witness the heroism of Russian soldiers,
who were giving their lives for the liberation of Orthodox Bulgarians from
the Turkish yoke. The painter’s mastery was rising from the depths of his
heart to materialize in battle scenes that had never ever been portrayed
in Europe before. The pain of war hit the viewer right in the face,  particularly
in such a masterpiece as “The Defeated. A Service For Those Killed in Battle”.
The picture depicts an officer, bare-headed, next to him a priest saying
the prayer, and behind them, in the corner – a fresh grave with a big cross…
And nothing more, just the gray fields stretching to infinity with the
equally gray skies. All without exception Russians wounded near Telish
were first murdered and disfigured by Turks before being ransacked and
stripped naked along with those killed. Their comrades collected the bodies
scattered throughout the battlefield and put them next to one another in
front of a common grave. The priest served a liturgy for the dead. This
was how Vereshchagin himself explained the scene on the painting.
By the end of the 19th century Vasily Vereshchagin became widely known
both in Russia and abroad. Exhibitions of his works were a tremendous success
in New York, London, Paris, Vienna, Berlin and other European capitals.
In 1903 the artist left for the Russian-Japanese war, the third in his
career. When he first went to observe the war in Turkestan, a bullet left
a hole in his hat. During the second war, in the Balkans, he was wounded
in his right thigh. The third war took his life. Vereshchagin was killed
in the explosion on the “Petropavlovsk” battleship near Port Arthur in
April 1904. The painter doesn’t have a grave.
Vasily Vereshchagin’s battle scenes reflect the severe realities of war
to such an extent that when you observe them from the 21st century the
impression is that they were painted just recently, not over a hundred
years ago.
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