Taj Mahal by Vassiliï Vereshchagin , 1874.
No Nineteenth-century Russian artist traveled as much while taking so many risks as Vasily Vereshchagin. All of Western Europe, the Balkans, the USA, the Caucasus, Turkestan, Palestine, Syria are only a few of all the regions explored by Vereshchagin. Sometimes he traveled alone, on some occasions, he was embedded in the Russian imperial army.
In this special N&C No. 6 issue on Russia, Ukraine and other post-Soviet states, we were tempted to review the exhibit of Repin, another famous Russian painter whose art work can be seen at the Petit Palais within a short walking distance from our American University of Paris. But first of all, we felt sorry for the memory Vereshchagin who is very much forgotten outside of Russia, although he was acclaimed worldwide in his day for his talent in documenting little known parts of the world and the horrors of ancient and modern warfare. Secondly, we are essentially a geographic magazine and Vereshchagin is very much a geographic painter. Had he known him, the pioneer of post-modern geographic theory Yves Lacoste would certainly have used him as an example in his landmark article “Paysages politiques” (“Political Landscapes”), as a painter whose work conveys a special gaze, a truly geopolitical representation through art, whereas Repin is mostly a creator of neo-romantic and somewhat grandiloquent illustrations of iconic Russian historic events. Vereshchagin is very much a painter of spectacular landscapes and contemporary events, i.e. dramatic geopolitical events that were current news in his day. Contrary to ; in the last quarter of the 19th century, Vereshchagin’s paintings of war were as much powerful and politically significant as the images of great photographers documenting distant places for the National Geographic or rather, we should say, covering the Vietnam War with a critical eye. |
asiliy Vasilyevich Vereshchagin was born on October 26, 1842 in Cherepovets in the Russian North in the family of a local leader of the nobility. In 1850, together with his brother Nicholas, he was assigned to the Alexander Cadet Corps for minors. Then he studied in the Sea Cadet Corps, after which, after a short period of service, the newly produced midshipman retired and entered the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. After leaving the Academy, he went to the Caucasus, where he stayed for about a year. Then he went to Paris, where in 1864-1865 he studied and worked under the guidance of Jérôme.
In March 1865, Vereshchagin returned to the Caucasus and continued to paint from nature. In the autumn of 1865, Vereshchagin visited St. Petersburg, and then returned to Paris to continue his studies. He spent the winter of 1865–1866 studying at the Académie de Paris. In the spring of 1866, the artist returned to his homeland, completing his official training. In 1867, he gladly accepted the invitation of the Turkestan Governor-General, General K. P. Kaufman, to be an artist under him. He spent many months covering the Russian army's campaign in Central Asia, a region he would then travel across independently as well as Siberia and China. In the following years, he gained international fame, lived in India for two years and traveled to the Middle East, the United States, Cuba, the Russian Far North and to Crimea. Again like during the Russian conquest of Central Asia, he covered warfare during the Russo-Bulgarian-Turkish war of independence (1877-1878), the American campaign in the Philippines which he witnessed in 1901 and the Boxer rebellion in China, also in 1901. In 1904, he was on the front line of maritime combat aboard the vessel of famous oceanographer and strategist Admiral Makarov who had invited him to cover the Russo-Japanese war. The Petropavlovsk exploded on a mine on March 31, taking down the admiral and the painter who had always hated war and realistically depicted its horrors. |
Vereshchagin's portrait of this person native to Kazakhstan at a very early stage of his career, not only documents what art historian and critic Misheev says about the painter's talent for sketching (see below: "his sketches are more picturesque than the paintings themselves" , but some of his lesser known works such as this one are decades by in advance of the styles developed by such more famous figures as Roerich, Iakovleff or Jouve
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Vereshchagin was certainly no revolutionary artist like other painters who could be seen as realists (but are more than that) like Monet or his contemporary Russian artists like Somov or Serov. But neither is he a Frederick Remington or Charles Russell; compare these American frontier painters , whose subjects may appear similar to Vereshchagin's and you will quickly notice Vereshchagin's superiority in theme (the Russian's eye is critical and anti-colonial) and in artistry. Also, Vereshchagin as a realist, can be strikingly inspiring and novel. His portraits are as original and, for a realist, quite vanguard as Whistler's (some of Vereshchagin's portraits even herald portraitists of the 1930s like Alexandre Iakovleff (whom he obviously inspired) or Paul Jouve. Many of Vereshchagin's landscapes make him, with his other contemporary compatriots Arkhip Kuindzhi or Isaac Levitan, one of the last masters of composition, texture and color before professional photography and the best shots of great cinema-scope directors of photography (like replaced this kind of painting.
The editors of N&C - Nature & Cultures
V.V.VERESHCHAGIN by professor N.I. Misheev. From the Литературно-Художественнаго Журнал (Literary and Artistic Journal) No. 12, 1926. (paragraph IV. ―
comments on a selection of Vereshchagin's paintings ― has been omitted)
I.
N.N. Kramskoy said: "My heart beats with pride from the knowledge that Vereshchagin is Russian."
One of the greatest masters of the 19th century, Adolf Menzel, said of Vereshchagin: "Der kann alles" ("this one can do everything"). V.V. Vereshchagin during his life (1842-1904) arranged 30 of his own exhibitions, starting in 1869. Everywhere they were accompanied by great success. The press of all European countries was enthusiastic about them, noting the artistry, deep ideological, moral influence of his works, the importance of the latter for the people. Thus, the Viennese "Neue Freie Presse » wrote about the exhibition of 1881, where most of the visitors were plain folk, i.e. soldiers, artisans, even peasants: "One of the most remarkable features of Vereshchagin's exhibition is that now, it seems, for the first time the villagers felt the greatest interest in an art exhibition. The description of the paintings in the newspapers prompted many peasants to come to Vienna and go to the exhibition. Returning home, they spread the glory of the painter to all the surrounding villages. Thus, the desire to see his works has now spread throughout the Empire."
The famous German strategist Moltke, having visited Vereshchagin's exhibition in Berlin (1882), forbade officers to visit it. The same thing happened in Vienna. Wilhelm II, although full of militaristic intents, told Vereshchagin that his paintings were the best evidence of the absurdity of the war. One could cite a dozen, even hundreds more reviews that spoke of the significance of Vereshchagin's work mainly emphasizing his exceptional moral influence associated with the "campaign" against war. But enough of all of this.
comments on a selection of Vereshchagin's paintings ― has been omitted)
I.
N.N. Kramskoy said: "My heart beats with pride from the knowledge that Vereshchagin is Russian."
One of the greatest masters of the 19th century, Adolf Menzel, said of Vereshchagin: "Der kann alles" ("this one can do everything"). V.V. Vereshchagin during his life (1842-1904) arranged 30 of his own exhibitions, starting in 1869. Everywhere they were accompanied by great success. The press of all European countries was enthusiastic about them, noting the artistry, deep ideological, moral influence of his works, the importance of the latter for the people. Thus, the Viennese "Neue Freie Presse » wrote about the exhibition of 1881, where most of the visitors were plain folk, i.e. soldiers, artisans, even peasants: "One of the most remarkable features of Vereshchagin's exhibition is that now, it seems, for the first time the villagers felt the greatest interest in an art exhibition. The description of the paintings in the newspapers prompted many peasants to come to Vienna and go to the exhibition. Returning home, they spread the glory of the painter to all the surrounding villages. Thus, the desire to see his works has now spread throughout the Empire."
The famous German strategist Moltke, having visited Vereshchagin's exhibition in Berlin (1882), forbade officers to visit it. The same thing happened in Vienna. Wilhelm II, although full of militaristic intents, told Vereshchagin that his paintings were the best evidence of the absurdity of the war. One could cite a dozen, even hundreds more reviews that spoke of the significance of Vereshchagin's work mainly emphasizing his exceptional moral influence associated with the "campaign" against war. But enough of all of this.
"Battlefield at the Shipka Pass" apparently painted to celebrate a Russian victory against the Ottoman army during the Bulgarian war of independence supported by Russian troops, conveys on a gigantic canvas one of Vereshchagin's typical an anti-war messages.
II.
No catastrophe raises as many sick, perplexing questions as war.
For us, who have recently experienced the greatest war that mankind has ever seen, this is especially clear and familiar. How can we mix our culture, its grandiose achievements, our morality, that people constantly talk about, our Christian religion professing love for one's neighbor, our high mental development … with war, i.e., with the extermination of millions of people, with the destruction of cultural values, with the sinking into wildness, and ferociousness that naturally follows? That is something we refuse to understand! We come close to despair when we want to understand the causes of war. Because both the logic of the mind and the dictates of the heart, and the stories published are all against war, and despite all this, humanity, from time to time, engages in mutual extermination, utterly obeying some dark force that clouds the mind, forcing it to turn away from a cause that goes into perfect cut with everything truly human.
No catastrophe raises as many sick, perplexing questions as war.
For us, who have recently experienced the greatest war that mankind has ever seen, this is especially clear and familiar. How can we mix our culture, its grandiose achievements, our morality, that people constantly talk about, our Christian religion professing love for one's neighbor, our high mental development … with war, i.e., with the extermination of millions of people, with the destruction of cultural values, with the sinking into wildness, and ferociousness that naturally follows? That is something we refuse to understand! We come close to despair when we want to understand the causes of war. Because both the logic of the mind and the dictates of the heart, and the stories published are all against war, and despite all this, humanity, from time to time, engages in mutual extermination, utterly obeying some dark force that clouds the mind, forcing it to turn away from a cause that goes into perfect cut with everything truly human.
Don't you know that in war, for every hour of so-called glory, there are 40 and perhaps even more hours of suffering and torment of all kinds?" V.V. Vereshchagin. "The defeated - a requiem" (1878—1879 )
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That is why everything that is against war affects us extraordinarily, worries us, pleases us, causing a vague hope that it will first postpone the war, and then, perhaps, completely destroy it, making it absolutely unacceptable in human society.
And, of course, the main reason for Vereshchagin’s extraordinary popularity as an artist should be seen in the fact that he was the first representative of the plastic arts to deliver a fervent sermon against war. "War," Vereshchagin said, "observed up close, when you are in the very heat of it, is terrible, and for whoever himself has seen the horrors of destruction and scenes of suffering, it will hardly occur to find victory so sublime and beautiful, because the spectacle of blood, the moans of the wounded and the wheezing of the dying should fill the heart of people with deep sorrow. Thousands rush into battle and every minute fall by the hundreds dead and crippled... Does war have two sides: one pleasant, attractive and the other ugly, repulsive? There is only one war, during which they try to force the enemy to lose as many people as possible to be killed, wounded, and captured, and during which the strong beat the weak until the weak ask for mercy. Don't you know that in war, for every hour of so-called glory, there are 40 and perhaps even more hours of suffering and torment of all kinds?" |
Against the accusation that Vereshchagin's works represented only the most terrible aspects of war, which, therefore, made them biased, the artist replied: "We still cannot get rid of the darkness of medieval prejudice, that in art it is necessary to glorify someone or something. Most people are accustomed to seeing in paintings nothing but what is celebratory, and therefore many quickly call biased anything that is presented to them from everyday life ... Never blame of bias someone who paints only victories (whereas that is where rests bias), and someone who tries to mention the fact that he also has experience in warfare will now be judged for "bias"!" I had to listen to opinions about the aesthetic side of the war from such authorities as Prince George of Saxony and the late Prince Frederick Charles of Prussia. Their answer was brief: "All this is claimed by people who have not seen a real war."
"After the Attack" , 1881. ( a field hospital after the battle of Plevna during the 1877-1878 Bulgarian war of independance in which participated the Russian army)
"The Apotheosis of war" - Vereshchagin's most famous painting. (1871, Tretiakov Gallery, Moscow.)
Why was Vereshchagin so interested in war?
As he himself explained, in 1867 he decided to go to Turkestan because “I wanted to know what the true war was, and which I had read and heard a lot about and which I was close to in the Caucasus ... I did not represent war subjects in a sentimental spirit because I myself had to kill a lot of my neighbors in various wars... I had no right to be sentimental! The sight of these piles of human beings, stabbed, shot, beheaded before my eyes from the borders of China to Bulgaria, was bound to render life on the artistic side of the plan... I set out to observe the war in its various forms and convey it all truthfully. Facts transferred to the canvas without embellishment should speak eloquently for themselves."
As he himself explained, in 1867 he decided to go to Turkestan because “I wanted to know what the true war was, and which I had read and heard a lot about and which I was close to in the Caucasus ... I did not represent war subjects in a sentimental spirit because I myself had to kill a lot of my neighbors in various wars... I had no right to be sentimental! The sight of these piles of human beings, stabbed, shot, beheaded before my eyes from the borders of China to Bulgaria, was bound to render life on the artistic side of the plan... I set out to observe the war in its various forms and convey it all truthfully. Facts transferred to the canvas without embellishment should speak eloquently for themselves."
It is very natural that, thanks to this attitude to war, Vereshchagin became one of the most ardent advocates of peace, which resulted in societies and friends of the idea of peace including him among the candidates for the Nobel Prize. Having learned about this, Vereshchagin wrote: "Some spread the idea of the world with their mighty, fascinating word, others put up various arguments in defense of it – religious, economic, etc., while I preach the same through colors ... It is very important for me to recognize that art in this respect has the same ennobling educational value as fine literature and oratory eloquence..."
A decolonized vision at a time when complacent orientalism (with which Vereshchagin could be identified, however), was very popular. Color photo of V. Vereshchagin's now missing painting "Suppression of the Indian uprising by the British" (circa 1884). Once located in the USA, according to urban legend, it was purchased and then destroyed by British buyers.
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III
Vereshchagin's own confessions indicate that there is nothing fictional in his works. He painted only what he saw himself. His trips to the Caucasus, to Central Asia, to India, to the Balkans, to Bulgaria, to Palestine, to the Philippines, to the Far East tell us that the artist was attracted by an insatiable desire to find material for his painting, and moreover in such countries where no European artist had laid foot. "Everywhere," he says, "in Turkestan and in India, sketches introduced me to the country, taught me; the result of which were paintings that matured much later."
Vereshchagin's own confessions indicate that there is nothing fictional in his works. He painted only what he saw himself. His trips to the Caucasus, to Central Asia, to India, to the Balkans, to Bulgaria, to Palestine, to the Philippines, to the Far East tell us that the artist was attracted by an insatiable desire to find material for his painting, and moreover in such countries where no European artist had laid foot. "Everywhere," he says, "in Turkestan and in India, sketches introduced me to the country, taught me; the result of which were paintings that matured much later."
Vereshchagin's 1901 quadriptych from his reporting from the Philippines embedded with the U.S. Army during the Spanish-American war; 1: "In the hospital" 2: "A letter home", 3: "Letter interrupted", 4: "A letter that will remain unfinished". Vereshchagin Art Museum, Mykolaiv, Ukraine.
We know that the desire to see everything for himself made Vereshchagin hurry to the Far East with the beginning of the Russian-Japanese war, during which he died on the battleship Petropavlovsk, blown up by the Japanese on March 31, 1904.
So, V. Vereshchagin, as an artist, was a realist, depicting only what he saw and moreover in a lifelike way. On the other hand, staging idea and narration as apriority in his works, he joined the Itinerants in that trend, although he did not participate in their exhibitions, always arranging independent showings. In the history of the development of Russian painting, he does not seem to matter much. We do not observe any followers of his nor any school he might have created. He stands out completely apart.
Hence his sketches are more picturesque than the paintings themselves, where purely pictorial effects were relegated to the background before the drawing, before the smallest details that the artist carefully developed." Near Lake Ala Köl (1869-1870).
Far-Eastern Asian Museum of Arts. Habarovsk, Russia. |
Cavaliers crossing a river (1869-1870). The Russian Museum , Saint Petersburg, Russia.
Yet, when looking at his personal history, we cannot fail to notice innovation in the technique of his chosen skill, which he did not borrow from anywhere. Thus, he was one of the first "plein airists" who demanded that for "painting outdoor scenes, the model would pose outdoors." For this purpose, he arranged to have special studios for himself in Munich and in Paris, that were completely open on one side, rotating on rails, and drenched in sunshine. The workspaces with the model, thanks to the rails, followed, so to speak, the movement of the sun. He made every effort to render a full plein air, but he constantly, at the same time, repeated that this is not the most important thing in the picture, " that for a true artist this is not enough… to reproduce just one dot, one impression of colors is possible only in the form of a sketch,...". Hence his sketches are more picturesque than the paintings themselves, where purely pictorial effects were relegated to the background before the drawing, before the smallest details that the artist carefully developed. Was Vereshchagin himself aware of this? Perhaps, otherwise, he would not have said that "I did not express a quarter of what I saw."
"India. The Snows of the Himalaya" (1880s). Vereshchagin Art Museum, Mykolaiv, Ukraine.
As for the drawing itself, it is necessary to note its extraordinary sharpness, a clarity in in Vereshchagin, which is a testimony to one of the most characteristic traits of the artist, i.e., his will, a strong stubborn character, breaking all the obstacles that stood in the way. This is often stated in his letters. "Personally," we read in them, "all my life literally tore off pieces of meat from myself, ate quinine by handfuls against constant fever, and this very fever, as I came to be convinced of it, was the fruit of incredible efforts on myself, produced to obtain truth in colors, strength and naturalness in the subjects ... It is thought in vain that such artistic conscientiousness is easy: huge canvases fell on my nose, the sun scorched me, and frost constrained my hands when I painted outdoors, but I did not once sought an easy way out as I tried to convey the effects of various lighting of the day ..."
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