Vasily Vereshchagin: A Lifelong Struggle

Vasily Vasilyevich Vereshchagin was a Russian battle painter, traveler and military man. His work is permeated by the theme of war. He did not love it, yet he experienced many wars in his life and received distinctive awards. Among them were the St. George's Cross for the defense of Samarkand and a golden sword for the Russo-Turkish War. He never actually accepted the sword, thereby offending Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich, the younger brother of Tsar Alexander II. In general, the artist accepted honors reluctantly, considering them unimportant. Vereshchagin had a strong and quick-tempered character; he carried a revolver in his pocket and would often draw it during arguments. Vasily Vereshchagin's talent was vivid and multifaceted and was highly appreciated worldwide even during his lifetime. We will talk about the artist's difficult fate, his views on creativity, and his recognition today.

The artist was born on October 26, 1842 in Cherepovets. Vasily early showed interest and aptitude for drawing, but his parents did not encourage their son's enthusiasm: "For the son of a table nobleman, of the 6th genealogical register, to become an artist — what a disgrace!" Among the Vologda and Novgorod nobility, a military career was prestigious and required. From childhood Vasily was prepared for the military. Like his brothers, at the age of eight he entered the Naval Cadet Corps in Saint Petersburg. He graduated brilliantly, but seasickness became an obstacle to a career as a naval officer.

In 1860 Vasily Vereshchagin resigned and, against his father's wishes, enrolled in the Academy of Arts, where he studied for three years. Then he went for two years to study at the Paris Academy under Jean-Léon Gérôme, whose paintings he admired. Soon he returned to Tiflis, recalling: "I escaped from Paris as if from a prison. And I began to paint in freedom with some ferocity." In the spring of 1866 the artist returned home to finish his studies at the Academy of Arts.

At that time the commander of the Turkestan military district, Governor-General Konstantin von Kaufmann, needed an artist on staff who would make sketches of campaign events in real time. This was the artist's first war. Vasily did not limit himself to mere sketches; he preferred to be in the thick of the action, believing that only by feeling war from the inside and knowing it from personal experience could one truthfully depict it. In that campaign the artist took part in the battle for Samarkand and the siege of the Samarkand fortress. For the heroism shown during the defense of the Samarkand fortress, Vasily Vereshchagin was awarded the St. George's Cross.

It was this week of the siege that played the main role in shaping the artist's views and determined his whole subsequent fate. He carried his contempt for war throughout his life. But that contempt was not passive; it was active: by depicting fear, death, blood, piles of skulls and filth the artist dispelled the idealization of battles with their parade marches and gleaming epaulettes. Instead, Vasily showed the true price that must be paid for the triumph of victory. The master approached his work seriously, incubating painting ideas for a long time, repeatedly visiting the places that had impressed him, painting works as cycles and therefore being very upset when paintings were bought separately. In addition to painting, Vereshchagin published travel notes and prose, and these constituted a coherent anti-war statement, painfully earned. Once the battle painter wrote: "I will paint no more battle pictures — basta! I take to heart too much what I paint; I weep (literally) the sorrow of every wounded and dead man."

In the Turkestan series Vasily Vereshchagin completed 13 canvases, 81 studies and 133 drawings. Among them are the two most famous paintings by the artist, "The Apotheosis of War" and "Mortally Wounded." Both paintings are exhibited in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.

From his first exhibitions contemporaries understood that they were facing a brilliant artist. While receiving high praise from critics, he also met rejection from the public in shining epaulettes. They found the master's paintings pessimistic. They disliked the merciless truthfulness and the absence of expressions of glory and grandeur of Russian victors. In 1874 the future emperor, Grand Duke Alexander Alexandrovich, said: "His constant tendentiousness is offensive to national pride and one can conclude one thing from it: either Vereshchagin is a scoundrel, or a completely mad man." And in 1900 Vasily Vereshchagin was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize — the first in history.

Subsequently the artist would witness many more wars: Turkestan, the Balkans, Palestine, the United States, the Philippines, Cuba, Japan. Everywhere he painted gripping series of works about the dishonor and barbarity of war. The artist's exhibitions took place around the world: Vienna, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, London, as well as the United States and Cuba. In the United States he was received with special honor by President Theodore Roosevelt.

About his exhibition in Vienna they wrote:

"The exhibition of V. V. Vereshchagin's paintings is an unprecedented spectacle in Vienna. From 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. a continuous mass of people not only fills the entire Künstlerhaus building where the exhibition is held, but outside at the entrance throughout the whole day you can see several hundred people waiting to enter. And if you finally manage to squeeze into the hall of Vereshchagin's galleries — you will, not without surprise, see representatives of aristocratic families alongside workers, members of the highest bureaucracy, important pompous generals mixed with petty burghers and ordinary rank-and-file soldiers. In Vienna this phenomenon is unheard of, for in no other major European city are social classes so segregated as in Vienna. But Vereshchagin's exhibition produced a leveling effect: prince and peasant, millionaire banker and simple worker — all hasten one after another to put 30 kreuzers into the box in order to sooner behold the works of a mighty talent."

Vasily Vereshchagin. Evening on the Lake. One of the pavilions on the Marble Embankment in Rajnagar (the principality of Udaipur). Tretyakov Gallery

And in March 1904, during the Russo-Japanese War, the battleship Petropavlovsk, on board which the artist Vasily Vereshchagin was present, struck a mine and sank, taking most of the crew with it — including the famous artist. According to the testimony of the few survivors, Vereshchagin went up on deck with a campaign sketchbook a few minutes before the explosion. "Vereshchagin wanted to show people the tragedy and folly of war, and he himself fell victim to it," a Japanese newspaper wrote. The whole world mourned Vereshchagin.

«Верещагин хотел показать людям трагедию и глупость войны, и сам пал её жертвой», - напишут в японской газете. Верещагина оплакивал весь мир.