Artist Vasily Vereshchagin: biography, creativity, photo

Vereshchagin is often called a battle artist. But was it so in the sense that is put into these words ?. Batalist, painting the war, shows beautiful spectacular pictures of battles, bright images of her heroes-winners, pathetic losers. All this is missing in the paintings of the great painter. Vasily Vereshchagin with his specific means fought for peace, showing the daily non-heroic horrors of the war.

Psychology of War

We live in the civilization of war. War is a reality of the historical path and historical consciousness of mankind from the very birth of human civilization. Actually, there never was a peace on Earth. It seems to be a utopia, a dream, and war is a reality and a daily occurrence on the planet Earth. War as a phenomenon is stable and permanent is very terrible. Vasily Vereshchagin showed the highest degree of manifestation of war. People represent war in realities - ideology, technology, heroes, anti-heroes, victims, calculations, army movements. We know a lot about wars. And, strangely enough, over the centuries, conquerors and conquerors are interested in people. There is something in the nature of man that contributes to the outbreak of war. Along with the seizure of material values, there is also another, the need for convincing leadership, to be higher, stronger than the one who is near and even the one who is further, authoritatively assert himself over others. Vereshchagin Vasily Vasilievich (photo of which is presented above) in many of his work cycles reflected this terrible phenomenon.

Episodes from the artist's life

In Cherepovets in the family of the leader of the nobility Vereshchagin a third child is born, who in baptism receives the name Vasily. The future is ready for him - he will become a military man. Vasily Vereshchagin, despite the reluctance to become a regular military man, graduated with honors from the naval cadet corps, but quickly resigns and begins to study painting in St. Petersburg and then in Paris.

The war as such, apparently, already from his youth he was interested. In 1865, he wrote from nature in the Caucasus, and the first unusual works of the Caucasian cycle will appear. I must say at once that Vasily Vereshchagin never stopped writing one picture, he describes the phenomenon as a whole, a number of paintings from which an indivisible cycle develops.

The Turkestan cycle

In 1868 he spent in Central Asia, took part in battles, withstood the soldiers and officers of the siege of Samarkand, received for military service the Order of St. George of the 4th class, made sketches. In 1871 in Munich wrote a series of thirteen paintings, as well as sketches and sketches, which first exhibits in London, and then in Petersburg. They were amazed at everything - both the subjects and the new picturesque language. The success was incredible. But the government refused to purchase this cycle, which was supposed to be public property, and not belong to one private person. It was bought by P. Tretyakov, who made a special annex to his gallery and presented the pictures to everyone. Everyone was stunned by the unexpected approach to the topic. Everything was new, bright and technically, and subject. The artist made a discovery for the viewer of the unknown.

India

In 1874, he travels to India, where he will spend two years and visit Tibet. Vereshchagin Vasily Vasilyevich will be deeply interested in India, and he will visit it again in 1882-1883. He lives in large cities - in Bombay, Agra, Delhi. A few months will take a trip to the Eastern Himalayas, and then a long and complex journey to Kashmir and Ladak. With the risk to life, in the winter, he rises to the mountains. He is even thrown by guides, but in spite of everything, terrible headaches, frost, he writes obsessively, opening to him majestic, virgin, unseen pictures. The whitest mountain peaks, ultramarine sky, snow, pink, cause a desire to repeat a heavy climb. In India, written a lot, about a hundred and fifty, landscapes, genre scenes, portraits. This is not surprising, because the culture of India is strikingly different from the usual Western world. These temples, their interior decoration, ritual dances, merchants on the streets - everything else. And the artist Vasily Vereshchagin wants to show an ancient culture of six thousand years around the world.

The Balkan series

When the Russo-Turkish War began, the artist immediately goes to the army in 1877. He takes part in battles and gets seriously wounded - a stray bullet hit the hip, and the wrong treatment led to gangrene. But she was stopped on time. Shipka, Plevna - Vereshchagin Vasily Vasilievich visited everywhere and brought everywhere sketches and objects that could complement his impressions. For two years he wrote thirty paintings, reflecting the main episodes of the war. This included the tragic third assault on Plevna, and the terrible fighting under Telish, and the victory at Shipka. This cycle of paintings will always remind us of the mistakes of the command and about how dearly the Russian price has been for the liberation of the Bulgarians from the Turkish yoke. This series he first exhibited together with the Indian in London and Paris, and then it was demonstrated for ten years in the cities of Europe and America. In Russia, it was exhibited twice in St. Petersburg and Moscow.

Palestine and Syria

After this work in 1884 he will visit Syria and Palestine, where works on the themes of the Gospel will be written. But, as always, the artist will come to work unconventionally, without a fervent religious feeling. Having freed the work from the supernatural, it will cause a scandal. In Russia, the show of this series was banned.

Barbarians

These paintings were part of the Turkestan series, but the artist wanted to single them out separately, where he placed the psychology of the soldier at the head and brought to naught the importance of the commander.

Patriotic War of 1812

This series becomes from a certain time, approximately from 1897, the dominant theme. To it he addresses constantly, changing his plans and execution. This historical epic is made up of twenty paintings, but it remained unfinished. The first 17 works are devoted to the main episodes of Napoleon's invasion of Russia. They include the battle of Borodino, the fire in Moscow, the unsuccessful peace talks, and the death of the French army in the snow. And three pictures are devoted to the guerrilla war. Since he did not observe all this in kind, the work on imagination is given to him with difficulty, which can not be said by looking at his canvases. An unusually good portrait of Napoleon, in the opinion of a Russian man, of course, completely debunking the image of a hero and a great man. This series was first exhibited in Moscow and St. Petersburg in 1895-1896. No one expressed a desire to acquire it. And only in 1902 the government, under the pressure of the public, bought it and placed it in the Russian Museum. All our visual views on the Patriotic War of 1812 we formed thanks to the brilliant works of Vasily Vereshchagin.

Russian North

Suddenly, the artist is fond of the history of Russian architecture. Painter works in Yaroslavl, Rostov, Kostroma, deeply immersed in the Russian past. And all this goes in parallel with the work on the theme of the war of the 12th year. Vasily Vereshchagin travels to the Russian north. He visits Pinega, the Northern Dvina, the White Sea, Solovki. His landscapes are full of peace and tranquility that have entered his soul. He meets the art of the peasants, he sees old wooden churches. And there are etudes depicting Russian wooden architecture. It makes a deep impression on him. He builds a house for himself in Moscow, which looks like a Russian hut. It became a workshop in which Vasily Vasilyevich Vereshchagin painted paintings.

Japanese Series

The trip to Japan falls on the eve of the Russo-Japanese War. But while the artist does not know about it yet. Unusual forms, new ceremonies, other food and the way it is received can not fail to stun Vereshchagin, especially since the culture of engraving, artistic varnishes, works on metal and bone is so highly developed there. Laconism, inherent in Japanese art, simply can not help capturing the artist. But he reflects in his works the most characteristic and vivid - the temples, Japanese women in kimono, beggars, the priest.

Vereshchagin did not accidentally travel the whole world. He perceived all the peoples as a single community, each of which contributed to the development of civilization and culture. Disregard of the man of the West, who carried the colonial wars and enslavement of the "lower" races and peoples, their cruel exploitation could not but excite the pacifist artist. Ex oriente lux should be borne by Russia, transferring its experience to developing civilizations and developing at the same time, without enslaving anyone. This is the whole painting of Vasily Vereshchagin.

At the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War, the artist went to the Pacific Ocean. He died on the battleship with Admiral Makarov in the explosion of a mine. Such was the artist Vasily Vereshchagin. His biography is extraordinary, and thoughts are consonant with our time.