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Forgot your home now Vereshagina - The Apotheosis of War.

«Some people are spreading the message of peace to their fascinating word, others are portrayed in its protection of different arguments - religious, political, economic, and I preach the same through the paint," - said this stern, courageous and fearless person. He, knight of St. George, a member of several wars of the second half of the XIX century, disgusted "nice" description of battles with the battalions of soldiers in brand-new uniforms and shiny bayonets at the ready, from Hackney in thoroughbred horses dashing generals-winners.

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Noble merit Vasily Vereshchagin facing humanity is precisely that he had debunked this beautiful bravura display of real bloody nature of war. The strength of his painting was such that a Prussian general advised the Emperor Alexander II «ordered to burn all the war pictures of the artist as having the most deleterious effect.

... In the middle of the XIX century, Central Asia was the subject of predatory lust of the British preparing to seize Turkestan. Joining him to Russia freed these people from the sad fate of the colonial slaves of England, but at the same time, the Russian tsarist government also waged a war here. VVVereschagin went to Turkestan, without any prejudice to the war. He was interested in the new country, new people, but soon he had himself and to participate in the war.

VV Vereshchagin was ensign, held in Turkestan governor-general, wore civilian clothes and enjoyed freedom of action and movement necessary in order to sketch and write what they see. Until the spring of 1862 tirelessly sketching nature, popular types, scenes of everyday life in Central Asia. Subsequently, all his paintings Turkestan (with sketches), the artist brought together in a series to strengthen the ideological impact on the viewer. Following one after another, these scenes unfolded before the audience the whole story ( "Beggars in Samarkand", "Opiumoedy", "Sale of the child-slave", etc.). In the canvas "Samarkand zindan" VVVereschagin depicted underground prison-bug-infested, in which were buried eaten alive by prisoners. Severe torture was for them every hour stay in the prison. And only the light falling from above, which dissolves in the evening darkness dungeon, tied prisoners with life. Central among Turkestan paintings VV Vereshchagin occupy battle paintings, which he joined in a series of "Barbarians". The final sheet of this series is the world-famous painting "The Apotheosis of War".

Among the hot steppes, under the baking sun, shows a pyramid of human skulls, which hover around the crows. Painting reproduces one of the pyramids, which evolved more than once on the orders of the heads of Tamerlane conquered and exterminated their people. Such pyramids were constructed and in modern times - is already on the orders of the Central Asian khans.

However, the picture VV Vereshchagin is not so much a concrete historical, as a symbolic character. The canvas "The Apotheosis of War" - the image of death, destruction, destruction. Details of: dead trees, dilapidated deserted city, dried grass - all part of a plot. Even the yellow coloring of the picture symbolizes the dying, and a clear southern sky further emphasizes the lifelessness of the surroundings. Even such details as the scars from saber strikes and bullet holes in the skulls of the "pyramid", even more clearly express the idea works. In order to fully express it, the artist explained that the inscription on the frame: "Dedicated to all the great conquerors: past, present and future.

Extending this idea of the artist, a great Russian critic Stasov wrote: "It's not only with what is skill Vereshchagin wrote their tassels which are burned, dry plains, and among it a pyramid of skulls, with fluttering around the crows, to find more survivors, can be a piece of caruncle. No! There was a picture of something more valuable and higher than the extraordinary Vereshchaginskaya virtuality colors: a deep sense of the historian and the judge of mankind ...

In Turkestan Vereshchagin seen enough death and corpses: but it is not coarse and do not pritupel, feeling not dimmed in it, like most who deal with war and killing. His compassion and humanity just grew and went in depth and in breadth. It is not about individuals was spared, and looked at humanity and goes back centuries in history - and his heart was filled with bitterness and resentment. What Tamerlane, who everyone thinks a monster and the disgrace of humanity, that the new Europe - it's all the same! »