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Abstract

This paper analyzes traveling war artist Vasily Vereshchagin’s (1842-1904) paintings depicting Russian

military activity in Central Asia. The paintings, lauded for their realism at the time, feature gruesome

violence, religious undertones, and subject nature that aligns with the 19th-century Orientalist artistic

movement. Interpretations of Vereshchagin’s paintings by his contemporaries were mixed—some

regarded them as a look into the grim realities of war and a criticism of violence, while others viewed

them as a justification of the Russian conquest.

The paper aims to discuss whether Vereshchagin’s war paintings advocate for an anti-war stance,

perpetuate violence, or both. I argue that despite the anti-war themes of Vereshchagin’s works, and their

classifications as protest art, the Russian reception of his works at the time nevertheless indicates that his

art had the potential to fuel violence towards Central Asians.

I approach the dual nature—that of violence and nonviolence—in Vereshchagin’s works through formal,

art historical analyses of his war paintings during his military travels through Central Asia, namely

Uzbekistan. I bolster this analysis, aiming to understand reception of Vereshchagin’s artwork by critics

and ordinary 19th-century Russians alike, using both archival and secondary sources. In particular, this

paper focuses on Vereshchagin’s own memoirs, and critiques of his work as propagandistic in the 1899

Mir iskusstva publication.

Understanding the ambiguous and multifaceted nature of Vereshchagin’s paintings remains relevant both

within the field of art history and in the context of current events. In order to contextualize this idea with a

contemporary case study, I discuss the 2022 arrest of Stanislav Karmakskikh by Russian authorities.

Karmakskikh conducted a peaceful protest against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Vereshchagin’s The

Apotheosis of War (1871) was a central tool in this act of resistance. The 2022 protest reframes

Vereshchagin’s artwork This case provides yet another lens, this time one immediately recognizable to

21st-century readers, through which to view and interpret Vereshchagin’s war paintings.