Janine Ashbless: Vasily Vereshchagin

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Caravan of Yaks loaded with Salt

Last week I turned in edits for a short fantasy story that was set in "Russian Turkestan" - imperial Central Asia in the 19th century. It was inspired by my Silk Road travels of course, but in the course of my research I came across Russian artist Vasily Vereshchagin (1842-1904) and thought I'd share some of his pictures here because he's quite brilliant, was extremely controversial in his lifetime, and deserves to be better known.

He painted some places I've been myself! (Only with more severed heads)

Triumph, Registan Square, Samarkand

He's known primarily as a war artist, and he traveled extensively with Russian troops during the Russo-Turkish and Russo-Japanese wars, being both wounded and decorated for his courage (and in fact he eventually died when his ship hit a mine).

At the Fortress Wall

But his emphasis was very much on the horrors of war and he was banned and derided all across Europe for his uncompromising portrayals of just how shitty the military life was...

All Is Quiet - tryptych

Night Halt of the Great Army

... sometimes literally:

Russian Camp in Turkestan

He painted aftermaths of battles, POW corpses, wounded soldiers being abandoned to the crows, and soldiers dying in hospital.

After the Attack

Defeated: Memorial Service

This is his most notorious painting, The Apotheosis of War, which he dedicated "to all conquerors, past, present and to come":

War-paintings aside though,Vereshchagin was an extraordinary recorder of his travels across Asia. He visited India, the Himalayas, Tibet, Siberia, China, Japan, Cuba, the Phillippines, Palestine and Syria. He loved painting the landscapes: