VERESHCHAGIN, Vasily Vasilyevich

Russian painter noted for his war scenes. He attended the St. Petersburg Academy and studied in Paris. Devoting his life to travel, he acquired subjects for paintings from on-the-spot impressions in the Caucasus, in Crimea, along the Danube River, and in Turkistan with the Russian army. In the Balkans during the Russo-Turkish War (in which he was wounded), Vereshchagin was provided with the themes for some of his famous war pictures. He also painted in Syria and in Palestine and between 1885 and 1903 traveled in Russia, the United States, and Japan. He died at Port Arthur (now Lüshun, China) during the Russo-Japanese War, aboard the flagship of Admiral Stepan Osipovich Makarov.

Vereshchagin’s paintings of scenes during the invasion of Russia by Napoleon in 1812 enjoyed extraordinary popularity; innumerable reproductions of them were made. The pacifist and humanitarian movement of the time made use of his painting of a pyramid of skulls ( Apotheosis of War, 1871; State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow). His works are to be seen in Moscow at the State Tretyakov Gallery and in St. Petersburg at the State Museum of Russian Art.