Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
his travels to the Balkans, Central Asia, and British India). Many of his warfare paintings
were deemed too graphic or unsettling to be exhibited during his lifetime. Vereshchagin
takes a warts-and-all approach to combat—trying to show it realistically rather than glorify
it.
Shipka-Shaynovo
shows Russia's 1877 victory over the Ottoman Empire at the battle of
Shipka Pass, in what's now Bulgaria. The victorious Russian general rides past cheering
troops, but the composition is dominated by the grotesque corpses of soldiers scattered in
the snow-covered foreground. Vereshchagin's evocatively detailed
At the Entrance to the
Mosque
makes evident the artist's fascination with the very Eastern cultures whose decline
is documented on his other canvases.
• Go straight through rooms 40-43 to reach room 44.
LeonBakst:
With its free brushstrokes and nonchalant air,
Portrait of Sergei Diaghilev
and His Nanny
(1906) shows a move towards Modernism. Diaghilev, an editor, impresario,
ballet entrepreneur, and one of the main figures in the turn-of-the-century St. Petersburg art
world, stands off-center, his gaze fixed on the viewer. Somewhat improbably, the painting
includes his elderly nanny sitting in the background.
• Head into the next room, #45.
