01 Work, The Art of War, Vasily Vereshchagin's Memorial service for the dead, with footnotes

Vasily Vereshchagin  (1842–1904)

Memorial service for the dead (1877-1878)

Oil on canvas

 State Tretyakov Gallery

The siege of Plevna or Pleven, was a major battle of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878, fought by the joint army of Russian Empire and Kingdom of Romania against the Ottoman Empire. After the Russian army crossed the Danube at Svishtov, it began advancing towards the centre of modern Bulgaria, with the aim of crossing the Balkan Mountains to Constantinople, avoiding the fortified Turkish fortresses on the Black Sea coast. The Ottoman army led by Osman Pasha, returning from Serbia after a conflict with that country, was massed in the fortified city of Pleven, a city surrounded by numerous redoubts, located at an important road intersection.

Vasily Vasilyevich Vereshchagin, Vereshchagin also spelled Verestchagin, (born October 14, 1842, Cherepovets, Russia—died March 31, 1904, Port Arthur, China), was a Russian painter noted for his war scenes.

Vereshchagin 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 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 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. More on Vasily Vasilyevich Vereshchagin

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