At the door of the mosque. 1873 Vasily Vereshchagin (1842-1904)

Description of Vasily Vereshchagin’s painting "At the Mosque Door

Vasily Vasilievich Vereshchagin was a famous Russian artist who painted his paintings in the battle genre with an unmatched realism of representation.

Trained at the Naval Cadet Corps, Vereshchagin was well versed in military affairs and national history, and he studied literature in detail. This exposed him to a depth of knowledge on the subject, which he related to his artistic work.

Later he was educated at the Academy of Arts, where he worked on monumental, large and multi-figure compositions - true examples of battle painting.

The war and history in Vereshchagin’s works are depicted realistically and truthfully, and the artist studies the subject thoroughly before reproducing it on canvas. His technique is characterized by a very detailed elaboration of details, and attention to the characters and the setting.

"At the Door of the Mosque," a painting by Vasily Vereshchagin in 1873. At that time, the artist was engaged in the creation of a whole series of works united by one theme, and later it was called the "Turkestan Series". His interest in the ethnography of the Eastern countries occupied Vereshchagin no less than domestic military history.

He spent many years studying materials and documents of the Eastern history. During his long stay in Central Asia, Vereshchagin makes many sketches of the seen buildings, characters, landscapes. The painting "At the door of the mosque" was based precisely on one of these sketches.

In the center of the composition the master places the portal of the mosque - revered by Muslims Gazret Yasawi. The richly decorated doors, which Vereshchagin depicts with scrupulous precision down to the very last curl of decoration, contrast brightly with the poverty of the beggars at the threshold.

The decline of a great civilization is the theme that Vereshchagin shows in this work.