About Japanese series of paintings by Vasiliy Vereschagin

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Олег Торбин. About Japanese series of paintings by Vasiliy Vereschagin

Batalist or Aesthete?

Where Vereschagin could “get infected” with Japan?

Route

By the “Mackerel Path”

Paintings of the Japanese series

The last letter

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Painter Vasiliy Vereschagin is more known as a Batalist depicting war scenes without any pathos. Vereschagin himself hated the epithet “Batalist” calling War as “Furia chasing me all the time”. During short periods free from the “Furia” he travelled around the East – studied it’s nature, habits, architecture. This book is about the final series of paintings by Vereschagin inspired by Japan.

There is a Japanese proverb:

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It appears these simple words had been driving the great Russian painter Vasiliy Vereschagin for at least a half of his life. He managed to travel all around the world but reached the town of his dreams only when he was 61. Apparently, it was not wars and battles that inspired him but the strive towards beauty and mystery. However, “Furia of war” was hiding somewhere nearby. This was the case of Nikko, in the very name of this town there is a hidden buddhist wisdom associated with war.

So when Vereschagin decided to visit Japan, what influenced his choice of the route, what did he want to express in his Japanese series of paintings which became the last in his career? Let us try to scrutinize these points on available pieces of information from miscellaneous sources.

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