Painting "Morning" Streltsy execution"Brushes by Vasily Surikov confuses the unprepared viewer. What is shown here? It is clear that this is a national tragedy: the general intensity of passions gives no reason to doubt it. Also in the picture you can see - and recognize - Tsar Peter the Great. The Russian viewer is probably familiar with the episode from national history, when the Moscow rifle regiments, taking advantage of the sovereign’s stay abroad, rebelled. But what prompted them to this rebellion? And what did the artist want to say with his painting? Indeed, despite the gloomy title, not a single person hanged or beheaded is visible in the picture. Let's try to figure this out.
Official version of events
The sister of Peter the Great, Sofya Alekseevna, imprisoned in Russia, never abandoned hopes of sitting on the royal throne of Russia. Taking advantage of her brother’s absence, she declared that Peter had been replaced. She called on the Streltsy to come to her aid and protect Russia from the invasion of infidels (that is, European managers whom the Tsar invited from Germany and Holland). 175 soldiers from four regiments responded to her call. They arrived in Moscow with a petition in March 1698. At the beginning of April they were driven out of Moscow, but they returned to their regiments and started a riot. His goal was to elevate Sophia to the throne, and if she renounced the kingdom, the exiled V.V. Golitsyn. The government sent four regiments and noble cavalry against two thousand rebels. In June, the riot was suppressed, and the “most malicious instigators” were hanged. Describing the morning of the Streltsy execution, Surikov takes as a basis official version. That is, an act of justice that took place on June 22 or 28, 1698. Then, according to the chronicles, fifty-six people were hanged.
The morning of the Streltsy execution: history
In fact, mass repressions began when Peter the Great returned to Russia (August 25, 1698). The Tsar initiated and headed a second investigation. The real morning of the Streltsy execution, described by shocked diplomats of that time, took place on October 10. Then about two thousand archers were hanged and beheaded. The king personally cut off the heads of five of them. He had no mercy on anyone, did not look at gender or age. He ordered two of his sisters' maids to be buried alive in the ground. The tsar freed those 500 archers who were too young, but their nostrils and ears were cut off, they were branded and sent into exile. The repressions continued until the spring of 1699. The tsar, who was considered a fan of European values, allowed the burial of those executed only in February.
History of painting
So what does the painting “The Morning of the Streltsy Execution”, which is on display at the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, want to tell the viewer? This is the first large canvas by Vasily Surikov, which he exhibited to the audience. He worked on it for three years - from 1878 to 1881. Why did the artist turn to the topic of Russian history? Probably, his stay in ancient Moscow, where he moved after graduating, had an effect. They say that at first the artist wanted to depict several hanged people on canvas. He even drew sketches. But one of the maids in the house, seeing them, fainted. Therefore, Surikov abandoned the idea of shocking the viewer. But the tragedy of the premonition of execution keeps us in constant tension. This feeling is stronger than seeing bloody scenes. The painting “The Morning of the Streltsy Execution” was liked by the collector Tretyakov. He bought it immediately. And later he added two more works by the master on historical themes to the collection - “Boyaryna Morozova” and “Menshikov in Berezovo”.
Composition
This is a large canvas (379 x 218 centimeters), made in oil. The painting “The Morning of the Streltsy Execution” is designed in a dark coloring, which further emphasizes the tragedy and gloom of the moment. The artist resorted to interesting technique in the construction of composition. He reduced the distance between objects on Red Square. The picture includes the Kremlin tower with a wall, and thus, just a few dozen characters create the feeling of a huge crowd, symbolizing the Russian people. It is important that the figure of the king is located in the background. To make the autocrat visible, the artist depicted him riding a horse. Peter the Great is conducting a “duel with his gaze” with one of the archers, who did not break under the yoke of repression. The king understands that he has no power over the proud spirit of the people, and his revenge remains unsatisfied.
Coloristics
For the painting “The Morning of the Streltsy Execution” Surikov used a rich palette. An early autumn morning after a rainy night, when fog still hangs over the square, serves as a gray background against which the white shirts of the convicted archers and the lights of candles in their hands appear all the more clearly. A bright spot that attracts the eyes of viewers is a Sagittarius with red hair. Although his hands are tied and his legs are shackled, it is clear that his spirit is not broken. This symbolizes the high-rising flame of a candle, which he squeezes in his palm. White shirts and Gray background, soften the bright clothes of the inhabitants of those times. The red scarf of the little girl and the gold-woven caftan of the Streltsy’s wife direct the viewer’s gaze to the grieving people.
Symbolism
In the painting “The Morning of the Streltsy Execution” the artist laid down a certain code that not everyone understands. Firstly, this is the number "7". This is exactly how many archers are depicted on the canvas (one of them has already been taken away to be executed - only his burning candle remains - as a symbol of his eternal soul). The seven chapters of the cathedral are also visible. The architectural background of the canvas also carries hidden meaning. The austere Kremlin tower corresponds to the figure of Tsar Peter the Great, while the bright, colorful heads of the church symbolize the aspirations of the Orthodox Russian people, whose ideas were expressed by the executed archers.
Material, technique: canvas, oil.
The painting “The Morning of the Streltsy Execution” was Surikov’s first large canvas on the theme of Russian history. The artist began work on this painting in 1878. He created it in Moscow, where he moved permanently after graduating from the Academy of Arts.
Here, in the ancient capital of the Russian state, Surikov found, in his words, his true calling - the calling of a historical painter. “When I arrived in Moscow, I was immediately saved,” he later recalled. “The old yeast, as Tolstoy said, has risen! Monuments, squares - they gave me the environment in which I could place my Siberian impressions...”
What were these “Siberian impressions”, the significance of which Surikov repeatedly spoke about for himself? A native of Krasnoyarsk, who lived continuously in this city until he was twenty years old, Surikov said that Siberia, contemporary with his youth, kept many remnants of antiquity in folk life, morals and customs. Siberians did not know serfdom, and this, in turn, left a certain imprint on their characters and attitude to life. "Ideals historical types Siberia brought up in me from childhood, it also gave me spirit, strength, and health,” Surikov wrote in his old age. He was attracted to powerful people, free, courageous, strong-willed and in body, people of powerful will, brave, rebellious, unbending, firmly standing for their convictions, people who are not afraid of either prison or torture, ready to go to death if the fulfillment of their duty requires it of them. Surikov loved Russian people who were “ardent at heart,” repeating with pride more than once folk saying about his fellow countrymen: “Krasnoyarsk is the heart of the ravine.” He looked for and knew how to find such Russian people in his contemporary life; He also found them in the past of his native country.
Surikov developed as an artist in the seventies years XIX century, during the period of democratic rise; he created his works during the period of reaction of the eighties and nineties, in conditions of severe social oppression, which gave rise to passionate popular protest. The artist’s heightened perception of social reality and the struggle taking place in it determined the depth, intensity and strength of the experiences of the heroes of his historical folk dramas.
These features of Surikov’s creativity were clearly reflected in his first large historical canvas on the theme of the Russian past - the painting “The Morning of the Streltsy Execution”.
In this work, Surikov turned to a turning point in Russian history - the era of Peter I. We know that Peter's historically progressive transformations were achieved at a high price - the suffering and blood of the masses, an incredible increase in social oppression, which caused heated protest. Therefore, “the beginning of Peter’s bright days was darkened by riots and executions.”
It is quite natural that Peter’s progressive reforms provoked decisive opposition, primarily from historically doomed social groups.
The Streltsy (the old pre-Petrine army, which Peter I replaced with a regular army), infringed on in their interests, rebelled repeatedly. In 1698, the last Streltsy revolt, reactionary in its goals (Peter's elder sister Princess Sophia tried to take advantage of it in order to seize the throne), was brutally suppressed.
Taking the execution of the archers as the plot of his picture, Surikov did not, however, show the execution itself. It was not his intention to shock the viewer with bloody horrors. His task was immeasurably deeper and more significant - he sought to read a page of the ancient history of Russia as a tragic story about the destinies of the people at the moment of a sharp historical turning point.
Moscow. Red Square. Near the Execution Place, against the backdrop of St. Basil's Cathedral, the archers brought to the place of execution were located. In white shirts, with funeral candles in their hands, they prepared for death.
The last minutes before the inevitable execution, which will now begin... The first convict has already been led to the gallows.
The artist revealed the terrible drama of the Streltsy, focusing primarily on their state of mind, on how each of the condemned experienced his last dying minute, showing the despair and powerless tears of those who said goodbye to them, seeing them off on their last journey.
On the left is a red-bearded archer in a red, crooked cap, his hands are tied, his legs are put in stocks, but he did not submit. Like a knife with which he is ready to rush at the enemy, he squeezes a candle with a rising tongue of flame. With fierce anger, he fixed his gaze on Peter, sitting on a horse near the Kremlin walls. Peter responds to the archers with an equally angry and irreconcilable look, full of consciousness of his rightness.
Gloomily, from under his brows, with the gaze of a hunted beast, a black-bearded archer in a red caftan draped over his shoulders looks around, deeply harboring the anger of a rebellious rebel.
The horror of the impending execution clouded the consciousness of the gray-haired archer: his gaze is mad, he does not see the children crouching to him; he unclenched his hand, from which the soldier snatches the candle.
The archer standing on the cart humbly bowed, saying goodbye to the people; his almost lifeless body and seemingly broken head seem to foreshadow the fate awaiting him.
The head fell heavily on his chest, the arms of the archer, whom the soldiers were dragging to the gallows, dropped helplessly; an unnecessary caftan and cap are thrown to the ground, the wick of a candle that has fallen from one’s hands is slightly smoldering; the candle went out - life ended.
A cry of despair bursts from the chest of the young Streltsy wife; the boy, throwing up his arms, pressed himself against his mother and hid his face in the folds of her clothes. Not far away, an old woman, probably the mother of one of the archers, sank heavily to the ground, dark, earthy shadows fell on her face, exhausted by suffering.
Next to her, clenching her little hand into a fist, a little girl, overcome with fear, screams. Her red handkerchief stands out among the dark crowd just as her clear, childish voice stood out among the united roar of the square.
But not only by revealing state of mind depicted, it is not only the expressiveness of their faces and figures that Surikov achieves the impression of the deep tragedy of the scene.
This is served by the heavy dark coloring of the picture, justified by the very choice of moment: early morning after a rainy autumn night, when the east had just brightened, when the cold lilac fog had not yet dissipated over the square. In the morning twilight, the white shirts of the convicts stand out among the dark crowd; the flickering lights of lit candles cast alarming reflections on them...
In the painting “The Morning of the Streltsy Execution” Surikov fully demonstrated his gift as a master of composition. He managed to create the impression that a huge crowd of people was concentrated on his canvas, full of life and movements. Meanwhile, there are only a few dozen characters; Surikov, however, as a brilliant director, filled the huge Red Square with them. In particular, he achieved this compositional technique bringing plans closer together, reducing the distance between Lobnoye Mesto, St. Basil's Cathedral and the Kremlin walls.
The creation of the painting was preceded by a large preparatory work.
“I decided to write Streltsov in St. Petersburg,” says the artist himself. “I conceived them when I was traveling to St. Petersburg from Siberia. Then I saw the beauty of Moscow... In Moscow, the cathedrals impressed me very much. Especially St. Basil: all of him seemed bloody to me... How I came to Red Square - all this was associated with Siberian memories... When I conceived them, all the faces immediately appeared in my mind... Remember, there I have a Sagittarius with a black beard - this is Stepan Fedorovich Torgoshin, my mother’s brother. And the women, you know, in my family there were such old women, even though they were Cossacks. And the old man in Streltsy was an exile, about seventy years old, walking. He was carrying a bag, swaying from weakness, and bowing to the people. And the red-haired archer is the gravedigger, I saw him at the cemetery. says: “I don’t want to.” And his character is like a Sagittarius. His deep-set eyes struck me as an angry, rebellious type. Name was Kuzma. Accident: the animal runs towards the catcher. I persuaded him by force. As he posed, he asked: “Are they going to cut off my head, or what?” And my sense of delicacy stopped me from telling those from whom I wrote that I was writing an execution.
And the arches, carts for Streltsy - I wrote this about the markets... There is dirt on the wheels. Previously, Moscow was unpaved - the mud was black. Here and there it sticks, and next to it pure iron glistens like silver... I loved beauty everywhere.”
So, the main material was given to the artist by life, close observation, greedy and deep study.
Surikov’s remarkable visual memory provided invaluable assistance, clearly cementing in his mind the memories of his youth and even childhood. This was the case during the creation of Streltsy. " Death penalty I saw it twice. Once three men were executed for arson. One was a tall guy, like Chaliapin, the other was an old man. They were brought on carts in white shirts. Women are climbing, crying, their relatives,” the artist later recalled.
Finally, I seriously studied Surikov and historical sources, objects material culture, written monuments. “I painted Peter from a portrait of a trip abroad,” he said, “and I took the suit from Korb.”
Indeed, if you look into the “Diary of a Travel to Muscovy” by the secretary of the Austrian Ambassador I. Korb, it is not difficult to see how attentively Surikov was narrated by this observant foreigner, who was an eyewitness to the Streltsy executions.
Much of what is described by Korb was creatively recreated by Surikov in his film. “... One hundred guilty people were put on small Moscow carts, awaiting their turn to be executed,” writes Korb. “As many guilty people were there, as many carts and as many guard soldiers... There were no priests to be seen to give farewell to the condemned... yet everyone held a lighted wax candle in his hands so as not to die without light and a cross... The bitter crying of the wives increased their fear of impending death... the mother cried for her son, the daughter mourned the fate of her father, the unfortunate wife moaned about the fate of her husband... His Royal Majesty in a green Polish caftan arrived, accompanied by many noble Muscovites, to the gate, where, by order of His Royal Majesty, the Tsar's ambassador with representatives of Poland and Denmark stopped in his own carriage."
However, Surikov did not follow this source in everything. This can be seen from the fact that Korb describes the execution that took place on October 10, 1698 in the village of Preobrazhenskoye on the Yauza River; the artist changes the scene of action and transfers it to Red Square. Surikov needed a specific historical setting, but in the village of Preobrazhenskoye it was not preserved. And the event itself, transferred to Red Square and depicted against the backdrop of St. Basil's Cathedral and the ancient Kremlin walls, acquired not only greater historical credibility, but also special significance.
Talking about the creation of his first large historical canvas on a theme from the Russian past, Surikov once mentioned how the name of the painting was born: “The Morning of the Streltsy Executions was well... someone named it.”
It seems that it is no coincidence that in this case Surikov used plural- “streltsy executions”: here seems to be an indication of the possibility of a broader interpretation of the picture, its content, and its entire historical concept. A careful examination of the picture leads to the same conclusion.
It was not this mutiny of the Streltsy in itself, nor this particular clash between the Streltsy and Peter that interested Surikov. The artist sought to reveal in his painting the main contradictions of the Peter the Great era.
Surikov understood the progressive role of Peter I and showed great interest in his personality, for which we have a lot of evidence. But the artist’s focus has always been on the life of the people, people’s destinies.
How folk drama Surikov also decided on the painting “The Morning of the Streltsy Execution”. Everything in this picture leads to the idea that the artist undoubtedly brought the archers closer to the people, and to a greater extent than could be historically justified.
We know that we cannot equate the Streltsy with the people; we know that the Streltsy revolt of 1698 was not a popular revolt. We can only say that the archers still sometimes met with sympathy among the people, but only to the extent that they rebelled against foreignness and against state power, which strengthened the oppression of the landowners. It is also known that ordinary archers more than once joined popular movements in the second half of the 17th century.
It is characteristic that Surikov showed exactly ordinary archers, internally bringing them closer to those archers who opened the gates of the Volga cities for Stepan Razin and followed him, joining the powerful peasant uprising. Obviously, he saw Surikov in his archers, in their wives, mothers and children.
About the people, about their strength, about their anger and suffering in difficult times, full of contradictions, the great Russian artist thought about a turning point in Russian history when creating his painting. And this was precisely the main content of “The Morning of the Streltsy Execution.”
Painting by Russian artists
Painting by Vasily Surikov “The Morning of the Streltsy Execution”. Oil on canvas, canvas size 218 × 379 cm. Moving young artist to the “first throne”, impressions of ancient Moscow architecture (the monuments of which he, as M.A. Voloshin later said, looked “as if they were living people”) were an important stimulus on the way to his first historical masterpiece - the painting “The Morning of the Streltsy Execution” . The artist, in the words of the same Voloshin, “realized from forms”, painted what he saw, possessing an amazing ability to reveal the historical and poetic aura of external appearance. Therefore, when he said that “Sagittarius” was born from the impression of a “burning candle on a white shirt”, and “Boyarina Morozova” - from a “crow in the snow”, then this, of course, sounds like an anecdote, but at the same time it touches on the most nerve creative method masters
Surikov wrote about his personal impressions: “Something strange started happening to me here, in Moscow. First of all, I felt more comfortable here than in St. Petersburg. There was something in Moscow that reminded me much more of Krasnoyarsk, especially in winter. And How forgotten dreams, more and more pictures of what I saw in childhood, and then in youth, began to emerge in my memory, types and costumes began to be remembered, and I was drawn to all this as to something dear and incredibly dear. But most of all I was captivated by the Kremlin with its walls and towers. I don’t know why, but I felt in them something surprisingly close to me, as if I had known for a long time and well. As soon as it began to get dark, I... set off to wander around Moscow and increasingly towards the Kremlin walls. These walls became my favorite place to walk at dusk. And then one day I was walking along Red Square, not a soul around... And suddenly the scene of the Streltsy execution flashed in my imagination, so clearly that even my heart began to beat. I felt that if I painted what I imagined, it would turn out to be an amazing picture.”
Over the years of working on the painting “The Morning of the Streltsy Execution,” huge changes took place in Surikov’s life. He managed to get married, and two daughters were born into the family - Olga and Elena. His wife Elizaveta Augustovna Share was French on her father’s side, and on her mother’s side she was a relative of the Decembrist Svistunov. They met in St. Petersburg at the Church of St. Catherine on Nevsky Prospekt, where they came to listen to organ music. While working on the paintings in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, Vasily Ivanovich often came to the capital, met with Elizaveta Augustovna, and was introduced to her father August Shara, the owner of a small paper trading enterprise. The artist was not interested in the work in the temple; he dreamed of finishing it as quickly as possible, becoming financially independent and getting married. The wedding took place on January 25, 1878 in the Vladimir Church in St. Petersburg. On the groom's side, only the Kuznetsov and Chistyakov family were present. Surikov was afraid of his mother’s reaction to the news of his marriage to a French woman and did not inform his family in Krasnoyarsk about the wedding.
The young people settled in Moscow. The painter plunged into work on the painting “The Morning of the Streltsy Execution.” He was finally free from material worries; his wife took on household chores. However, in everyday life Vasily Ivanovich was always unpretentious and simple. For several years Surikov did not write anything extraneous. The captivating idea of the picture completely filled all his thoughts. Once upon a time, one image stuck in his memory, striking him like a tragic allegory: a candle lit during the day - a sad symbol of funeral and death. He worried Surikov for many years until he connected with the topic of the massacre of the Streltsy. Dim in the gray air of a gloomy morning, the light of a candle in a still living hand was associated with execution. The architectural surroundings of Lobnoye Mesto near the Kremlin suggested the basis for a multi-figure composition, and images of archers and many candles became its key components.
This amazing picture is riddled with symbols. An extinguished candle is an extinguished life. An inconsolable woman in the foreground presses the extinguished candle of an already executed archer to her head. Next to her, the barely smoldering candle of the one who is now being taken away to execution is thrown into the dirt. The soldier in the center has already taken the death candle from the gray bearded man and is blowing it out. The remaining candles are still burning evenly and brightly.
Central storyline painting and its main emotional core is the opposition of the archers to royal tyranny. The most symbolic image is the red-bearded soldier. His hands are tied, his legs are chained in stocks, but his irreconcilable gaze, burning with hatred, shoots across the entire space of the picture, colliding with the angry and equally irreconcilable gaze of Peter. The foreigners depicted on the right are calmly watching what is happening for now, but then they will describe in horror how the Russian autocrat personally acted as an executioner. Peter personally cut off the heads of five rebels and one clergyman who blessed the rebellion with an ax, and executed more than eighty archers with a sword. The tsar also forced his boyars, who did not know how to handle an ax, to participate in the brutal reprisal and caused unbearable torment to the condemned by their actions. Surikov read about all this in the diary of the secretary of the Austrian embassy, Korb, an eyewitness to the events.
But there are no bloody scenes in the picture itself: the artist wanted to convey the greatness of the last minutes, and not the execution itself. Only the many red details of clothing, as well as the crimson silhouette of the Intercession Cathedral, towering above the body of convicted archers and their families, remind the viewer of how much blood was shed on that tragic morning.
The architectural design of the canvas is very important. The lonely tower of the Kremlin corresponds to the lonely figure of the Tsar; the second, nearby tower, unites the crowd of observers, boyars and foreigners into one whole; the even formation of soldiers exactly repeats the line of the Kremlin wall. The artist deliberately moved all the structures closer to the Execution Ground, using the compositional technique of bringing plans closer together and creating the effect of a huge crowd. The cathedral continues and crowns this crowd of people, but the central dome of the Church of the Intercession of the Virgin Mary does not seem to fit into the space: it is “cut off” by the upper edge of the picture and symbolizes the image of Rus', beheaded by Peter I. The remaining ten domes correspond to the ten depicted death candles.
The latter are clearly not randomly located in accordance with strict geometry. Four bright lights lie exactly on one inclined line, starting from the lower left corner (in the hand of a man sitting with his back to us), passing through the flame of the candles of the red-bearded and black-bearded archers to the suicide bomber standing above and bowing to the people. But if through a candle located on the canvas higher than the others in the hands of a standing archer, a straight line is drawn, directed downwards - to the one that is burning out in the mud, then this line will also connect three flames, passing through the flame blown out by the soldier. Thus, a stern cross clearly appears, as if crushing a crowd of doomed rebels. Three other, less noticeable candles, located in the background of the composition (on the left under the arc, in front of the archer standing at the top and immediately behind him), are also located on the same line, actually dividing the canvas in half. It is crossed along a strict perpendicular by a straight line drawn between the top candle and the extinguished one. In total, there are three regular crosses on the carton. The third is formed by the intersection of the “line of will and opposition” (from the eyes of the king to the eyes of the red-bearded archer) and the one that goes from the extinguished candle to the quiet light on in the background, below the face of the standing archer.
All of Surikov’s work is characterized by an amazing concern for those who come to look at his paintings: “My whole thought was not to disturb the viewer, so that there would be peace in everything...”, he said about his “Streltsy”. Despite the horror conveyed historical event, the artist tried to depict the tragedy human destinies as discreetly as possible. No external pretentious showiness or theatricality, no raised axes, raised hands to the sky, bloody clothes, gallows and severed heads. Only the deep drama of nationwide grief. You don’t want to turn away from this picture with a shudder; on the contrary, looking at it, you become more and more immersed in the details, empathize with its characters, acutely understanding the cruelty of that time.
The painting “The Morning of the Streltsy Execution” was exhibited at the Ninth Traveling Exhibition in March 1881. Even before its opening, Ilya Repin wrote to Pavel Tretyakov: “Surikov’s painting makes an irresistible, deep impression on everyone. Everyone unanimously expressed their readiness to give her the most the best place; It’s written on everyone’s faces that she is our pride at this exhibition... Today she is already framed and finally installed... What a perspective, how far Peter has come! A mighty picture!” Tretyakov immediately acquired this ingenious historical work for his collection, paying the master eight thousand rubles.
But March 1, 1881 was marked by another event that constituted a mystical counterbalance to the theme of reprisals against rebels. On the day the exhibition began, in which the central place was occupied by a painting depicting the execution of the Streltsy by Tsar Peter I, the Narodnaya Volya members committed a terrorist act, dealing with Emperor Alexander II.
Morning of the Streltsy Execution (1881)
The painting “The Morning of the Streltsy Execution” was Surikov’s first large canvas on the theme of Russian history.
The artist began work on this painting in 1878. He created it in Moscow, where he moved permanently after graduating from the Academy of Arts.
Here, in the ancient capital of the Russian state, Surikov found, in his words, his true calling - the calling of a historical painter. “When I arrived in Moscow, I was directly saved,” he later recalled. “The old yeast, as Tolstoy said, has risen!” Monuments, squares - they gave me the environment in which I could place my Siberian impressions...”
What were these “Siberian impressions”, the significance of which Surikov repeatedly spoke about for himself?
A native of Krasnoyarsk, who lived in this city until he was twenty, Surikov said that Siberia, contemporary with his youth, kept many relics of antiquity in folk life, morals and customs. Siberians did not know serfdom, and this, in turn, left a certain imprint on their characters and attitude to life. “Siberia brought up the ideals of historical types in me from childhood, and it also gave me spirit, strength, and health,” Surikov wrote in his old age. He was attracted to powerful people, free, courageous, strong in spirit and body, people of powerful will, courageous, rebellious, unbending, firmly standing for their convictions, people who are not afraid of either prison or torture, ready to go to death if required. them the fulfillment of duty. Surikov loved Russian people “ardent at heart,” more than once proudly repeating the popular saying about his fellow countrymen: “Krasnoyars are ardent at heart.” He looked for and knew how to find such Russian people in his contemporary life: he found them in the past of his native country.
Surikov developed as an artist in the seventies of the 19th century, during the period of democratic upsurge; he created his works during the period of reaction of the eighties and nineties, in conditions of severe social oppression, which gave rise to passionate popular protest. The artist’s heightened perception of social reality and the struggle taking place in it determined the depth, intensity and strength of the experiences of the heroes of his historical folk dramas.
These features of Surikov’s creativity were clearly reflected in his first large historical canvas on the theme of the Russian past - the painting “The Morning of the Streltsy Execution”.
In this work, Surikov turned to a turning point in Russian history - the era of Peter I.
We know that Peter's historically progressive transformations were achieved at a high price - the suffering and blood of the masses, an incredible increase in social oppression, which caused heated protest. Therefore, “the beginning of Peter’s bright days was darkened by riots and executions.”
It is quite natural that Peter’s progressive reforms provoked decisive opposition, primarily from historically doomed social groups.
The Streltsy (the old pre-Petrine army, which Peter I replaced with a regular army), infringed on in their interests, rebelled repeatedly. In 1698, the last Streltsy revolt, reactionary in its goals (Peter's elder sister Princess Sophia tried to take advantage of it in order to seize the throne), was brutally suppressed.
Taking the execution of the archers as the plot of his picture, Surikov did not, however, show the execution itself. It was not his intention to shock the viewer with bloody horrors. His task was immeasurably deeper and more significant - he sought to read a page of the ancient history of Russia as a tragic story about the destinies of the people at the moment of a sharp historical turning point.
.. . Moscow Red Square. Near the Execution Place, against the backdrop of St. Basil's Cathedral, the archers brought to the place of execution were located. In white shirts, with funeral candles in their hands, they prepared for death.
The last minutes before the inevitable execution, which will now begin... The first convict has already been led to the gallows.
The artist revealed the terrible drama of the Streltsy, focusing primarily on their state of mind, on how each of the condemned experienced his last dying minute, showing the despair and powerless tears of those who said goodbye to them, seeing them off on their last journey.
On the left is a red-bearded archer in a red, crooked cap, his hands are tied, his legs are put in stocks, but he did not submit. Like a knife with which he is ready to rush at the enemy, he squeezes a candle with a rising tongue of flame. With fierce anger, he fixed his gaze on Peter, sitting on a horse near the Kremlin walls. Peter responds to the archers with an equally angry and irreconcilable look, full of consciousness of his rightness.
Gloomily, from under his brows, with the gaze of a hunted beast, a black-bearded archer in a red caftan draped over his shoulders looks around, deeply harboring the anger of a rebellious rebel.
The horror of the impending execution clouded the consciousness of the gray-haired archer: his gaze is mad, he does not see the children crouching to him; he unclenched his hand, from which the soldier snatches the candle.
The archer standing on the cart humbly bowed, saying goodbye to the people; his almost lifeless body and seemingly broken head seem to foreshadow the fate awaiting him.
The head fell heavily on his chest, the arms of the archer, whom the soldiers were dragging to the gallows, dropped helplessly; an unnecessary caftan and cap are thrown to the ground, the wick of a candle that has fallen from one’s hands is slightly smoldering; the candle went out - life ended.
A cry of despair bursts from the chest of the young Streltsy wife; the boy, throwing up his arms, pressed himself against his mother and hid his face in the folds of her clothes. Not far away, an old woman, probably the mother of one of the archers, sank heavily to the ground, dark, earthy shadows fell on her face, exhausted by suffering.
Next to her, clenching her little hand into a fist, a little girl, overcome with fear, screams. Her red handkerchief stands out among the dark crowd just as her clear, childish voice stood out among the united roar of the square.
But it is not only by revealing the mental state of those depicted, not only by the expressiveness of their faces and figures that Surikov achieves the impression of the deep tragedy of the scene.
This is served by the heavy dark coloring of the picture, justified by the very choice of moment: early morning after a rainy autumn night, when the east had just brightened, when the cold lilac fog had not yet dissipated over the square. In the morning twilight, the white shirts of the convicts stand out among the dark crowd; the flickering lights of lit candles cast alarming reflections on them...
In the painting “The Morning of the Streltsy Execution” Surikov fully demonstrated his gift as a master of composition. He managed to create the impression that a huge crowd of people, full of life and movement, was concentrated on his canvas. Meanwhile, there are only a few dozen characters here; Surikov, however, as a brilliant director, filled the huge Red Square with them. In particular, he achieved this through the compositional technique of bringing plans closer together, reducing the distance between the Place of Execution, St. Basil's Cathedral and the Kremlin walls.
The creation of the painting was preceded by a lot of preparatory work.
“I decided to write Streltsov in St. Petersburg,” says the artist himself. - I thought of them when I was traveling to St. Petersburg from Siberia. Then I saw the beauty of Moscow... In Moscow, the cathedrals really impressed me. Especially St. Basil: he all seemed bloody to me... When I came to Red Square, all this was associated with Siberian memories... When I conceived them, all the faces immediately appeared in my mind... Remember, there I am a Sagittarius with a black beard - this is Stepan Fedorovich Torgoshin, my mother’s brother. And women are, you know, in my family there were such old women. Sundressers, even though they are Cossacks. And the old man in “Streltsy” is an exile, about seventy years old. I remember walking, carrying a bag, swaying from weakness - and bowing to the people. And the red-haired Sagittarius is a gravedigger; I saw him in the cemetery. I tell him: “Let’s go to my place and pose.” He had already raised his foot into the sleigh, but his comrades began to laugh. He says: “I don’t want to.” And by nature he is like a Sagittarius. The deep-set eyes amazed me. Angry, rebellious guy. Name was Kuzma. Accident: the animal runs towards the catcher. I persuaded him by force. As he posed, he asked: “Are they going to cut off my head, or what?” And my sense of delicacy stopped me from telling those from whom I wrote that I was writing an execution.
And the arches and carts for Streltsy - I wrote this about the markets... There is dirt on the wheels. Previously, Moscow was unpaved - the mud was black. Here and there it sticks, and next to it pure iron glistens like silver... I loved beauty everywhere.”
So, the main material was given to the artist by life, close observation, greedy and deep study.
Surikov’s remarkable visual memory provided invaluable assistance, clearly cementing in his mind the memories of his youth and even childhood. This was the case when creating Streltsy. “I saw the death penalty twice. Once three men were executed for arson. One was a tall guy, like Chaliapin, the other was an old man. They were brought on carts in white shirts. Women are climbing, crying, their relatives,” the artist later recalled.
Finally, Surikov seriously studied historical sources, objects of material culture, and written monuments. “I painted Peter from a portrait of a trip abroad,” he said, “and I took the suit from Korb.”
Indeed, if you look into the “Diary of a Travel to Muscovy” by the secretary of the Austrian Ambassador I. Korb, it is not difficult to see how attentively Surikov was narrated by this observant foreigner, who was an eyewitness to the Streltsy executions.
Much of what is described by Korb was creatively recreated by Surikov in his film. “... One hundred guilty people were placed on small Moscow carts, awaiting their turn to be executed,” writes Korb. “How many guilty there were, the same number of carts and so many guard soldiers... There were no priests to give farewell to the condemned... yet everyone held a lit wax candle in his hands so as not to die without light and a cross... The bitter crying of the wives intensified their fear of impending death... the mother wept for her son, the daughter mourned the fate of her father, the unfortunate wife moaned about the fate of her husband... His Royal Majesty, in a green Polish caftan, arrived, accompanied by many noble Muscovites, to the gate, where, by order of His Royal Majesty, the Tsar’s ambassador with representatives of Poland and Denmark stopped in his own carriage.”
However, Surikov did not follow this source in everything. This can be seen from the fact that Korb describes the execution that took place on October 10, 1698 in the village of Preobrazhenskoye on the Yauza River; the artist changes the scene of action and transfers it to Red Square. Surikov needed a specific historical setting, but in the village of Preobrazhenskoye it was not preserved. And the event itself, transferred to Red Square and depicted against the backdrop of St. Basil's Cathedral and the ancient Kremlin walls, acquired not only greater historical credibility, but also special significance.
Talking about the creation of his first large historical canvas on a theme from the Russian past, Surikov once mentioned how the name of the painting was born: “The Morning of the Streltsy Executions” well... someone named it.”
It seems that it is no coincidence that in this case Surikov used the plural - “streltsy executions”; here seems to be an indication of the possibility of a broader interpretation of the picture, its content, and its entire historical concept. A careful examination of the picture leads to the same conclusion.
It was not this mutiny of the Streltsy in itself, nor this particular clash between the Streltsy and Peter that interested Surikov. The artist sought to reveal in his painting the main social contradictions Peter's era.
Surikov understood the progressive role of Peter I and showed great interest in his personality, for which we have a lot of evidence. But the artist’s focus has always been on the life of the people, people’s destinies.
Surikov also solved the film “The Morning of the Streltsy Execution” as a folk drama.
Everything in this picture leads to the idea that the artist undoubtedly brought the archers closer to the people, and to a greater extent than could be historically justified.
We know that we cannot equate the Streltsy with the people; we know that the Streltsy revolt of 1698 was not a popular revolt. We can only say that the archers still sometimes met with sympathy among the people, but only to the extent that they rebelled against foreign rule and against state power, which strengthened the oppression of the landowners. It is also known that ordinary archers more than once joined popular movements in the second half of the 17th century.
It is characteristic that Surikov showed exactly ordinary archers, internally bringing them closer to those archers who opened the gates of the Volga cities for Stepan Razin and followed him, joining the powerful peasant uprising. Surikov, obviously, saw in his archers, in their wives, mothers and children, to a large extent, exponents of the same popular feelings and experiences.
The great Russian artist thought about the people, about their strength, about their anger and suffering in a complex, full of contradictions, turning point era of Russian history, when creating his painting. And this was precisely the main content of “The Morning of the Streltsy Execution.”
Vasily Surikov’s painting “The Morning of the Streltsy Execution” is recognized as one of best works this wonderful Russian artist. This masterpiece tells viewers about a controversial and bloody event in the history of the Russian state. There was almost a coup in the country - Peter I's sister Sophia, having enlisted the support of the Streltsy army, wanted to remove Peter from the throne and take all power in the country into her own hands. After exposing the conspiracy and suppressing the rebellion, Peter I made a cruel but necessary decision: to execute the participants in the armed uprising. This is what Vasily Surikov’s painting tells about. But instead of scenes of violence, the artist shows us the mental and moral state of the participants in the Streltsy execution.
In the central part of the canvas, the artist depicted the archers themselves, led to execution, and their loved ones. Many of the characters, so carefully drawn by Surikov, behave completely differently. For example, a well-dressed woman, apparently the wife of one of the archers, raises her hands to the sky in despair, and buries himself in her clothes a little boy- her son. Another woman covered her face with her hands out of fear of the inevitable. Old woman out of grief and powerlessness she sank to the ground, next to her a little girl in a red scarf screams something.
A variety of emotions can also be read on the faces of Sagittarius. One resigned to the circumstances and hung his head in despair, the other - already elderly - does not believe in what is happening and looks around with an unseeing gaze. The black-bearded Sagittarius sits with a stony face - he has gathered all his inner strength into a fist in order not to give himself any slack and to withstand with honor the severe trials that befell him. And the Sagittarius with red hair and a red hat looks directly and with hatred at Tsar Peter I.
Enormous tension is felt in the pose of Peter himself, sitting on a horse and somewhat towering over the other participants in the action. It comes from him enormous strength and a feeling of power.
Vasily Surikov’s painting “The Morning of the Streltsy Execution” shows the confrontation between the old and the new, telling the viewer that in order for something new to be born, the old, outdated, must be destroyed.
Year of painting: 1881.
Dimensions of the painting: 218 x 379 cm.
Material: canvas.
Writing technique: oil.
Genre: historical painting.
Style: realism.
Gallery: State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia.
