Conveying the Reality of War: Vasily Verestchagin: “The Greatest Painter of the Horrors of War That Ever Lived” (2020)

Peace and antiwar museums often use art to educate, celebrating peace and nonviolence and condemning war and weapons. There is a rich legacy to draw upon, not least as regards paintings. The Russian Vasily Vereshchagin (1842–1904) has often been compared to Leo Tolstoy for the greatness of his depictions of the horrors and miseries of war. His numerous exhibitions throughout Europe and the USA from the 1870s onward were spectacularly successful. Sometimes authorities forbade soldiers and youngsters from entering because the gruesome reality of war would turn them against the army. A reproduction of his most famous painting, The Apotheosis of War, belongs in every peace museum. The artist met leading figures of the peace movement such as Bertha von Suttner and W. T. Stead, and his work was also praised by Alfred H. Fried and Jan Bloch.