Tales from the Island of Serendip 4 4

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Guillaumet died in Paris in 1887. Speculation about the circumstances of his death, supposedly of peritonitis, was published in The New York Times on April 6. The article claimed that Guillaumet had left his wife and son to live with "a lady who was his senior by many years" but that a few weeks before his death he had shot himself following an argument with his mistress.

 

"The bullet lodged in his intestines, and he lingered from that moment in the agonies of a painful illness, terminated by death. His last words after the bullet had entered his body were for his wife and son, who, on being informed of the tragical occurrence, came and nursed him until his death. The painter died in his studio, whither he was carried at his own request. He wanted to see his Oriental sketches for the last time."

The New York Times, April 6, 1887

 

Guilaumet is buried in Montmartre Cemetery. His tomb bears a sculpture by Louis-Ernest Barrias of a Young girl from Bou Saâda, dropping flowers onto a portrait of Guillaumet embossed on a medallion

 

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Vasily Vereshchagin

 

"I loved the sun all my life, and wanted to paint sunshine. When I happened to see warfare and say what I thought about it, I rejoiced that I would be able to devote myself to the sun once again. But the fury of war continued to pursue me"

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Vasily Vasilyevich Vereshchagin was one of the most famous Russian war artists and one of the first Russian artists to be widely recognised abroad.

 

The graphic nature of his realist scenes led to many of them never being printed or exhibited.

 

Vereshchagin graduated first in his list at the naval school, but left the service immediately to begin the study of drawing in earnest. In 1864, he proceeded to Paris, where he studied under Jean-Léon Gérôme, though he dissented widely from his master's methods.

 

In 1867 he was invited to accompany General Konstantin Kaufman's expedition to Turkestan. He was granted the rank of ensign. His heroism at the siege of Samarkand from June 2–8, 1868 resulted an award of the Cross of St George (4th class).

 

He was an indefatigable traveller, to Turkestan via Siberia at the end of 1869, the Himalayas, India and Tibet in 1874, spending over two years in travel.

 

With the start of the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), Vereshchagin left Paris and returned to active service with the Imperial Russian Army. He was present at the crossing of the Shipka Pass and at the Siege of Plevna, where his brother was killed. He was dangerously wounded during the preparations for the crossing of the Danube near Rustchuk.

 

After the war, Vereshchagin settled in Munich, where he produced his war pictures so rapidly that he was freely accused of employing assistants. The sensational subjects of his pictures, and their didactic aim, namely, the promotion of peace by a representation of the horrors of war, attracted a large section of the public not usually interested in art to the series of exhibitions of his pictures in Paris in 1881 and subsequently in London, Berlin, Dresden, Vienna and other cities.

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Vereshchagin painted several scenes of imperial rule in British India. His epic portrayal of The State Procession of the Prince of Wales into Jaipur in 1876 is said to be the third largest painting in the world.

 

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From his earliest works, unlike most contemporary battle pieces depicting war as a kind of parade, Vereshchagin graphically depicted the horrors of war.

 

In Russia, a ban on exhibitions of Vereshchagin's work was enforced, as well as a ban on reproductions of them in books and periodicals amidst accusations of slandering the Russian army.

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