"Crucifixion by the Romans"

Vasily Vereshchagin may have been the first anti-war artist.  Much of his work depicts what he saw and experienced during the 1860s and 1870s in the war-torn regions of the Middle East and Central Asia. 

Vereshchagin’s version of the crucifixion has almost a movie-like quality, based upon the artist’s intimate familiarity with the garb and appearance of the descendants of those present at Christ’s crucifixion.

“Crucifixion by the Romans” is a beautiful example of Vereshchagin’s passion for late 19th-century European academic painting. Theatrically staged in 1st-century A.D. Jerusalem, the picture is typical of the dramatic historical spectacles, capital punishment under the Roman Empire, that wowed period audiences across Europe and America. Today the painting continues to impress viewers with its monumentality and academic exoticism or Orientalism.

“Crucifixion” is not, however, an example of Russian avant-garde painting, but a powerful expression of Vereshchagin’s foray into Orientalism.