This glory does not die out in the centuries. "The Conquest of Siberia by Yermak"

Conquest, conquest, annexation of Siberia - what was that? Was there expansion or was everything going relatively peacefully? Controversy among scholars of history does not cease.

Promotion of Russians to the East

It included the gradual conquest of the territories to the Pacific Ocean and Kamchatka. Yermak's campaign in Siberia is a private episode. At the same time the Russians were called by the local population Cossacks. The strongest resistance was rendered by the Siberian Khanate and Khanty tribes. This will tell the picture Surikov "Conquest of Siberia Ermakom."

The Stroganovs invited a small detachment of Ermak to the Kama to protect their possessions from attacks by voguls and wits. Several battles took place as the detachment moved eastward, beyond the Urals. In the autumn around 1581 Khan Kuchum gathered an army consisting of different Siberian tribes. They were almost fifteen thousand people. Ermak's detachment was considerably smaller, but part of the Khan's troops threw him, and he lost this battle. It is this clash at the confluence of Tobol and the Irtysh depicts the painting "The Conquest of Siberia by Ermak".

Work on sketches and composition

The idea to write a historical canvas came to V. Surikov when he was at home in Krasnoyarsk in 1891. He worked a lot in Siberia, creating sketches and looking for types.

The work was conducted on the Ob and in Khakassia. The composition picture only seems to be a divided river into two parts. If you look closely, you will clearly see a triangle, created from the detachment of Ermak, which cuts into the kisha of the Khan's troops with a sharp wedge. It is the sharp wedge that creates a special tension of the battle, when the painting "The Conquest of Siberia by Ermak" is carefully examined. On the banks of the Ob River was first drawn a landscape without people, who later, after finding the types, Surikov will fill with a mass of troops. That's what the originally deserted shore looked like.

This will later be the picture "The Conquest of Siberia by Yermak". In addition, the painter carefully worked as an ethnographer, creating authentic objects of old life on the canvas: shields, bows, helmets, chain mails, clothes, boats and plows. All this served to create a historically correct atmosphere on the canvas. For a long time the artist was looking for the future image of Ermak. Found it on the Don, as, indeed, the Cossacks.

No wonder the work was conducted for four years. Surikov studied historical records, songs about Ermak. All together taken together formed into a battle work, known as the painting "The Conquest of Siberia by Ermak".

Antagonism

To the left is a small Russian detachment. All the warriors are densely fused, they are united by one idea, the will to win. Expression of their faces does not give possibility to doubt their courage. One of the men jumped out of the boat and stood in cold muddy clay water. He shoots, but if the rifle refuses, he has a saber, she will break, then an ax that he has stuck in the belt will come in handy.

Figure Ermak (painting "The Conquest of Siberia by Ermak") is central. It is highlighted by the movement of the Cossack ataman's hand, which gives direction to his small detachment. The very heat of battle is in full swing. But the enemies, it is seen in the background, are no longer able to withstand tension and are ready to retreat, even their backs are visible. Someone has already turned back. A little more - and the outcome of the battle will be decided.

Coloring

Remarkable restrained color chose Surikov. "The Conquest of Siberia by Ermak" (the picture) does not shine with bright colors, but shimmers with an amazing play of shades and letters. The artist went into the life of each character, to every fold of his costume, to the brilliance of steel on trunks, swords and arrows. All is sustained in a golden brown range, but Surikov's picture "The Conquest of Ermak of Siberia" is gloomy and heavy. Darkness is a severe landscape of Siberia in the autumn day. Hardly rolling clay brown water river. The gray sky is pressing on already running riders. But it is impossible not to notice the only figure of the Cossack, which the author of the painting "The Conquest of Siberia Yermak" singled out a red cinnabar. The shots of the shots are flickering, a cloud of smoke from them. Everything is revealed to the viewer vividly, convexly and reliably.

Offensive, overcoming obstacles, victory - everything showed Surikov in his canvas. The action takes place in Siberia, but it concerns Russia, because the Tatar Khan Kuchum has already approached the Urals and started threatening the Volga region. For the artist, the topic was close because his ancestors came to Siberia and were the founders of Krasnoyarsk. So the past revives in the artist's work. It becomes part of the present, not museum, but alive.