L. N. TOLSTOY AND THE PAINTER V. V. VERESHCHAGIN: PUBLICISM IN WORDS AND COLOR

The focal point of the article is the recording of the artists’ experiences in their socially- and politically-charged works, that have certain traits of publicism and are supposed to make a direct impact on the reader and the viewer (and, eventually, on the public opinion as well). The article demonstrates the stark difference in conveying the social and political issues between Tolstoy’s wartime prose and Vereshchagin’s battle paintings and wartime essays, and shows that Vereshchagin, a newtype artist, a man of the new age of science, business and politics, does not as much follow Tolstoy’s traditions, but breaks them.

L. N. Tolstoy, the painter V. V. Vereshchagin, wartime essays, battle painting, social and political rhetoric, poetics of the terrible, «photographic realism».