Vereshchagin is merciless in depicting losses and victories. Vereshchagin, perhaps the only artist who did not have power over self-respect, and he could truthfully enough to display on his canvases truth of military life.
And if Aivazovsky often portrayed sea battles, then Vereshchagin in his paintings portrayed the battles overland and mostly Asian. He fell in love with Central Asia and so he had a fairly large series of paintings with oriental motifs, in addition, there are many sketches, sketches, sketches. But he never departed from the truth.
On this canvas, he portrayed the Asiatic winners. It is most likely the Turks. Throughout the hill after the battle lies the dead Russian soldiers, and the winners walk around them and take off their clothes, shoes, fumbling in their pockets in search of something valuable. All found clothes or shoes right here, next to the robbed slain soldier. But on the battlefield they found a whole and unharmed soldier. He was immediately surrounded by the Turks and began to be examined from all sides. Some of them will get it. Someone will get his jacket, and someone else something of value, if he has one. But the fact that he goes into slavery in this can not be doubted.
The artist gave in this picture some insecurity. Something fleeting and not understandable. And most importantly, he made it clear that the Russian soldier does not always win. This is perhaps his main truth in this picture. And this of course caused some bewilderment among the patriotically minded metropolitan public. They could not believe that this could happen to Russian soldiers. But sometimes it happened, and sometimes battles were lost.
It just did not happen that often. And that’s it about the loss and told the artist. Moreover, he accurately depicted the “barbarians” in their immediate surroundings, in the very center of Central Asia.
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