(1848-1916)
The Execution of the Streltsi
In Moscow in 1878 Surikov began to work on his first big historical subject – The Execution of the Streltsi. Three years later, in 1881, the picture was exhibited at the Ninth Traveling Exhibition.
In this work Surikov turns to a dividing line in Russian history – to the changes introduced by Peter I.
Taking the execution as his subject Surikov does not portray the hanging. To shock his audience with a scene of horror was not part of his purpose. His aim was deeper than that. Interpreting the event as a national drama he shows that the progressive Petrine reforms were carried out by way of intensified social oppression, with the popular masses paying the price in suffering; he discloses the tragic circumstances of those taking part in the drama…
On the left we see a red-bearded streets wearing a battered red cap; he is bound hand and foot, but his spirit is unbroken. As if it were a knife with which he wished to hurl himself at his enemy, his fingers close on the candle, which is burning with a bright-red flame. With unquenchable hatred he fixed his gaze on Peter, seated on his horse directly under the Kremlin wall.
With the same bitterness and irreconcilability, Peter, fully conscious that he is in the right, returns the stare.
Gloomy and frowning and looking around with the eyes of a hunted animal is a black-bearded strelets, filled with the defiance of the unsubdued rebel.
Another, standing on the cart, with his head bowed, takes farewell of the people, his almost lifeless body, like his bowed head, being a terrible reminder of his imminent fate.
No less powerful is the artist’s portrayal of the wife of one of the condemned strelets, sobbing her heart out in an agony of despair; and the old woman sitting on the paving stones beside the cart “crying her eyes out” – profound in the simple and dignified embodiment of a mother’s sorrow.
However, Surikov achieves his impression of tragedy not only by conveying emotions through the expression of face or posture. The severely dark colours, justified by his choice of timing, also heighten the effect: a new day is dawning after a rainy autumn night; the first rays of light streak the eastern horizon, the raw, chilly mist has not cleared away from the square. In the half-light of morning the white shirts of the condemned stand out against the somber dress of the crowd; the dim flame of the candles sheds a fretful light on them…