Vasily Vasiliyevich Vereshchagin
Medrese Shir Dor in Registan Square in Samarkand
1869 - 1870
oil on canvas
27.3 x 36.7 cm
State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Vereshchagin is the greatest painter of Russian battles. Between 1867 and 1869, he twice visited Central Asia accompanying the Russian army. While there, he witnessed the war in Turkestan. The artist was impressed not only by the war itself, but also by Eastern culture, with which he was unfamiliar. This canvas depicts Registan, the central square in Samarkand, where the Medrese Shir-Dor religious school is located. Above the entrance to the temple can be seen partly obliterated representations of heraldic lions. The blinding sun, the striking ornamentation and the multicoloured clothing of the passers-by draw the attention of the painter and the viewer away from the theme of barbarity. The artist himself is aware of the contradiction. As he wrote: “All my life, I have loved the sun... This war that haunts me still makes me paint it, and if I want to depict the sun, I need to steal time away from myself...”