Prince Gleb Svyatoslavich Kills a Sorcerer at the Novgorod Veche” is one of the many paintings left unfinished by Andrei Petrovich Ryabushkin. The artist’s decision to do so was mainly caused by the criticism of his work. In the mid-1890s, Andrei Ryabushkin faced failure with one of his paintings at a traveling exhibition and started searching for a completely new approach to composition and color palette. He demanded a lot of himself and burned down many paintings that seemed not good enough for him.

The painting depicts one of the key events in the history of Veliky Novgorod. Nikolay Mikhailovich Karamzin described it in his “History of the Russian State”,

The painting depicts the culmination point: the sorcerer has already been killed by Prince Gleb and has fallen so that only his boots can be seen. The prince, with his menacing gaze and pointing finger, warns the horrified crowd that the same will happen to anyone who is against the Christian faith. The artist expressed the emotions of the crowd surrounding Prince Gleb using gestures, movements, and bright colors. Andrei Ryabushkin used an open composition. The left area with the prince and his retinue is characterized by a reserved, calm, and collected manner with clear rhythmic lines and a restrained color palette. The crowd on the right is distinguished by bright colors, circular lines, movement, confusion, uncertainty, and agitation. Encircling the crowd almost completely, the artist left a small gap for the viewer to become immersed in the scene. Such a composition of a historical painting was one of the innovations introduced by representatives of the Wanderers artistic movement. The composition itself shows who will be the winner in this situation.