The review of troops is conducted by senior commanders to evaluate the readiness, appearance, training and technical equipment of soldiers. In this drawing, the characters of Leo Tolstoy’s novel “War and Peace” Fyodor Dolokhov and General Mikhail Kutuzov are performing a review of the tsarist army.
Mikhail Bashilov was the first artist to work in creative collaboration with Leo Tolstoy. He made illustrations for many famous works of fiction by such writers as Alexander Griboyedov, Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin and Taras Shevchenko. He studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. Upon graduation, he started working there as an inspector.
In the winter of 1866, Leo Tolstoy read chapters from the first part of his novel “1805” to his family and friends in Moscow. Among them was the artist Bashilov, a distant relative of the writer’s wife Sophia Behrs. At that time, Tolstoy was discussing illustrations for the separate publication of the novel.
In May of the same year, Tolstoy informed his friend, the poet Afanasy Fet: “I hope to finish working on my novel by 1869 and print it in full with pictures that I have already commissioned; some of them are by Bashilov (I am very pleased with them), it’ll be titled: ‘All’s Well That Ends Well.’”
Tolstoy highly appreciated Bashilov’s experience as an illustrator, his artistic sensitivity, ability to capture and convey the essence of the time period, which the writer carefully embodied in his novel. In the process of Mikhail Bashilov’s work, Tolstoy’s expectations were fulfilled: the era of “fathers and grandfathers” came to life.
Mikhail Bashilov’s drawings contain a lot of humor, irony, and satire. Carefully and subtly, with light and precise strokes, the artist recreates the setting in which the novel takes place. Leo Tolstoy observed the artist’s work with interest and consulted Bashilov on how to portray this or that character.
The novel entitled “All’s Well that Ends Well” — the first completed edition of “War and Peace” — was supposed to be published with drawings by Mikhail Bashilov, but a fire broke out in the printing house and destroyed many of the artist’s works. Bashilov’s collection of illustrations was never completed.
