In mid 1870s Russian Itinerant and architect Viktor Vasnetsov started working with historic and folk paintings instead of domestic scenes traditional for that time.
He began his work on this picture from a small pencil sketch. The main subject of the painting refers to the Russian tale ‘Ilya Muromets and the Robbers’. The artist was convinced that ‘genre and historic paintings, statues and other works of art including tales, songs and dramas, unite the entire image of a nation, external and internal, with its past, present and maybe even the future’.
Vasnetsov finalised his work before the 6th Travelling Exhibition in 1878. It was his first large painting on the tale subject, which served the beginning of a cycle of works.
There are up to ten author’s variations of the painting. Among them, the painting of 1882 made for the collection of an industrialist, entrepreneur and famous benefactor Savva Mamontov is the most well-known. It is exhibited in the State Russian Museum.
This version of the painting was made in 1878. While on the original work for the 6th Travelling Exhibition the figure of the horseman was facing the viewers, here we can see only the Knight’s profile. The picture from the Russian Museum depicts just the horse rider’s back.
The artist intended the viewers to progressively immerse into the narrative. By turning the Knight from the viewers, Vasnetsov shifted the focus of attention from the main character to the landscape and inscriptions on the rock.
Crossroads and the need to choose the right path is not depicted on most of the copies of his painting — the artist decided not to draw them for bigger emotive effect. He tried to show the dramatic character of the situation near the border. The Knight is standing at the edge of an unknown deadly field and has to cross the line.
On the earlier versions of the painting, the inscription on the rock copied the whole text of the tale, however, later the artist left only the menacing ending: “If you choose the road straight ahead there is no way to pass it alive, neither by foot, nor on a horse”.
According to art critics, the Hamlet question strengthens the decisive choice of the way: the Knight’s profile is situated directly opposite a human skull lying beside a boundary mark. Dark twilight colours intensify the anxious mood, however the figure of a white horse is a foreshadow of the Knight’s future victory.
He began his work on this picture from a small pencil sketch. The main subject of the painting refers to the Russian tale ‘Ilya Muromets and the Robbers’. The artist was convinced that ‘genre and historic paintings, statues and other works of art including tales, songs and dramas, unite the entire image of a nation, external and internal, with its past, present and maybe even the future’.
Vasnetsov finalised his work before the 6th Travelling Exhibition in 1878. It was his first large painting on the tale subject, which served the beginning of a cycle of works.
There are up to ten author’s variations of the painting. Among them, the painting of 1882 made for the collection of an industrialist, entrepreneur and famous benefactor Savva Mamontov is the most well-known. It is exhibited in the State Russian Museum.
This version of the painting was made in 1878. While on the original work for the 6th Travelling Exhibition the figure of the horseman was facing the viewers, here we can see only the Knight’s profile. The picture from the Russian Museum depicts just the horse rider’s back.
The artist intended the viewers to progressively immerse into the narrative. By turning the Knight from the viewers, Vasnetsov shifted the focus of attention from the main character to the landscape and inscriptions on the rock.
Crossroads and the need to choose the right path is not depicted on most of the copies of his painting — the artist decided not to draw them for bigger emotive effect. He tried to show the dramatic character of the situation near the border. The Knight is standing at the edge of an unknown deadly field and has to cross the line.
On the earlier versions of the painting, the inscription on the rock copied the whole text of the tale, however, later the artist left only the menacing ending: “If you choose the road straight ahead there is no way to pass it alive, neither by foot, nor on a horse”.
According to art critics, the Hamlet question strengthens the decisive choice of the way: the Knight’s profile is situated directly opposite a human skull lying beside a boundary mark. Dark twilight colours intensify the anxious mood, however the figure of a white horse is a foreshadow of the Knight’s future victory.
