Andrea Yager Paper

Andrea Yager, “Living in Post Napoleonic Russia:  Two Russian Artists’ Portrayals of Despair and Destruction,” BOZetto, Vol. 1, Fall 2012, 1-4.

          Napoleon I’s invasion of Russia in 1812 and his subsequent burning of Moscow left the Russians in complete despair.  In the wake of unfathomable destruction, Russian artists for the first time ever expressed their dismay through contemporary history paintings.  After Napoleon’s retreat from Russia, artists began to show their resistance toward France and their pride in Russia.  In 1813, the Russian government commissioned Russian artist Mikhail Tikhanov to paint The Execution of Russian Patriots by the French in 1812 (Figure 1)as a demonstration of their courage and suffering as a unified nation.[1]   Twenty years after Napoleon’s retreat, Russia was still reflecting on the destruction left in his merciless wake.  From 1830 to 1833, another Russian painter, Karl Pavlovich Briullov, paralleled the ruins left by Napoleon’s burning of Moscow with the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius and its complete obliteration of Pompeii, in The Last Day of Pompeii (Figure 2).  For Russia, ruins became a metaphor for strength and a refusal to be absorbed by France culturally.[2]  The stylistic and contextual differences portrayed in each painting are indicative of a smoldering resentment toward the French as a result of the complete destruction left by Napoleon.  Though decades separate these two paintings, both provide insight into the effects of Napoleon’s campaign against the Russian people.

            In June of 1812, Emperor Napoleon and an army of over five hundred thousand soldiers marched into Russia with hopes of bringing the resistant Czar Alexander I and the Russian people to their knees.[3]  Five hundred thousand soldiers must have seemed unstoppable.  However, through a series of misfortunes, such as terrible weather, poor planning, and strong resistance from the Russian people, Napoleon and his remaining twenty thousand soldiers were forced to retreat by December.  Though victory seemed to lie with the Russians, they were not left unscarred.  The destruction and devastation that Napoleon and his troops inflicted on the Russian citizens was unimaginable.  Though they put up their best fight and won, the loss was crushing to the morale of the Russian people.  The Russians were willing to sacrifice themselves for Russia, meaning they torched their own countryside and their most beloved city, Moscow, to prevent the French from occupying structures that were not theirs and sustaining themselves from the stores of the Russian people.[4]  This self-sacrifice showed the courage of the Russian people and their loyalty to Alexander I.  It also allowed them to send Napoleon back to France with a shameful defeat.

In recognition of their own strength and courage, artists began depicting contemporary events in Russian history paintings.  In 1813, Mikhail Tikhanov, a former serf, was commissioned by the state-run academy to paint a depiction of “Russian citizens, proving their faith in God and their loyalty to the Tsar, showing piety and steadfastness in spirit by choosing death by firing squad rather than obeying Napoleon’s orders.”[5]  The result was The Execution of Russian Patriots by the French in 1812, which became immediately popular and won the Imperial Academy’s gold medal for its portrayal of “liberal, patriotic, and humanitarian views.”  The Execution of Russian Patriots by the French in 1812 can be identified with le juste milieu, the perfect fusion of Neoclassicism and Romanticism, artistic movements that dominated Europe during the nineteenth century.  Art historian Jeremy Howard argues that Tikhanov made this happen by “breaking with canons in a way that would not have been possible within the conformist systems of art education in German, Austrian, and Italian lands, where dependence on Paris and Mercantilism were the decisive causes of uniformity.”[6]  In short, the manner in which Tikhanov used the golden mean allowed him to show the Russians’ disdain towards the French through his representation of their merciless abuses.

            Tikhanov’s scene is set in the heart of Moscow, identified by the outline of St. Basil’s Cathedral and the burning buildings, which stand as a symbol of the Russians’ faith in God as well as their defiance of Napoleon.  Tikhanov represented the Russian figures in classical garb.  They are almost sculptural in their anatomical precision and perfection, a quality that is accentuated by the light cast upon them. In contrast to the Russians’ clear and ideal forms, Tikhanov rendered the French soldiers sketchily in their modern military uniform.  Their lack of definition causes them to blend into the background, seeming flat and almost deformed when compared to the Russians.  In their sculptural defiance, the Russian figures stand fearless as they await the French firing squad.  According to Jeremy Howard, an art historian at the University of St. Andrews, Tikhanov was aiming to “unite an audience behind an undemocratic [i.e. imperial] regime through the elevation of the common man.”[7]  It was important for the Czar to keep the people of Russia united through feelings of mutual loss and devastation. Although works such as The Execution of Russian Patriots by the French in 1812 were revolutionary in the context of Russian history painting, the Russians did not need a painting to serve as a reminder of their courage in the face of destruction and devastation. Moscow and the surrounding countryside, towns and villages were in ruins, haunting the Russians for the next few decades.

            The repercussions of the French invasion haunted the Russians.  However, no painter was willing to reflect on the “aesthetic qualities of the aftermath of the invasion” before Karl Briullov, who rendered The Last Day of Pompeii in 1830-33.[8]  Pompeii was re-discovered in the mid-1730s.  Early on in his career, Burillov visited Pompeii and made studies of the ruins.  Russians were fascinated by ruins and according to the historian Andreas Schonle, they became a “metaphor of the structure of consciousness,” which is partially why they became so popular in Romantic painting.[9]  When Napoleon burned Moscow, most of the structures were wooden, so no glorious ruins survived to tell of Russia’s great history.  By referencing the ruins of Pompeii, which were impeccably preserved by volcanic eruption in 79 C.E., the Russians intended to memorialize Moscow.  According to Schonle, the authorities “attempted to mobilize all layers of the population in the massive reconstruction of the city, despite the social antagonisms that responses to the French occupation had revealed.”[10]  The Russians were desperate to detach themselves from all French association or influence by purging their culture and society of everything resembling the French Enlightenment.[11]  Art works such as The Last Day of Pompeii provided an avenue for the Russians to express their disgust with political scheming and power.  Matthew Craske, art historian and member of the Churchill College in Cambridge, credits Briullov’s work with “creating an international sensation that stood as a focus for virtually every doom-laden prophecy current in post-Napoleonic Russia”.[12]  What better way to express this “sensation” than by paralleling the mercilessness of a natural disaster with the necessity of a wartime withdrawal?

            The artistic freedom and individuality embraced by Romantic artists allowed natural disasters to become one of the most popular expressions of personal and national discontent or despair.  Burillov’s The Last Day of Pompeii is suffused with drama as the figures are bathed in white light, making them stand out against the apocalyptic red sky and billowing black clouds of smoke and ash.  Burillov’s figures are sculptural as they are rendered with clarity, allowing the viewer to see every bit of their idealized anatomy.  They appear to be almost frozen and become even more statuesque by the fact that they are flawlessly beautiful and linear.  The figures’ beauty is such a contrast to the devastation that is looming above them.  Not one hair is out of place as the figures unsuccessfully attempt to flee from their doom.  The attention to physical detail and precision of the figures in the foreground contrasts with the loosely rendered stormy and expressive background.  This stylistic aspect is similar to Tikhanov’s combination of Neoclassical detail and perfection with the Romantic individual and expressive qualities. In the foreground, the figures are clustered into groups, intertwining and clinging to one another in terror.  Of these groups Andreas Schonle has observed:  “the solidarity and interconnectedness of these bodies imply that the catastrophe has brought into focus the collective, unified body of the nation.”[13]  Through their terror and destruction, the people in Briullov’s piece are joined together by their imminent doom.  Perhaps this parallels the unity and pride in Russian heritage in the 1830s as they were still attempting to cleanse themselves of French influence and rebuild their nation from the rubble left by Napoleon’s invasion.

            Both Mikhail Tikhanov and Karl Burillov sought to free their paintings from French stylistic and conceptual influences.  As Napoleon built his empire, he forced French ideals on his victims, including his political and cultural values.  The Russians resisted by forcing the rest of Europe to see their strength and patriotism.  They stood united in this aspect as they began to put their lives back together and rebuild their land. The unification demonstrated in Tikhanov’s The Execution of Russian Patriots by the French in 1812, and Briullov’s The Last Day of Pompeii undermine the propaganda of Napoleon’s empire, making his authority, power, and grandeur seem insignificant.  In the biennial Salon of the French Royal Academy, Napoleon was usually depicted as the savior or humanitarian spreading political freedom and liberty throughout his empire.  The Russians as well as other artists occupied by the French—including Goya, Turner, and Freidrich—expressed in their own Romantic paintings their experiences of destruction and devastation.

            Today as we look back on the effects of the Napoleonic war through art, we see that Russian artists are not given enough attention or credit for their Romantic resistance. Yet their works do assert a strong nationalism in the aftermath of Napoleon’s invasion.  Tikhanov’s and Burillov’s works are both successful in expressing the Russians’ sense of unity after a time of French destruction and domination.  Tikhanov’s painting The Execution of Russian Patriots by the French in 1812 compels viewers to witness the Russians’ bravery, courage, and loyalty to Alexander I.  Decades later, Russia’s unity in the aftermath of the French invasion is still apparent in Karl Burillov’s Last Day of Pompeii, which parallels the burning city of Moscow.  Each of these paintings broke away from convention and was influenced by the tragic events that swept through Russia, giving the viewer insight into the devastating effects of Napoleon’s campaign on the Russian people.