Vassili Surikov 1997 Hardback book – Great Painters Art critic

The book is structured in a series of chapters beginning with “Surikov: His Life and Work” which is followed by chapters that focus on his 7 great historical paintings “The Morning of the Execution of the Streltsy”, 1881; “Menshikov at Boriozov”, 1883; “The Boyarina Morozova”, 1887, the largest with dimensions of 304cm x 587.5cm; “The Taking of the Snow Fortress”, 1891; “Yermak’s Conquest of Siberia”, 1895; “Suvorov Crossing the Alps”, 1899; and “Stepan Razin”, 1906. There is another chapter dealing with a generalised history painting, “A Princess Visiting a Convent”, 1912, which addresses the fact that the Czar’s daughters were not allowed to marry and so had to enter a convent – “the misery of living entombment in a nunnery”. A final historical work “Princess Olga Meeting Igor’s Corpse”, which he conceived in 1909, was left unfinished when he died. Finally, the artist’s many portraits are presented and the book closes with a detailed Chronology which is illustrated with contemporary photographs.

The book contains almost 150 illustrations, the great majority in colour, including details from his panoramic works. The pages are glossy and the quality of reproductions, which are rather variable in books from this publisher, are good.