1919. Alarm
1934
This painting reflects both the real events of the siege of Petrograd by the forces of the White general Yudenich and the artist’s own personal memoirs: «I wanted to tell the tale of an episode from the terrible year of 1919.» The artist conveys the setting of a worker’s house and the state of its inhabitants, who stay up throughout the whole alarming night. The colour contrasts add tension to the painting. The artist employs the resolution to introduce significance into the genre scene, confirming without external pathos the stoicness of people when the hour of testing comes around: «I wanted … to convey the alarm of the historical scale of great experiences … I succeeded in loving the people depicted there.» Russian Museum: From Icons to the Modern Times. Palace Editions, St Petersburg, 2015. P. 355.