Death of a Commissar
1928
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Location in museum
The Benois Wing
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Room 79 - Period Early 20th century
- CategoryBattle Scenes
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“The Death of a Commissar” was painted by Petrov-Vodkin in 1928. It was commissioned from the Revvoyensoviet (Revolutionary Military Council) for the exhibition “10 years of the RKKA” (The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army). The painting occupies a central place in the Soviet period of Petrov-Vodkin’s creative work. The theme of life, sacrifice and death, which is one of the basic themes for the artist, was illustrated there for the first time in the images of the revolutionary heroes. The plot of the painting is based on an event from the Russian Civil War.
Two figures – the mortally wounded commissar and a soldier supporting him are placed in the foreground. Driven by the whirlwind of battle, the Red Army soldiers slope down the hill. In the composition of the two main characters depicted in the foreground one can see the iconography of the Pieta – the scene of the Lamentation of Christ. The death, though for the sake of other ideals, gains the high sense of sacrificial service to humanity. Petrov-Vodkin expressed his unique artistic system in this work. He gave up the traditional linear perspective and developed the new “spherical” perspective, which presented in poetical form the artist’s world view. Thanks to this perspective the depicted overgrows the framework of the single fact and gains a planetary, universal meaning.