On the line of fire. 1916 Kuzma Sergeevich Petrov-Vodkin (1878-1939)

Description of Kuzma Petrov Vodkin’s painting "In the Line of Fire

During wartime, the artist found himself serving in the military department in Petrograd. Therefore, what is military action, what is the life of officers and soldiers, he knows firsthand. In the painting "On the Line of Fire," Petrov-Vodkin uses a three-color color scheme. Namely blue, yellow and red colors. These are the tones in which he conveys the image of the Civil War.

The movements of the military are smooth and slow. And the compositional principle chosen by the artist allows us to consider the heroes from the side and from above. Petrov-Vodkin successfully conveyed the image of the Earth as a planet. Military as if they are climbing to a peak, but can not get up. And in general, this image is very tragic. The second title of this painting is "the first German war. The soldiers of the Russian army are dying with eyes full of horror and despair. Their task is to save, to protect the tsar and the fatherland. But they succeed in doing neither. The impression is that they are now also slowly falling one by one dead to the ground. And everyone will have that panic and that horror in their wide-open eyes.

The painting clearly expresses that tragic time when the country was literally falling apart before our eyes, but everyone firmly believed in a happy bright future. That’s just the author of the painting did not believe. And he portrayed the inability of people to rise to something higher. And the blue, airy dreams remain somewhere behind. The painting is a kind of symbol of an entire era when people believed in "castles in the air" and selflessly pursued unfulfilled dreams. Only at the end did they realize the meaninglessness of the situation.