Tanais Gallery
Ivan Kramskoy. Christ in the Desert.
1872.
Oil on canvas.
The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia.
In his programmatic picture Christ in the Desert Kramskoy strives to give a new philosophical interpretation to a major timeless theme. In the midst of a boundless rocky plane Christ sits in agonizing doubt, his hands tightly clenched together. Just as in the painting by Perov, Kramskoy’s restrained pearly-grey colour scheme and the renunciation of colour as a means of emotional effect, thrusts into the forefront a philosophical aspect. What shall he do? Christ has not yet decided for himself what truth is and whether to serve falsehood for the sake of peace and wealth, or to sacrifice himself, to accept suffering in the name of justice and general good. As the painter himself wrote: “There comes a moment in every man’s life when he meditates on whether to turn to the right or to the left, whether to sell God for thirty pieces of silver, or to resist the temptation of evil.”
These questions, always tragic, standing out particularly sharply in the 1870s also faced Christ appearing as a man endowed with the greatest dignity and integrity, and in appearance resembling a Russian intellectual. Having chosen the moment of decision-making, Kramskoy thereby underlines man’s ability to decide his fate by himself.
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