, 1889-01-17
A TALK ON WAR.
Interesting Lecture by Distinguished
Artist Who Has Seen Heal Blood.

Interesting Lecture by q Distinguished
Artiat Who Has Seen Heal Blood.
In such lectures as that delivered by
Vassili VerestchaQin 10 the American Art
Gallery, says the New York Tribune. inter.
national arbitration societies must find
their strongest arguments. A Talk ON
war" by an artist fertile in the pictorial
expression OF violent death. and particu-
larly death on the battle field, and an ar
tist who founded his own shool Of realism
in violent death by actual experience OF
able audience.
Verestchagiu i'm pressed one a. being
full Of purpose, and intent on enforcing q
lesson. His manner WAS subdued and
earnest. He did not gesticulate ~ when
he cxpounded his ideas Of art, But the
under current Of nervous energy, 20 mark
edly Conversational in the dress suit that
seemed to protest against its convention
atty BY seeming to have been Hung upon
him rather than fitted 70 him, impelled
him TO o continuous walk to and fro, that
tired the eyes of those who tried to fix .
constant gaze on his figure. Behind him,
ixion; TO his left, q Russian execution.
hooded bodies hanging from rude gallows-
en-, with = crowd OF onlookers peering
through binding snow storm; behind
him, u bloodcurdling "reminiscences of the
Indian mutiay, q long line OF Sepoys
about to be blown from the mouths of CAN
non by British soldiers,
With face stolid to the applause that
welcomed him. Verestchagin plunged into
horrors in his first sentsnSe: He described
his visit to sacked city'of China twenty
years ago. There he found skulls and
skeletons. desolation and death.
l. nd psrp, hi ,x,s~
Of the sport of war and it's attractions.
Said he: "I have killed in battle and
the feeling of satisfaction and excitement
after killing man ia exactly the same as
With the game In hunting" But il the
battlefield is dreadful, Verestchagin
thinks that the place OF execution is dis.
gusting. He ia less friendly to judicial
murder" than even to war, and thinks
that. to be logical, it is better to cut of
heads for great offenses, and for smaller to
cut off "only ears, for instance, and bands,
and occasionally noses," as the Orientals
do, that, after the manner Of the Euro.
peans, and, presumably, though he did not
name them, Americans, who pet and feed
we'll condemned crimi nal for many days
aud then Kill! him after the last blandlsh.
ments OF an extraordinary good breakfast
and a drink of whisky.
A few of his remarkable sayings were: !:
81 am often reproached with having in
my pictures represented war more dread.
fu! than it is in reality. The ladies' think
they can make u rosewater war. But II
you make war you must kill kill kill
kill, till one side cries Stool | cannot
more War is contrary to the common
moral DO not take another's property,
saws the common moral. Take it; use
it, says the war. DO not kill, says the
moral kin says the war; kill as many
as possiblen"
Then he cast more strong lights on the
horrors of war, and painted word pictures
oi what he had seen in hospitals; of
Turkish prisoners freezing to death, waG'
ons driven over their still living bodies,
and taunts hurled in their dying ears by
victorious Russians. Last of all, he told
how he went to seek the body of his
brother, shot dead at Plevna before the
surrender, and refused to the Russians by
the Turks, as were also those of the other
Russians killed within the Turkish lines
Az he told the story he Rrasped the red
rope before him and slid his hand over II
as he walked.