Our Lady Clemency of Evil Hearts, K. WITH. Petrov-Vodkin – overview of the painting 
- Posted by Petrov-Vodkin
- Museum: Russian Museum
- Year: 1914-1915
Overview of the painting :
Our Lady Clemency of Evil Hearts – K. WITH. Petrov-Vodkin. 1914-1915. Oil on canvas. 100.2×110 cm
Over his life, Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin repeatedly recreated the images of Our Lady – at first it was the church apse of the Orthopedic Institute in the Alexander Park, after many years, paintings in the Cathedral of Kronstadt and Sum, and, finally, the easel work “Bogomater. The tenderness of evil hearts, completed in 1915. Some tend to consider this picture a kind of response of the author to the events of the First World War.
An attentive viewer will immediately notice the “roll call” of this picture with the icon already in the title: the iconography has the type of “Softening Evil Hearts” icons, however, the painter deliberately replaced the first canonical word with “humility”.
It is amazing how much the image in its size does not correspond to the real size of the canvas – a small picture looks incredibly monumental and solemn. And the matter, of course, is in the very image, recreated by the painter. A meek, calm, wisdom-filled look seems to penetrate the soul of the viewer itself.
The Virgin in a red scarf raised her hands in order to calm and bless anyone watching. This is one of the most soulful and sublime images in the work of Petrova-Vodkin, and a unique example of the interpretation of iconographic canons with easel painting.