Der Wasserguss

Nicolai Fechin painted this large canvas in Kazan in 1914, catching a village ritual that was half play and half old magic. In the summer heat, peasants would douse anyone passing the well with water, believing the soaking could ward off drought. A Christian idea of washing away sins lay layered over much older pagan habits. Fechin worked the paint in thick, slashing strokes, close to sculpting the wet cloth and startled faces out of the surface. He made it three years before revolution and civil war would upend the world it shows, and he himself would later leave Russia for good and settle in the American Southwest. The painting stands well over two metres tall and hangs in the State Museum of Fine Arts in Kazan.