Knight at the Crossroads

Viktor Vasnetsov painted this brooding rider as part of a wider effort in his day to build a truly Russian art out of the country's old folk tales rather than Western models. The knight, a bogatyr from the legends of Ilya Muromets, has halted before a worn stone in an empty steppe at dusk. Its inscription warns that whoever rides straight ahead will not come back alive; scattered bones and a watching raven make the threat plain. Vasnetsov painted this final version in 1882 for Savva Mamontov, the railway magnate whose estate at Abramtsevo gathered a whole circle of artists set on reviving Russian myth and craft.