Morning of the Execution of the Streltsy

Surikov finished this in 1881 and set it back in 1698, the morning Peter the Great crushed the revolt of the streltsy, the old palace musketeers who had risen against him. The strange thing is that he shows you almost no violence. The gallows wait, but nobody hangs yet. What fills the canvas is the interval just before, in the mud of Red Square under the domes of Saint Basil's, the condemned men in their white execution shirts holding lit candles, their wives and children clinging to them. On the right, on horseback, Peter watches, the only rider, cold and upright. The whole picture hangs on a single locked stare between one bearded, red-capped musketeer and the young tsar who will not look away.