Il bolscevico

Kustodiev painted this in 1920, three years into the revolution, and he did it from a wheelchair. A spinal disease had cost him the use of his legs, and he worked with the canvas tilted above him, watching the streets mostly from his window. A giant workman strides through a real Moscow of little houses, churches, and crowds, so tall his head is up in the winter sky, carrying a red banner that streams back until it is lost behind the rooftops. For years Kustodiev had made warm, nostalgic scenes of merchants and fairs in old provincial Russia, the very world the revolution was sweeping away. Ahead of the giant stands one last obstacle, a church, and he looks about to step straight over it.