Ivan Vladimirov (1869-1947) was a Russian painter (contemporaneous with Fritz von Uhde) whose realist watercolors documented the sadness of the Russian Revolution (1917-1919). This painting is simply titled, The Funeral. It is winter. Snow is drifted up against a blacked-out, boarded up building, suggestive of a whole nation hollowed out by violence. A plain casket is being pulled along the icy road by an elderly vested priest and the dead man's veiled wife. The young son pushes the sled and casket from behind. There are no flowers, only a pine branch.
Genre painting doesn't pretty things up. It's realistic — even sadly so. Genre painting depicts what takes place ordinarily — every day and every where. I am thinking of the Ukrainian man who was killed while attending to his bee hives. The other man who was blown up while feeding the stray dogs in his shell-shocked city. The hospitalized girl whose head is full of shrapnel — her mother and grandmother killed when the family car was riddled by bullets. The theatre blown to bits even though the word CHILDREN was printed on the roof and surrounding ground.
Vladimirov's painting depicted an early 20th century reality. And here we are, one hundred years later, still causing each other profound loss, sadness, fear and pain. We might wonder — are we even capable of change?
O Christ, our true Dawn,
who has come to be with us,
to reveal to us the new human person —
in the first light of Sunday,
the Day of Resurrection Life,
from a praising, contrite, grateful heart,
I pray for the world,
living in the night of doubt,
suffering, error, ignorance, sin and unbelief.
Transform discord into love,
cruelty into kindness,
lies to your Truth.
Amen.
