#Pukirev

[demonicskank]

a feminine rage pent up over centuries desperate to let out like a scream

[panchicha]

Pukirev

[azulolivart]

I had been planning to make this little tribute to Pukirev with Sansa and Joffrey since January, and since then I have been thinking from time to time about which characters to include in the background and where to put them.

The only character who had a guaranteed spot from the beginning was Sandor, and it was where Pukirev had portrayed himself, precisely because of the rumors around him and what he felt for the bride in his painting, and also because there he is watching Sansa's back, as he somehow said he would do in the TV adaptation. I mentioned the rumor about Pukirev on my Twitter. I'm glad other people noticed it.

So, even though the ones who are marrying are Sansa and Joffrey, this is kind of a Sansan fanart, somehow

An unequal marriage in Westeros.

[classic-art-favourites]

The Unequal Marriage by Vasili Pukirev, 1862.

[diioonysus]

art + hair pieces

[atlantic-naiad]

paintings that jolt my soul

[tell-them-the-north-remembers]

Just dropped in to say that The Unequal Marriage by Vasili Pukirev just screams Alicent and Viserys. If we got their wedding scene this would be what came to my mind.

The sorrowful resignation on Alicent's face here and the bride's face in the painting are literally the same. They are both fully aware that they will never be afforded the luxury of being married to someone that they love, someone their age, someone who won't look down on them. Instead they are being married to men older than them, more powerful, a husband who they will always have to crane their neck up to look at.

[fatum679]

The Unequal Marriage

"… I? What have I done but what was expected of me! Forever upholding the kingdom, the family, the law… Where is duty? Where is sacrifice?..."

Vasily Vladimirovich Pukirev: The Unequal Marriage 1862

[unrequited-belladonna]

𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐚 𝐰𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐮𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫.

[russianpaintings]

Vasili Pukirev. Unequal Marriage. 1862–1862. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

Unequal Marriage is a masterpiece of Vasily Pukirev (1832-1890). It is one of art history's most heartbreaking paintings. To study it, you need to keep track of the whole "abyss of little things", for every detail, because otherwise we risk missing a lot.

There are two strange figures on the canvas — old women. One stands behind the groom, the other behind the priest. Both for some reason came in wreaths, and one either in a white dress, or even in a sheet or a funeral shroud. The figure of the second bride behind the priest's back looks even more strange, because this is not according to the rules of the rite. There is nothing for guests to do next to the priest — unless, of course, they come from another world.

It turns out that there are three brides at the wedding at once. Two of them are dead and looking at the old groom. And here is the artist Vasily Pukirev! He's standing with his arms crossed in the right corner and looking at the young bride. Next to him, his friend, the artist Pyotr Shmelkov, who suggested the idea of the painting to him, looks at us and seems to be asking a question: "Do you understand what's going on?".

[sy666th]

The painting "Unequal Marriage" by Vasili Pukirev (1862) was surrounded by legend. It was said that after looking at it, older men who were planning to marry young women gave up their intent.

The painter's work is an open and courageous denunciation of the Russian society of the time. In particular, the custom was condemned (universally in vogue in the not too distant past and still present today in some countries) whereby young girls were often forced into arranged marriages with men much older than them.

The painting was highly successful and generated heated debate in the press, with its supporters praising it for representing a serious theme of modern life, unlike the usual genre scenes, which tended to be nostalgic or sentimental.

The canvas is based on an episode that actually happened and is full of details. The same painter - who was rumored to be romantically linked to the bride - depicted himself on the far right with his arms crossed, as a sign of opposition to what he is witnessing. Two old women appear half hidden in the crowd: one can be seen between the groom and the priest, the other can be seen behind the religious man: it is probable that they are the groom's deceased wives. The priest himself is hunched over and partially in shadow, perhaps to symbolize some sort of divine condemnation of this union.

However, the figure of the young, beautiful and sad bride is illuminated. Under the oblique and inquisitorial gaze of her almost-husband, she mechanically performs the ritual and keeps her gaze turned to the ground, her eyes red from crying. We can only imagine her state of mind but perhaps these verses come to our aid:

As if, once the sentence was pronounced, frozen they were escorting you from the luxurious prison of doubt to the gallows, and to the dead, -

when the veil your eyes had sewn - a creature gasped - "Pity" - What anguish was then the most atrocious - To die, or to be alive?

(Emily Dickinson)

📌Vasili Pukirev, The Unequal Marriage (1863)., State Tretyakov Gallery - Moskow

[thegirlintheblackdress]

Unequal Marriage, by Vasily Pukirev

[laithesque]

The Unequal Marriage, by Russian painter Vasily Pukirev (1862). Tretyakov Gallery.

[classic-art-favourites]

In the Artist's Studio by Vasili Pukirev, 1865.

[secretsofscythes]

on rage; on violence; on grief.

Sue Zhao, Where to begin? / Dylan Thomas, Do not go gentle into that good night / Stephen Dobyns, Song For Putting Aside Anger / Vasili Pukirev, The Unequal Marriage / Sylvia Plath, Elm / Nicola Samori, Unknown / Kayleb Rae Candrilli, Sand & Slit / Kai Samuels-Davis, 2014 / Adrian Ghenie, Pie Fight Study 2 / Anne Carson, Grief Lessons: Four Plays by Euripides / Karl Bryullov, The Last Day of Pompeii

[vintage-russia]

"Christ Sunday" (1864)

Vasiliy Pukirev (1832-1890)