The artist is Avilov
The painting shows an episode preceding the beginning of the Battle of Kulikovo (September 8, 1380),-the duel of the Russian Knight, the monk of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra Alexander Peresvet with Tatarin Chelube (according to one transcription of Chelibei, television, according to other sources-Temir-Murza), which ended with simultaneous death both.
The idea of the picture, which has become a true event in the turning year of the Patriotic War, was born with Avilov 25 years before its implementation. Back in 1917, the artist exhibited work "Departure of Tatar Cheli-Bey to a martial art with Peresvet", not satisfied with him and later destroyed. The large -scale tragedy of the Great Patriotic War brought closer to the exploits of the ancestors, raised the heroic affairs of the people on the shield, resurrected distant historical events, gave them acutely modern sound.
In the fall of 1942, Avilov returned from evacuation to Moscow, where he received a large workshop, which made it possible to start working on a large canvas. In the process of working on the picture, the artist searched for his topic and wrote four large sketches: "Dmitry Donskoy by Sergius of Radonezhsky", "Dmitry Donskoy decides to cross the Don", "Kulikovo battle" And "The flight of Mamaia". Already in the first, and the remaining only sketch "Fight" Avilov found the right compositional solution of the plot. In December 1942, the artist began to execute the picture and wrote it in just six months. The desire to truthfully convey the time and images of historical characters makes the artist be as accurate in the transfer of details: costumes and weapons were repeatedly sketched in the Central Historical Museum.
According to Avilov, the picture was written unusually easily, the artist was at the peak of a creative rise, and, of course, this work occupies a special place in his work.
