Vasily Vasilyevich Vereshchagin,

Some times I come across images that leave a lot of unanswered questions, here is one such imageThe question is, what will the fate of this young boy?

The artist Vereshchagin, Vasily Vasilyevich also painted the following which I found while looking for answers.

Here are some more rather disturbing images

And who says decapitation has nothing to do with islam

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During 1867–1868 and 1868–1870, Vereshchagin traveled in Central Asia (Turkestan). During his journey the artist was an eyewitness to military actions between Russian troops and the Bokhara Khanate. His impressions of what he saw were set down in the series of paintings entitled The Barbarians. The subject of the series was transparent – the destruction of a Russian detachment by warriors of the Bokhara Emir. The painting depicts the main square in Samarkand, Registan (which literally means “the place covered with sand”) in front of the Madrassah (medress, religious school) Shir Dor. The remarkable feature of the Shir Dor Madrassah (1619–1635/1636, Abdul Jabbar, architect) is the heraldic symbol of a tiger tearing to pieces a doe against a background of the solar disk - twice repeated on the tympanum of the portal. Shir Dor literally means “tiger bearing.” In the centre of the painting we see pikes with the impaled heads of Russian soldiers. However, they are almost indistinguishable against the background of the blinding sun, the bright ornamentation, and the colourful clothing of the gapers.

And finally

Under the influence of the military action in Turkestan, which shocked eyewitnesses by its cruelty, Vereshchagin did a series of paintings entitled The Barbarians. The key place in the series in terms of its intellectual freight was the painting The Apotheosis of War. The viewer beholds a dead wasteland baked by the sun with stunted trees. In the distance there is a plundered city. In the centre, a pyramid of human skulls.

Such were the “monuments” which the 14th-15th century conqueror Tamerlane (Timur) left after himself. Originally the artist intended to name the painting The Triumph of Tamerlane, however he preferred to give it a larger scale significance and wrote on the frame The Apotheosis of War, adding “This is dedicated to all great conquerors, past, present and future.”