The theme of Christ's temptation had attracted Kramskoi already in the early 1860s. In that period he made the first sketch of the composition. The first version of Christ in the Desert is dated to 1867, but turned out to be unsuccessful. Kramskoi realized that the choice of vertical format was inappropriate. He opted for the horizontal format and introduced the pallid rocky desert in the background. I praise Kramskoy for his talent to persuade the admirers of “Christ in the Wilderness” not only of Christ’s pain, but also of his severe eagerness to come to rest and find God, his father, in his prayers and 40-day fasting. The artist also does a wonderful job in depicting Christ as a human being, trying his best to neglect the Devil that distracts him with all kinds of natural yearnings of man. Christ is devoted to find the enlightened good and the answers to all of his questions and I believe it was this that made it one of the favourite paintings of Pavel Tretyakov, who bought it for his gallery in the year the painting was finished.
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