Art and music evolve as time goes by and new methods and ideas of expression emerge while people and their surroundings change. In this essay I will discuss how art and music in 19th century Russia have similar aspects that represent the time and place they’re created in by comparing Vasily Surikov’s “The Morning of the Streltsy Execution” painting and Mussorgsky’s “The Great Gate of Kiev” from The Pictures at an Exhibition (I’ll use the piano rendition for this essay). First I want to discuss the 19th century as it was in Russia (what was happening back then, what the people were like, its aesthetics and views on the world) in order to give the reader an idea of what it was like. Then I will talk about Vasily Surikov’s painting and Mussorgsky’s
