Vasily Vereshchagin

The Apotheosis of war - 1871 (oil on canvas) 

Another war artists during the late 19th century most people although might not remember the difficult name have seen this image before. He is a Russian artist and mostly known there. Most of his work shows during war or immediately before or after, what I like about this image is that the war is long over by now and this is what's left. I find it interesting that unlike most war images he's used a bright colour scheme and not stuck to the dark colours that are normally commonplace in a war image. 

Pyramids of skulls were actually left near destroyed towns by the conquerors of war and that's how Vereshchagin reinforced his idea of the image. I think everything about the photo screams not only about war but about destruction of life itself.