The Russian school of painting

Front matter

THIS WORK HAS BEEN TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL RUSSIAN BY

ABRAHAM YARMOLINSKY

Valentine Syerov

Chapter I. The Eighteenth Century .... 17

Old church painting and its destiny. — Foreign masters in Russia under Peter I. — Efforts to implant a national art. — Andrew Matvyeyev. — Ivan Nikitin. — The reign of Queen Elizabeth. — More foreign masters summoned. — I. I. Shuvalov. — Origin of Russian painting. — General character of the Eighteenth Century Russian painting. — Art schools. — Painters. — I. Argunov. — Alexis Antropov. — Shuvalov’s Academy. — Losenko. — Rokotov. — Levitzky. — His two manners. — Borovikovsky. — Other portraitists.— Nicholas Argunov. — Shchukin. — Landscape painters. — Byelsky. — Destiny of Russian architectural painting. — Topographical engravings. — Shchedrin. — M. Ivanov. — Fyodor Alexyeyev. — Landscape painters of the old school. — Galaktionov. — Martynov. — M. Vorobyov. — Other painters of the “picturesque” school. — Alexander Bryullov.

Chapter II. Classicism 55

I. I. Betzkoy, the new head of the Academy. — The second classical Renaissance. — Academies and Classicism. — Academicism and aesthetics. — Academicism and art technique. — “The Russian school of painting.” — Akimov. — Ugryumov. — Yegorov, the “Russian Raphael.” — Shebuyev, the “Russian Poussin.” — Andrey Ivanov, the draughtsman. — F. Tolstoy and Ivan Ivanov. — Minor Academicists.

Chapter III. Romanticism 67

Romantic efflorescence. — Romanticism in Russian literature. — Inferiority of Russian art to Russian letters. — Echoes of Romanticism in Russian painting. — Kiprensky, the forerunner of Russian Romantic painting. — His portraits. — His decline. — Orlovsky.— His sketches. — Tropinin, the “Russian Greuse.” — Karl Bryullov, the Russian Delacroix. — His youth. — Bryullov in ix

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Italy. — “The Last Day of Pompeii.” — Bryullov in Russia. — His portraits. — G. G. Gagarin. — Von-Moller. — Bruni, the Nazarene. — His life. — His “Brazen Serpent.” — Nature of his talent. — Bryullov’s pupils. — K. Makovsky. — “Decadence” of Romanticism.— Makovsky’s paintings. — Semiradsky. — Mikyeshin. — Other epigones of Romanticism.

Chapter IV. Alexander Ivanov and Religious Painting 96

Alexander Ivanov and Romanticism. — His education. — Ivanov in Rome. — “Christ Appearing to the People.” — His Biblical sketches. — His mysticism. — Ivanov’s followers. — N. Gay. — His unbeautiful art. — His portraits. — Kramskoy. — His “Christ in the Desert.” — V. Vasnetzov, the pioneer of neo-idealism. — His aims.

His technique. — Nesterov. — His landscapes. — Vrubel, the true successor of Ivanov.

Chapter V. Realism and “Purpose” Painting . .114

The place of the realistic strain in the Russian school of painting.— Origin of Russian realistic painting. — The part of foreign masters. — Venetzianov. — The character of his realism. — His school and its destiny. — Realistic portraitists. — “Genre” paintings in Russia. — P. A. Fedotov, the father of “purpose” painting in Russia. — His life. — Art with a social tendency. — Fedotov’s satirical pictures. — Perov, the representative of narrative and denunciatory painting. — Historical value of his pictures. — The First Secession: “The Refusal of the 13 Competitors.”— Its significance. — Vereshchagin. — His pictorial ineffectiveness.— His place in the history of Russian painting. — I. Repin. — Repin and Kramskoy. — Nature of his talent. — His lack of education. — His portraits. — Other representatives of narrative painting. — The epigones : V. Makovsky. — Pryanishnikov.

Chapter VI, History and Fairy-Tale 138

Historical painting favourite with Russian realists. — Repin’s historical paintings. — “Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan.” — “The Cossacks’ Jeering Reply to the Sultan.” — Other historical paintings. — Schwarz, the father of Russian national historical painting. — Surikov. — His influence. — His truly Russian colour gamut. — Ryabushkin. — S. Ivanov. — A. Vasnetzov. — V. Vasnetzov.— His influence. — His fairy-tale pictures. — His most remarkable paintings. — His school.

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Chapter VII. Landscape and Free Realism . . ,150

Two currents in the evolution of the Russian landscape. — Silvester Shchedrin. — M. Lebedev. — Evolution of Russian landscape until the seventies. — Ayvazovsky. — M. K. Klodt. — Shishkin. — F. Vasilyev. — V. D. Polyenov. — A. Kuindzhi, the impressionist. — The Landscape in the eighties. — Levitan. — The narrative landscape. — His technique. — His truly Russian landscape style. — The poetry of Russian nature brought to expression.— Levitan’s followers. — Nesterov. — Syerov. — His artistic personality. — His landscapes and portraits. — His historical compositions.— K. Korovin, the Bohemian. — His decorative works. —

His colour gamut. — Free Realists. — Braz. — Sergey Korovin. — Arkhipov. — Pasternak. — Mary Y akunchikov. — G rabar.

Chapter VIII. Contemporary State of Russian Painting 175

The critical-historical method inapplicable to the treatment of contemporary art. — Absence of a distinct aesthetic system or programme in contemporary Russian painting. — The future of Russian painting. — Contemporary masters. — VYubel. — His themes.

His genius. — Somov. — His scope and talent. — His technique. —

His place in the history of Russian painting. — Malyavin, the bard of Russian peasant-women. — Return to the national past. — Vasnetzov. — Count Sollogub. — Miss H. Polyenov. — Her efforts to develop art industries. — Malyutin. — Golovin. — His colour gamut. — His theatrical decorations. — Bakst. — His decorations.— His book illustrations. — The Renaissance of the Russian book. — Lanceray. — Bilibin. — Roerich. — Dobuzhinsky. — Musatov. — The phantasts and symbolists.

XI

List of Illustrations

Valentine Syerov Nicholas II Frontispiece

FACING

PAGE

Dmitry Levitzky Portrait of Princess Golytzin 32

N'ladimir Borovikovsky Portrait of F. Borovsky 49

Fyodor Bruni The Brazen Serpent 80

Orest Kiprensky Portrait of a Lady 84

Karl Bryullov The Last Day of Pompeii 93

Alexandre Ivanov The Head of the Apostle Andrew 97

Alexandre Ivanov John the Baptist Preaching in the Desert 100

NT CO LAY Gay The Crucifixion 102

3'iCTOR Vasnetzov St. Nikita of Novgorod 107

Mikhail Nesterov The Vision of St. Bartholomew 109

Vasily Perov The Arrival of the Governess 116

Vasily Vereshchagin The Mass at the Battlefield 125

Ilya Repin The Bargemen of the Volga 132

Ilya Repin Ivan the Terrible and His Son l4^

Ilya Repin The Cossacks’ Jeering Reply to the

Sultan 144

Vasily Surikov Boyarynia Morozov 148

Ivan Ayvazovsky The Wave 157

Ivan Shishkin The Forest in Winter 161

Isaak Levitan The Breeze 162

Isaak Levitan The Pond 164

V’alentine Syerov October

Valentine Syerov Boys

Valentine Syerov Portrait of Princess Yusupov 17З

Mikhail Vrubel The Daemon ^75

Mikhail Vrubel The Daemon (Final Version, 1902) 17^

» KoNSTANTiNE SoMOV At Evening *7^

Philip Malyavin A Portrait

Sergyey Malyutin Portrait of the Artist 189

Ivan Bilibin Illustration to a Fairy Tale by Pushkin 191

Arkady Rylov Spring ^93

xiii

Л - }. ^ VrA

If we follow, in the history of painting, the attitude of artists of different epochs and nations toward their art, if we consider what is to them more essential : painting itself or the ideas painting conveys, we notice two fundamental currents in artistic activity. One has sprung from an exclusive quest for beauty, the source of the other is the desire to impress, by means of painting, something amusing, or instructive, or denunciatory. Some artists gave expression in their works to their sentiment of beauty without any doctrinaire motive whatsoever; others used painting as a mere auxiliary for the purpose of expressing ideas of a completely non-artistic order. In the latter case painting was domineered by literature, philosophy, and religion; it played a subsidiary role.

Sometimes, however, these currents flowed together. In times of intense religious fervour, or in the art of isolated religious individuals the quest for beauty in painting mingled inseparably with the expression of their religious and philosophical views. It is in such epochs and by such men that there were created the

XV greatest works of art, quite as rich in extrapictorial thought as they were beautiful from the standpoint of purely artistic merit. On the contrary, in epochs of weakening faith the quest for beauty assumed a narrowly aesthetic, specific character, and little by little art swerved into scholasticism, or academicism. Finally, in epochs dominated by the capitalistic, non-religious pursuit of earthly welfare, painting was subjected to social demands. Casting away all thought of beauty, which by some theoreticians was confused with ethical and political principles, men forced art to serve social ideas — either as a denunciatory weapon or as an instructive amusement.

In each of these currents there appears much of what is curious and precious. Yet not everything is curious and precious to an equal degree. If some works are self-sufficient and eternally youthful artistic revelations, other productions seem, when compared with those to have sprung from the petty cares of life, which mirror the vanity of passing interests, or, it appears, are the fruit borne by a deadening scholastic routine. A considerable portion of Russian painting — of the Western type — is distinguished by these very traits and has so little in common with the true nature of beauty, that the question may even arise whether it ought to be considered from the purely aesthetic standpoint, and

XVI whether this element ought to be given a place in the history of Russian art.

Iconoclasm of whatever sort, however, is not in accordance with the spirit of our times. He who in the name of service to a great and pure ideal would rise against petty worldly art or would ban those works which are too dependent on the scholastic model, would gain the name of a Vandal, of a narrow-minded and wild fanatic. The striking example of Hogarth corroborates the thesis that the history of art must include all the important artistic phenomena, even if they do not meet the purely aesthetic demands. Hogarth scoffs most unceremoniously at the precepts of Apollo; he came closest to the literary pamphlet and the facetious “novella.” Yet, who will raise his hand to do away with this keen saucy buffoon? There is no question here of his great genuinely pictorial gift, to which, however, he paid too little attention and which showed itself so rarely in his pictures. Hogarth must maintain a place of honour in the history of art, which is but a part of the records of human culture. We owe him this — if for no other reason — because of the marvellous documentation of his pictures, which lends them the melancholy charm that only echoes of bygone times possess.

Likewise, we must not ignore works of purely scholastic merit. It is certain that the living ideal in

XVI 1 such works, turned into a dry-as-dust and dead pattern, has become petrified, but even on such works rests the faint reflection of beauty, and they are able to please, though not to transport with delight. If, however, nothing — not even what is of slight importance — is to be ignored, a just proportion must be preserved in the exposition, and works absolutely beautiful must be preferred to productions relatively interesting. The most impartial history must not lose sight of this proportionality— otherwise it runs the risk of forfeiting its fundamental character and dissolving into utter confusion.

In the exposition of the history of Russian art, more than anywhere else, it is important to be guided by these principles of many-sidedness, tolerance, and harmonious proportionality. The study of Russian painting from a purely artistic standpoint would bring us to such unexpected and odd conclusions that accusations of incompleteness and partiality would inevitably follow. For the number of purely artistic aspects is less in the Russian School of Painting than in any other. A considerable period of Russian painting passed under the sign of academicism, and scarcely did it free itself from its trammels, when it found itself involved in the complex mechanism of “the social movement.” During the two hundred years of the existence of Western xviii art in Russia, it has produced very few phenomena of a purely artistic character. To dwell on the merits solely of this element would mean to narrow the task of the historian to a paradoxical degree. On the other hand, the most indulgent historian in his studies of Russian painting must not let slip through his fingers a definite ideal standard, by means of which alone he can clear up the purely artistic significance of each phenomenon. Only when assisted by such an ideal measure will he be able, after giving due credit to the local and temporary significance of a number of artistic productions, to single out and shed light on those phases of Russian artistic life, on which rests the reflection of the eternal and all-human enchantment of beauty.

XIX

Chapter I

THE history of Russian Painting of the Western type begins with Peter the Great. The works of art belonging to Peter’s times show almost no trace of the art of old Russia. Only in church painting did the old style persist for any length of time; but it is just this branch of Russian painting that, even before the time of Peter the Great, had already lost its original and traditional character. The Russian iconpainting of the seventeenth century, which had just begun to free itself from the Byzantine canon and to absorb elements of national taste, mainly in the choice of colours and the treatment of ornaments, turns aside at about the middle of the century, and, under the influence of South-Russian and Polish cultures, acquires an unmistakably “German” bent. The Church offered almost no resistance to this current. True it is that the Church sturdily upheld the integrity of Byzantine traditions as far as the outward demands of iconography were concerned, such as: the choice of subject matter, the postures, the grouping and, to some extent, the vestures. Yet the Church was indifferent to the fact that the very type of the saints, under the influence of German engravings, began to assume a sluggish character, and that the style of the icons became broken, flabby, as remote as possible from the stern grandeur of the Byzantine manner. About the age of Peter, and for some time after, this current became even stronger; and in the middle of the eighteenth century it degenerated into a bizarre mixture of the Byzantine pattern with the wild eccentricities of the German rococo. Academicism wiped out the last traces of Byzantinism from Russian iconography, and in the first half of the nineteenth century we find no traces of it. Only in the popular peasant arts and crafts has the ancient ecclesisatic art survived to this very day.

It is customary to begin the history of the Russian School of Painting of the Western type with two artists sent abroad by Peter for the purpose of study. This is not quite accurate, for neither of these artists had a decisive influence on the subsequent development of Russian art. Of far greater importance for the Russian School were the numerous foreign masters summoned to the country from foreign parts. In the choice of these,

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Peter gave evidence, if not of taste, at least of great perspicacity. Among those invited to Russia were excellent artists of their time: the engravers, Adriaen Schoonebeck and Pierre Picart; sculptors, Andreas Schluter, Carlo Barthohomeo Rastrelli, Pinaud; painters, Tannhauer, Louis Caravaque, Tarsius, and Pillement; architects, Jean Baptiste Alexandre Leblond, Michetti, Maternovi; whole pleiads of excellent carvers, weavers, turners, etc. Toward the twenties of the eighteenth century, Russian court life exhibited a perfectly Western appearance. About that time Petrograd was built up; on the site of former huts there grew up the more or less magnificent houses of the Emperor and the most illustrious grandees; the gardens in the young capital and in its environs were decorated after the Italian manner with statues and fountains, and the walls and ceilings were covered with elaborate paintings.

To continue importing foreigners was, however, too burdensome. The Government was considerably worried by the fact that Russian gold flowed to foreign countries. Hence the attempts to create an art of our own, local and “less expensive.” It was with this purpose in view that, among other things, several young men were sent abroad to perfect themselves in art.

Only two of these proteges of Peter became prominent; Andrey Matvyeyev and Ivan Nikitin; but fate favoured neither them nor their works. So few of these have reached us that it is difficult to form a correct judgment about their authors. Andrey Matvyeyev, who returned home in 1727, lived ten years longer, and died in the prime of his life and talent. He received his artistic education in the Netherlands, under the guidance of Moor and Schoor. Several authentic works of his bear witness to the fact that he had mastered the technical methods of Western painting, but they are too few to give an idea of his personality as an artist. His portraits of Prince and Princess Golytzin, kept in the estate Petrovskoye (near Moscow) , show fair draughtsmanship and a skilful touch. But what an immeasurable distance between them and the works of his contemporaries: Largilliere, Nattier, Rigaud, Troost and others. Matvyeyev’s picture in Stroganov gallery, with its smooth painting and schematic composition, reminds one of a poor imitation of van der Werff ; as to his icons in the Cathedrals of St. Peter and St. Paul and in the Church of St. Simeon, it is impossible to judge them, as they have been retouched in later times.

His unfinished portrait of himself and his wife, donated by the artist’s son to the Academy of Arts, stands by itself in the common-place painting of the early eighteenth century; it is distinguished by a pronounced individuality, a vigorous stroke, and its pleasant greenish-brown hue. All the rest of Matvyeyev’s works have perished; some have disappeared — for instance, his portrait sketch, from life, of the Empress Anna, which as late as the middle of the nineteenth century was in the Academic Museum. A number of them have entirely lost their original character, owing to repeated retouching. His apocryphal “Kulikovo Battle,” in the Museum of Alexandre III, completely confuses our notion of this master.

Of the works of Ivan Nikitin, who returned to Russia in 1720, there remain to us even fewer examples. Our opinion about him must be formed on the basis of a unique work which is fully authenticated. It is the portrait of Baron S. G. Stroganov, kept in Maryino, the Golytzin estate, near Petrograd. The portrait is, from a contemporary viewpoint, a fair but not an extraordinary piece of work. Although interestingly conceived and not devoid of elegance, it is not distinguished either by bright characterization or by any remarkable skill. Of a greater value for the revealing of Nikitin’s character would be the portraits “Peter on his Death-bed” and “The Hetman” in the Academical Museum, painted very skilfully in rich colours in a pleasant and noble colour-scale, if it could be ascertained that these works really belong to the brush of Nikitin, and not to that of Tannhauer. In the reign of Empress Anna Ioannovna, Nikitin, who was involved in the case of the monk Josiah, was knouted and transported to Siberia in 1736, whence he was recalled in the reign of Empress Anna Leopoldovna. However, it was not given to the artist, worn out by his long exile, to see his home again; he died on the way, in the fall of 1741. It is probable that many of his works are still in existence, scattered in different estates and palaces, but it will hardly ever be possible to ascertain what pictures are really his, as one authentic, although not very typical picture is not enough for the formation of a definite j udgment about a painter. The single work of Roman, his brother, the portrait of Vassa Stroganov, is interesting only from the standpoint of costume.

The reign of Elizabeth opens a new period of Russian painting. The queen had a liking and a discriminating taste for luxury; she was dissatisfied with the dulness by which the court life of her predecessor, like that of the petty German courts, was marked; her conceptions were grandiose. From the artistic standpoint, the reign of Elizabeth was to Russia almost what the reign of Louis XIV was to France. In her reign and for a time under her personal supervision, the Anninsky Winter Palace was rebuilt. Later on she erected a new wooden palace and almost completed the new stone palace of the Russian Emperors. In her reign a great number of vast and magnificent palaces were built, or completely rebuilt, in Petrograd, Moscow, Kiev and elsewhere. Under Elizabeth were erected the best and most luxurious Rococo style buildings in Russia : the Smolny Monastery, the T roitzky Hermitage, the Cathedral of St. Andrew in Kiev, and others. It was in her time that the Russian magnates, Stroganovs, Vorontzovs, Shuvalovs, Sheremetyevs, imitating the example set by the Queen, began to build in a magnificent and truly European manner. Toward the end of her reign Petrograd and its environs assumed the appearance which they have preserved to a considerable degree to this very day. In the talented Rastrelli, Elizabeth found her Lebrun. Rut new legions of masters were needed for the execution of his innumerable and always excellent projects — all the more since some of the artists imported by Peter were already in the grave. Others, Pillement and Pinaud among them, not finding enough work, had returned home; others again were so old that they could not keep pace with the feverish activity of the young generation. Among the artists imported in the reign of Elizabeth the most noteworthy are: G. H. Grot, a somewhat manneristic master, but an artist of an unusually delicate and soft brush; his brother, I. F. Grot, one of the best animalists of his time; Valerian!, an expert in perspective, who proved very useful as an educator of the young Russian artists; the decorators Perezinotti, the Grandizzi and the Barozzi brothers. Toward the end of Elizabeth’s reign the following artists were added: Stefano Torelli, the rival of Boucher, a somewhat monotonous, but excellent portraitist; Count Rotari, and the French artists, LeLorrain, Lagrenee, Tocque and Develis. A brilliant, spirited artistic life, such as was to be found in the most splendid European courts of the time, unfolded both in Petrograd and in Moscow during the sojourn of the court in the capitals. Queen Elizabeth Petrovna considered it nearly the main task of her reign to lend to Russian life that illusory lustre of an ever blissful Eden, by which the high life of the West was distinguished.

After the agony of Russian culture under Peter II and Anna Ioannovna, a reawakening was presently felt. The seeds which were sown by Peter the Great and which for fifteen years had lain in the soil, soon began to sprout. In all fields of endeavour men of original and truly Russian genius began to arise; and there came other men who proved able to appreciate the native talent, to set them working and to support them. Among these the first place belongs to 1. 1. Shuvalov, the noblest of Russians, who more than any one else was 24 eager to revive all the educational projects inaugurated by Peter the Great, but whose views of art and artistic education, naturally, shared all the usual defects of those times. The fabulous luxury of those days necessitated the existence of our own artist-craftsmen, but nobody at that day thought of our own, original, national art. The prestige of scholastic aesthetics stood in the way of a deeper insight into the essence of art, into its pure, inspirational nature.

There is a peculiar trait of the Russian School of Painting in its early phase, which has also somewhat influenced its subsequent development. Painting in Russia came into existence not as a response to the demands of her entire society. It was rather the will of the Government and of the aristocracy, who longed for the externalities of life similar to those of the West, that called Russian painting into life. That is why it would be useless to look for an original national spirit even in the best representatives of the Russian School of the eighteenth century. We can find some ten gifted and very well educated artists, who on account of their purely pictorial merits may be placed alongside of the best names of the European schools; but these masters lack utterly the original, personal note, the specific “Russian” sensibility.

That is why the best that was done in Russian Painting of the eighteenth century is portraits; and, partly, landscapes, nature “portraits,” as it were. Portrait painting demands great talent and technical knowledge, but it does not necessarily need a pronounced artistic individuality. The Russian artists of the eighteenth century possessed both knowledge and technical skill, but they lacked imagination and freedom. They had no taste for these precious gifts. Just as the caftans and gowns were imported from Paris, so the aesthetics of the Russian nobility was derived directly from the Parisian Academy. What held the interest of our noblemen was not Watteau or Lancret, or the more intelligible Boucher and Fragonard — those marvellous phantasts of the eighteenth century — nor even Chardin or Chodowiecky, those most delicate poets of the hearth — but rather that bombastic official art, which in the Academies passed for Grand-Art.

In the reign of Peter the Great there was founded a school of drawing at the Petrograd Printing-house. Later on, under Catherine I, an art department was organised at the Academy of Sciences, owing to the efforts of Avramov. In 1748, under Elizabeth, a statute was approved establishing the Academy of Fine Arts, at the Academy of Sciences. At its head was put a typical representative of his time, the “Professor of Allegory” Shtelin. Finally, in 1757, owing to the zeal of I. I.

The Kighteenth Century

Shuvalov, a completely organised Academy of Fine Arts was definitely established. Nominally, the new institution was connected with the University of Moscow, but its seat was in Petrograd, the centre of court and aristocratic life. The Academy was an artistic hothouse, similar in character to the entire group of Russian and foreign masters, who were independent of the Academy, and usually lived in the northern capital, leaving it only to follow the court in its migrations.

Under Elizabeth, a number of Russian artists became prominent before the Academy of Fine Arts was founded. Their appearance bears witness to the efflorescence of Russian culture in the forties and fifties of the eighteenth century.

Among these artists the following deserve our attention: Ivan Argunov, a serf of Count Sheremetev, A. Matvyeyev’s relative; Alexyey Antropov, a master of design and perspective; Makhayev, Valeriani’s disciple; and a group of icon painters, rather mediocre, but interesting for their quaint attempts to combine the demands of the orthodox canon with the cleverness of the Italian Rococo. The icons in the court chapels of Peterhof and Tzarskoye Selo, and those in the Cathedral of St. Nicholas of the Sea in Petrograd, are curious samples of this style.

Only Argunov and Antropov in this group of artists 27 deserve real attention. As to Makhayev, it is hard to pass judgment upon him, for it is uncertain what really belongs to him in the precious series of engraved views of Petrograd, which were published during the last years of Elizabeth’s reign. The originals painted in oil are kept in the Hermitage : some of them, — for instance, the Summer Palace, are painted vividly and skilfully; others, like the great view of Neva, with dull timidity and in a mechanical manner. The first ones seem to be the work of Valerian!, the second, of Makhayev himself.

I. Argunov (1727-1797) , despite the researches of S. Dyagilev, is a somewhat obscure figure. Like many other masters of his time he did not hesitate to sign portraits copied from other people’s originals, and this mixing of copies with original works makes the estimation of his talent a difficult task. Thus, it is to be regretted that we cannot be certain of Argunov’s authorship in regard to one of the best productions of eighteenth century Russian painting: the portrait of Countess Barbara Alexeyevna Sheremetyev, which can bear comparison with the portraits of Tocque, Rotari and Van-Loo. Of course, all the interest of this characteristic and soundly realistic portrait would be lost if the work proved to be Argunov’s copy from the forgotten original by one of these masters. Equally meritorious are the portraits of Count S. B. Sheremetyev, 28

Countess V. P. Razumovsky, and of the Kalmyk lady, Fatyanov. Incomparably poorer are the series of other portraits of Argunov, but even these, in addition to the charm of the past, interesting costumes, hair-dressing and poses, have many fine, purely pictorial sides. Among these are fairly good painting (I. Argunov was G. H. Grot’s pupil) and sufficiently correct design.

Almost equally confused is our notion of the other prominent Elizabethan painter, Alexyey Petrovich Antropov (1716-1795). He was a person, it seems, of no ordinary calibre. His main merit consisted in the establishment of his own school of painting, which counterbalanced the official Academy, and which produced one of the greatest Russian painters, Levitzky. The descendants of the latter have to this very day preserved memories of Antropov, as of an independent man, who held in disdain the official artistic world and warned his young pupil against the pernicious influence of the Academy.

Another fact which speaks in favour of Antropov is the plasticity of his nature. He was all of 41, when, having become an admirer of the art of Rotari, who had just come to Russia (in 1757) , he assimilated and made his own the firm and lucid manner of the famous Italian master. It is in this manner that Antropov’s two best portraits are executed : the portrait of the unknown in 29 the Tretyakov Gallery, and the portrait of Countess Rumyantzev in the Museum of Alexander III. The latter work, dated 1764, corroborates, by its coarseness and simplicity, our estimate of Antropov as an energetic and highly independent man. Incomparably weaker are his portraits of the Czars, in which the artist, unable to paint from nature, had to have recourse to other people’s data. Having neither virtuosity nor European schooling (he was a pupil of A. Matvyeyev, of the icon painter Vishnyakov and of Karavacci) he helplessly heaped up in these portraits all sorts of details, borrowing them from the works of Tocque, Grot and Develis. Of greater interest are his icons, preserved in the church of St. Andrew at Kiev.