Russian art

“ CONCEIVE the joy of a lover of nature who, leaving the art galleries, wanders out among the trees and wild flowers and birds that the pictures of the galleries have sentimentalised. It is some such joy that the man who truly loves the noblest in letters feels when tasting for the first time the simple delights of Russian literature. French and English and German authors, too, occasionally, offer works of lofty, simple naturalness; but the very keynote to the whole of Russian literature is simplicity, naturalness, veraciousness. ”

“ It is by way of historical painting that Russian art passed from narrow, doctrinal realism to free creative efforts. Of course, the pictures of Repin, Polyenov and even those of K. Makovsky may be looked upon as signs of this evolution. But the art of these painters presents only faint reflections: other masters were to give genuine expression to the new spirit. ”

“ Syerov never painted "scenes from Russian life," but his landscapes, like the best ones of Levitan, in revealing the distinctive poetry of modern Russian art and in unfolding the master's intimate knowledge of Russian nature, testify to the depth of self-consciousness and to the maturity of Russian society. Only a mature personality can assume a conscious attitude toward the charm of the surrounding world. ”

“ From now all the world will listen to the majestic masterpieces of the Russian composers, see the infinite beauty of the Russian life and feel the greatness of the Russian soul. Not only has Russia her peculiar racial civilization, her unique art and literature, and national traditions, but she has riches of which the outside world knows little, riches that are still buried. ”

“ Only an art, self-sufficient, but unified for a common purpose, only a school, both as technique and as ideas, can bear fruits of beauty, which will be worthy of those borne by the famous "schools" of former ages, and even surpass them in nutritive powers and in fascination. It is hardly necessary to insist, however, that these wishes are helpless in the face of life's decrees, and that the future of Russian art depends upon the unrevealed destinies of the Russian nation. ”

“ There is always lurking behind every Russian work of art a sort of mystic image, that of Russia which longs to express her soul, and the highest aim of all Russian literature is to redeem the national spirit from the silence to which it is doomed by the conditions of Russian life. ”

“ No one who lived in modern Russia could possibly realise his perfection except by pain. A few Russian artists have realised themselves in Art; in a fiction that is mediæval in character, hecauae its dominant note is the realisation of men through suffering. ”

“ 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 æsthetic standpoint, and whether this element ought to be given a place in the history of Russian art. ”

“ Towards the close of last century the new tendencies which are labelled respectively “impressionism,” “decadence,” and “symbolism,” according to the point of view from which they are being discussed, began to make themselves felt in Russian art, resulting in a partial reaction from the vigorous realism of the ’sixties and ’seventies, and also from the academic romanticism which was the prevalent note of the cosmopolitan Russian school. ”

“ The Russians take literature perhaps more seriously than any other nation. To them books are not a mere diversion. They demand that fiction and poetry be a true mirror of life and be of service to life. A Russian author, to achieve the highest recognition, must be a thinker also. He need not necessarily be a finished artist. Everything is subordinated to two main requirements—humanitarian ideals and fidelity to life. This is the secret of the marvellous simplicity of Russian-literary art. Before the supreme function of literature, the Russian writer stands awed and humbled. ”

“ The Russian music is the most dramatic phonetic art ever created; it reaches the deepest sorrow and the gayest hilarity and joy. Dreamy, romantic, imaginary, simple, hospitable and childlike as an average moujik, is the soul of the people. Nowhere is there a hint of those qualities which are thrown up as dark shadows on the canvas of his horizon. While with one hand Russia has been conquering the world, with the other she has been creating the most magnificent masterpieces of humanity. In the same generation she produces a Plehve and a Tolstoy, both in a way, true to national type. ”

“ Russian painting has developed in various directions during the last two centuries under the influence of Western Europe; until the first half of the Nineteenth Century the imitation of Italian painting, the classical French school and the execution of strictly academic painting were the three principal paths attempted by the Russian artists. But for half a century, art has found a national expression for itself. ”

“ Broadly speaking, Russian art and literature may be described as springing from an ethical impulse and as having for their motive power and raison d'être the tendency toward socio-political reform, in contradistinction to the art and literature of Western culture, whose motives and aims are primarily of an æsthetic nature and seek in art the reconciliation of the dualism between spirit and matter. ”

“ European critics have never detected the seam in the fabric of the Russian novel; they have accepted the masterpiece as the outcome of a single creative inspiration. Even though Russian realism comes nearer to life than that of any other literature, still it is more art than life. ”

“ On all of us lies a responsibility rooted in the immense importance of literature to Russian society. An Englishman or an American may laugh at the fact that in Russia not merely men of thirty, but grey-haired owners of 2000 serfs sweat over stories of a hundred pages, which appear in the magazines, are devoured by everybody, and arouse discussion in society for a whole day. However much artistic quality may have to do with this result, you cannot explain it merely by Art. What in other lands is a matter of idle talk and careless dilettantism, with us is quite another affair. ”

“ Russian music does not strive to please, to cater to the popular taste; its aim is to educate. Like the truthful historian, it tells the story of the Russian people, of its life, its beliefs, its sufferings, its love, and its spiritual might.
One need not be pessimistic about the future of Russian music. It is an outlook that is rich and full of promise. Already one can see the gratifying indications of a growing interest in the native art. The composers of the past generation have given it an impulse that will take Russia to the foremost ranks of musical achievement. ”

“ Young Russian literature—it made its appearance under Elizabeth—presently found itself represented by men who could compare favourably with the greatest European talents. Russian letters at one proud, easy sweep soared up to the highest summit of Western culture, but neither Russian life as a whole nor particularly Russian art, was able to keep pace with literature. The fabulous precocity of Russian literature can be explained by the fact that during the long reign of Catherine II the higher class of society achieved a remarkable degree of refinement and culture. ”

“ Of course, all the modern literary currents are found in the stream of present-day Russian literature: futurism, and symbolism, and acmeism. The writers who express these influences have no fixed body of doctrine, but their viewpoint is the reverse of the one so long accepted without question in Russia. They insist that art is concerned first and foremost with beauty, not with morality; they claim that its true function is its appeal to the imagination. It is no longer to be, say the modernists, a conveyor of moral ideas. ”

“ In Alexander were expressed all the wild extremes of mood of which the true Russian is so eminently capable; all the overflowing and uncultivated talent and love of art and beauty, which in Russia brings forth so much that approaches indefinitely near to genius without ever quite reaching it. ”

“ The mechanistic approach to art and culture and the idée fixe that nothing must express itself outside of the channels of the State have stultified the cultural and artistic expression of the Russian people. In poetry and literature, in drama, painting, and music not a single epic of the Revolution has been produced during five years. This is the more remarkable when one bears in mind how rich Russia was in works of art and how close her writers and poets were to the soul of the Russian people. ”

“ Yet in the greatest upheaval in the world's history no one has come forward with pen or brush or lyre to give artistic expression to the miracle or to set to music the storm that carried the Russian people forward. Works of art, like new-born man, come in pain and travail. Verily the five years of Revolution should have proved very rich spiritually and creatively. For in those years the soul of Russia has gone through a thousand crucifixions. Yet in this regard Russia was never before so poor and desolate. ”

“ The West had only a small share in these productions, but even this was enough to enable Russian art to be distinguished from the arts of the East by a certain freedom of conception and variety in the execution that rendered it an original product full of promise, the developments of which might have been marvellous if the natural course of events had not been hindered by the passion with which high Russian society threw itself on the works of art of Italy, Germany and France. ”

“ No decorative artist in Russia has so allied himself with the movement which has brought again into familiar use the striking and characteristic conventions of Russian art of the middle ages; and it may be said that in no way has he more endeared himself to the Russian people than by the exquisite simplicity of method and fine appreciation of artistic values which he has brought to his treatment of the skazki. ”

“ Any sort of practical purpose may be one motive in the creation of a work of art, but its significance is broader than the success or failure of that motive. The Russian novel is still significant, even now, alter the revolution. As beautiful, it is of perennial worth and stands out by itself. But practical expressions are only transient links in the endless chain of means, disappearing as the wheel of effort revolves. Art is indeed expression, but free or autonomous expression. ”

“ The development of Russian music consists of a continuous struggle between the ideas of the composers of Western Europe and the peculiar genius of national music. Almost every Russian composer shows traces of such a struggle. And it is when the national spirit dominates over the foreign, that the musical art of the country rises to its sublimest heights. ”

“ The peasants live in villages as in France and their life is primitive compared with life in the larger cities. There has been rapid growth in manufacturing, commerce and art. Besides furnishing one of the greatest of novelists, Tolstoy, who is also the greatest of living philosophers, Russia has given to the world many others who are prominent in literature and in art. There is an art gallery at Moscow devoted almost entirely to the work of Russian artists. ”

“ The virtue of the Slavonic race is thus first of all passivity; and as the virtue of a pipe is to be smooth and hollow, so the virtue of the Russian is first of all passive receptivity.
9. Look not therefore for creative originality in Russian literature. There is not a single form of literary development that is native to the Russian soil, not a single contribution to philosophy, to art, to letters, the form of which can be said to have been born on Russian soil. ”

“ What underlying motifs are we to expect of a literature so conditioned? First of all, we shall find a severe, often rigorous attitude toward the social problems of life. There is little "Art of Art's sake." This formula of a day comes into its own only in the most recent works, for in Russia the divorce of art from life can come about only as a temporary escape from the grimness of reality. In a literature fundamentally social, like that of Russia, man is viewed as a human being,—a being responsible to his own conscience for all his actions ”

“ Is your country as much interested in Russia as we are in you?"
"Equally so," I said. "Russian literature is very well understood in America. We read all your books. We know Pushkin and Tourguenieff. Your Russian music is played by our orchestras, and your Russian painter, Verestchagin, exhibited his paintings in all the large cities, and made us familiar with his genius."
"All art, all music has a moral effect upon the soul. Verestchagin paints war—hideous war! Moral questions should be talked about and discussed, and a remedy found for them. In America you will not discuss many questions. ”

“ The moment a writer nowadays mentions the word “realism” he risks the danger of being told that he is a disciple of a particular school, and that he is bent on propagating a peculiar and exclusive theory of art. If, however, Russian literature is to be discussed at all, the word “realism” cannot be avoided. So it will be as well to explain immediately and clearly what I mean when I assert that the main feature of both Russian prose and Russian verse is its closeness to nature, its love of reality, which for want of a better word one can only call realism. ”

“ Many a mediocre artist—or at least one assumed to be mediocre—who had become half suffocated amid the rabble of the western world, became transfigured in these favorable surroundings. The originality of the Russian character, the breadth of view of the grands=seigneurs of Catherine II’s time, the primitive simplicity of the life of the people—all this stirred their imagination. And so these men, who transplanted into Russia the artistic methods of the West, the conceptions of style and the traditions of art that had matured in Europe, became Russians themselves in heart and spirit. ”