The Russian School of Painting by Alexandre Benois

Author:Alexandre Benois [Benois, Alexandre]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopff
Published: 1916-09-14T23:00:00+00:00

THE CRUCIFIXION

Nicolay Gay

enthusiasm for Tolstoy's preaching, mingled with his own rather vague mystical views. His very themes, marked with the stamp of almost hysterical passion, were diametrically opposed to the holy tranquillity of Ivanov's aspirations.

Nevertheless, taken in himself. Gay appears as a well pronounced and brilliant artistic personality, especially in his last works, which express a peculiar, very "Russian" attitude toward the Evangel: namely, he views the New Testament as the gospel of exclusively spiritual beauty, and purposely emphasises the outward uncomeliness of both Christ and his surroundings. Had Raphael seen "The Crucifixion" and other of Gay's paintings, monstrous in their ugliness, he would have torn his garments in indignation, for to him, the heir of the Hellenes, the conception of God was inseparable from that of Beauty. Different would be the relation to Gay of Rembrandt, the son of the Reformation, in whose gloomy art the same notes sound as in Gay's. But Rembrandt was too much of an artist not to conceal the intentional ugliness of his images under the beauty of painting and colouring. Gay, however, with truly Russian straightforwardness, and with truly Russian nihilism, ever in quest of harrowing impressions, put aside artistic demands, and, burning with passion and zeal, strove to depict what appeared to him as "truth." As a result, we have something in the nature of "official reports," repugnant, but quivering with life, and, therefore, inspiring terror, which, at any rate, will preserve for themselves a place of honour in the painting of the end of the nineteenth century. These works undoubtedly possess serious and rare qualities; they are absolutely devoid of triviality, they are luminous, wholly individual utterances, all white-hot with sincerity and noble conviction. This unbeautiful art of Gay's cannot be denied inner, spiritual nobleness, and in art, as in life, nobility is one of the rarest and most precious things.

This same rare quality distinguishes also Gay's portraits, probably the best Russian portraits of the second half of the nineteenth century. His faces are not only life-like to a truly startling degree, they also bear the imprint of the artist's noble mind. They are absolutely devoid of cheap emphasis,—the delight of Gay's colleagues, who were all educated on the civic rhetoric of the sixties, and were finally poisoned by it. Gay approached the portrait with immense curiosity and with the most palpitating, almost pious attention to his object. He, whose attitude toward Christ was so premeditated, relinquished all set intention, all "arrangement" in his portraits. These are not rich in striking effects, but on all of them lies the imprint of the living poetry of the human soul. Future men will look on them with that mystic thrill familiar to all who come in too intimate a contact with the life of past ages. In this respect, by far the most impressive work will seem his "Tolstoy," in the Tretyakov gallery, the wise and gloomy titan, deeply absorbed in his great work. Some of his portraits have all the charm of intimacy and all the gracefulness of domestic happiness.

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