The Russian School of Painting
materialism. In addition, K. Makovsky, we repeat, came too late to find a school. The Academy, once a secluded and inexorably rigorous educational institution, but now a free art-school, was no more the guardian of drawing and of strict and systematic technique, as in the days of Bryullov's youth. Masters like Yegorov and Shebuyev had disappeared. Bryullov, it is true, inaugurated something in the nature of a revival at the Academy, but this had only negative results, such as a neglect of drawing and a pursuit of cheap sensational effect. In the fifties, the Academy, despite the effort of the council headed by Bruni, was falling into decay, and it was then (in 1858) that K. Makovsky entered it.
Makovsky's vast canvases with their almost indecent nymphs, with their tasteless conglomeration of theatrical properties, with their glaring sugared colours, with their uncertain drawings—are far from making an agreeable impression. But in the course of time the attitude toward him is likely to change. For all his defects, Makovsky stands forth on the dull, grey background of Russian art, a vivid figure, an artist of a passionate temperament, and one who was able to infect other people with his enthusiasm. The patina of time will not shield his pictures from harm, for the patina of time beautifies only that which is beautiful in itself.
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