Romanticism
if not for his painting, "The Convicts at the Resting-place," one of the first Russian denunciatory pictures. It is true that its artistic merits are not great. Its colours and painting are below criticism. But the picture is too deeply characteristic and too cleverly arranged not to make us regret that Iacobi did not remain faithful to this realistic kind, in which he surely would have given Russian society many a successful and well-aimed illustration of the burning problems of his day.
In addition to these masters, the following two groups of epigones of Romanticism are noteworthy: Bronnikov, Smirnov, the brothers Svyedomsky, and Bakalovich,—all followers of Semiradsky; Beideman, Vasilyev, and Wenig, the disciples of Bruni. Quite alone stands the curious, but undeveloped Lomtev, and the "sea poet" Ayvazovsky, a highly gifted, but somewhat monotonous Romanticist. We shall return to him in the chapter on Russian landscape painting.
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