The Russian School of Painting
slight affectation in colouring, the superficiality inherent in illustrations, and blunders in drawing strike the eye which has grown callous to the merits of her works. Best of all are some of her illustrations to fairy-tales, and her purely realistic sketches, which reveal a delicate understanding of nature.
Malyutin has little in common with Vasnetzov, but it is beyond doubt that he was led by Vasnetzov in his search for "true Russia." At first Malyutin was a sober and direct realist, and only in the middle of the nineties he developed into that bizarre uncouth phantast-decorator, who at one time enjoyed an outstanding success among artists and amateurs, but who has now, like Miss Polyenov, lost a considerable portion of his charm because of a trite and frivolous repetition of the same rather hollow formula. Strangest of all, Malyutin, as a realist, was a genuine master. His landscapes, "intérieurs," and portraits of the eighties belong to the finest works of his time. But having entered the field of popular and fantastic art, he, for some unknown reason, took leave of all his technical skill and feigned, out of sheer conviction, to be but a half-witted, helpless, and puerile dilettante.
Candour possesses great charm. But studied naïveté especially if it lasts for years, becomes something quite intolerable. We don't mean to say that Malyutin is
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