The Russian School of Painting
he was captivated by the granite might, the lonely majesty, and the exquisite snobbishness of the capital. At that time Petrograd was freshly built and its deterioration had not yet begun. For its unimpaired, well sustained magnificence, for the austere, harmonious style of its buildings, which mirrored themselves in the incomparable waters of the Neva, it had no peer even in the West. Foreigners considered Petrograd the eighth wonder of the world. The artists who were educated in the Academy on classical models, were well able to appreciate the beauty of architectural forms. They were naturally carried away by the newly built grandiose edifices, such as the Palace Square, the Exchange, and the Navy Office.
Vorobyov, however, did not content himself with the purely architectural side of Petrograd. Gifted musically—Vorobyov was a good violinist—he had a feeling for the fantastic charm of moonlight effects and for the melancholy of white June nights, stretching enigmatically over the noiseless waves of the Neva. And if in these pictures, abounding in most difficult colouristic problems, he now and then fails to master the colours and falls into black tones, the fault is not so much with him as with his age, which, generally speaking, had a poor sense of colour.—Later in life Vorobyov travelled much in the East and South. His
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