Classicism
this found almost no application, partly because Ivanov was too much absorbed by his duties at the Academy and by casual icon orders—which plagued the life out of most of our artists,—and partly because, his knowledge remained mere knowledge and found no response in the inner world of the artist, who remained, to his dying hour, nothing but an old-fashioned bureaucrat. The seeds of the wonderful classical beauty fell in Russia, in most cases, on hard, sterile soil of provincial shallow-mindedness.
Count T. P. Tolstoy (1783–1873) and Ivan Ivanov (1779–1848) form an exception. The first, a highly educated and kindly man, illustrated Bogddnovitch's tale, "The Darling," with an understanding of feminine beauty and a delicate sense of antiquity, which reminds one of Prudhon. The second, distinguished by neither great talent nor vivid imagination, retains a place of honour in the history of Russian painting owing to his vignettes, delicate, exquisite, and, sometimes, witty. True it is that four of our best artists: Kiprensky, Bryullov, Bruni, and Ivanov—were alumni of the Academy and ardent followers of the doctrines they had been taught. But, at the same time their great native gifts made them, against their own will and consciousness, the most decided enemies of the Academy. Consequently, the discussion of their artis-
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