artistic cachet. No decorative artist in Russia has so allied himself with the movement which has brought again into familiar use the striking and characteristic conventions of Russian art of the middle ages; and it may be said that in no way has he more endeared himself to the Russian people than by the exquisite simplicity of method and fine appreciation of artistic values which he has brought to his treatment of the skazki. In these pictures he has made the old myths glow again in the modern wonder tales which are so fresh and fair a part of the youth of the Russian child, bequeathed to him from that magical past and that enchanted land the memories of whose marvels moved Pushkin's pencil when he wrote:
There is the Russian soul! The very odour of Russia!
There have I also been, and its honied drink have quaffed!
I saw the green oak-tree beside the blue sea-ocean,
Beneath it I sat me down, to list while the learned cat
Told me its stories!
St. Petersburg,
August 20, 1911.
