And thus, through his bronze and marble sculptures, Antokolsky became the historical illustrator and portraitist of Russia. He wrought Ivan the Terrible, Nestor the Annalist, Peter the Great, and even Ermak the Cossack, conqueror of Siberia. With keen psychological sense he also composed the likenesses of heroes and martyrs of free thought: a dying Socrates, a Spinoza and a Christ insulted, the latter work being conceived in the spirit of Strauss and Renan. All these monumental figures which greatly stirred his contemporaries no longer show any signs of life.
There remains the personality of Antokolsky, which was in every respect a pure one. Not without reason did this poor and pertinacious young Jew, who hardly knew how to write Russian, become the idol and the oracle of two generations. We see but too clearly today that he travelled the wrong road. But he had faith. His artistic convictions were unalterable, unselfish, absolute,—those of a fanatic. More than that—a thing seldom to be found—, this fanatic was kindness itself.
Antokolsky, then, on being consulted made much of the misfortunes and bitter disappointments that one embarking upon an artistic career must expect. But he was not unwilling to look Leon’s drawings over. Pestered by the youngster, his father sent several sketches to Paris. Lo and behold! when the reply, so anxiously awaited by the boy, arrived, it was favorable, decisive, almost intoxicating. The master had found the drawings quite well done and advised the boy’s going to the Academy of Fine Arts, on condition, however, that he pursue his general education.
Thus Leon, the intractable and mediocre schoolboy of the day before, was to become a painter, a chosen and quasi-legendary being. He was then sixteen years of age.
THE TWO SPHINXES
Leon, then, presented himself for examination but failed. Before being admitted to another test he had for a year to practice drawing from models; and only after he had solved the mysteries of this form of academic discipline, was he admitted. For another year he kept abreast of both his artistic studies and his general secondary education; soon, however, he neglected school and, after a few feeble attempts, gave it up altogether. Let us state the fact without bitterness: Bakst never received the Bachelor’s degree.
The first day that Bakst, attired in his new green uniform, wended his way along the granite embankment toward the Academy and, having passed under the eyes of the two Sphinxes from Thebes with a hundred gates which guard the sanctuary, decided to enter, his astonishment and his proud ecstasy knew no bounds. However, despite the grand pretense of a temple, the Imperial Academy of 1890 was a rather curious institution.
The academic instruction which flourished at the beginning of the century, maintained its power and authority until the close of Nicholas I’s reign. But from 1863 on it was badly shaken by the famous secession of the “Thirteen”, with Kramskoi at the head. These thirteen later became the first “wanderers”; they were destined to herald the arrival of a certain humanitarian realism closely related to the teachings of Proudhon and of Courbet. They professed the haughtiest contempt for disinterested pictorial beauty, for mere virtuosity, yes, even for sound craftmanship based upon traditional experience.
Among the “pompiers” classicism had degenerated into hackneyed copying; teaching became vulgar pedantry. Among the revolutionaries classicism was the complete and absolute negation of art, admitted only as a function of social apostleship. But the younger artists had public opinion behind them, which hailed the catastrophe as a liberation. Yet for thirty years the Academy, powerful solely because of its official authority, continued to stick to the past and to live outside the pale of a throbbing artistic life.
Not until 1893 did the “wanderers”, led by Makovsky and Repine, enter the citadel in order to establish a bold and frank dilettantism while still respecting the remnants of the old Academy. At that time Bakst had already broken with his first masters; we shall soon see why.