The Land of Riddles (Russia of To-day)

by Hugo Ganz

Then comes a work of an entirely different character, a tragedy of Shakespearean force, a painting that is red on red. Ivan the Terrible holds in his arms the son he has just stricken to death with his heavy staff. It is a horrible scene from which one turns because of the almost unbearable misery depicted there, and yet you return to it again and again. So great is the conception, so wonderful the insight, so incomparable the technique. The madman, whom a nation of slaves endures as its master, is at last overtaken by Nemesis, and he is truly an object for pity as he crouches on the ground with the body of his dying son in his arms. He would stanch the blood that is streaming from the gaping wound to the red carpet. He kisses the hair where but a moment before his club had struck. The tears flow from his horrified eyes, and their terror is augmented, for at this last and perhaps first caress of the terrible father a happy smile plays on the face of the dying son. He had killed his son! Nothing can save him! He the Czar of Moscow, the master of the Kremlin, can do nothing. He draws his son to himself, presses him to his breast, to his lips. What had he done in his anger, that anger so often a source of joy to him when he struck others less near to him and for which he had been lauded by his servile courtiers, since the Czar must be stern, a terrible and unrelenting master?

Shakespeare has nothing more thrilling than this single work, its effect so tragic because the artist has succeeded in awakening our pity for this fiend, pity which is the deliverance from hatred and resentment. The pity that seizes us is identical with the awe of the deepest faith, the feeling of Christian forgiveness. We can have no resentment towards this sorrow-crushed old man with the torn, thin, white hair. And we can never quite forget the look in these glassy old eyes from which the bitter tears are gushing, the first that the monster had ever shed. And how the picture is painted, the red of the blood contrasting with the red of the Persian rug and the green-red of the tapestry. Nothing else is seen on the floor except an overturned chair. The figures of the father, and of the son raising himself for the last time, alone in all the vast space, hold the gaze of the spectator. With this painting hanging in the ruler's palace the death-sentence would never be signed again.

Still another ghastly picture shows that the artist, like all great masters, is not held back by affectation and feels equal to any emergency. It represents Sophia, the sister of Peter the Great, who from her prison is made to witness the hanging of her faithful "streltzy" (sharp-shooters) before her windows. It was a brotherly mark of consideration shown her by the Czar. The resemblance of the princess to her brother is striking; but the expression of pain, anger, and fear on the stony face turned green and yellow is really terrifying. But it is also characteristic of the great master to have chosen just that incident in the life of the great Czar.

In general it must be said that for a professor in the imperial academy the choice of historical subjects is curious enough. It certainly does not indicate loyalty.

I could not if I would discuss in detail the fruits of thirty years of the artist's activity. Besides, mere words cannot give an adequate idea of the beauty of his works. But there is one thing that may be accomplished by the description of his most important painting—namely, the refutation of the absurd notion that the artist and his art can become important only when they are entirely indifferent to the joys and sorrows of their fellow-men and concern solely the solution of artistic problems. The doctrine of art for art's sake has no more determined opponents than the great artists of our time, and among them also Ryepin in the front rank. He is willing to subscribe to it just as far as every artist must seek to influence only by means of his own peculiar art; yet he rejects the absurdity that it is immaterial for the greatness of the artist whether he depicts the essence of a great, rich, and deep mind or only that of a commonplace mind. According to him only a great man that is a warm-hearted, upright, and courageous man can become a great artist; and he regards it as the first duty of such to share the life of their fellow-men, to honor the man even in the humblest fellow-being, and to strengthen with all their might the call for freedom and humanity as long as it remains unheeded by the powerful. Just like Tolstoï, he has only a deep contempt for the exalted decadents who, with their exclusive and affected morality, would attack nations fighting for their freedom. Like every independent thinker, he is disgusted with the modern epidemic of individualism, and his sympathies belong to the progressive movement derided by the fools of fashion. To be sure, that does not make him greater as artist, for artistic greatness has absolutely nothing to do with party affiliations; neither does it make him less, for his artistic achievements are not at all lessened by his giving us sentiments as well as images. But if a humane, altruistic, cultured man who finds joy in progress stands ethically higher than the exclusive, narrow-minded reactionary or self-sufficient, surfeited decadent, then Ryepin is worth more than the idols of snobs. And not as man only; he also stands higher as artist, for he gives expression with at least the same mastery, and, in truth, with an incomparably greater mastery, to the ideals of a more noble, greater, and richer mind. The belief that participation in the struggles and movements of the day affects the artist unfavorably is ridiculed by him; the contrary is true in his case. It has given him an abundance of striking themes as well as the duel and nihilist cycles.

I will pass by the duel cycle culminating in the powerfully portrayed suffering of the repenting victor. For us the nihilist cycle is more interesting, more Russian. "Nihilist" is, by-the-way, an abominable name for those noble young men and women who, staking their lives, go out among the common people to redeem them from their greatest enemies—ignorance and immorality. The real nihilists in Russia are those of the government who are not held back even by murder when it is of service to the system, the cynics with the motto, "Après nous le déluge"; surely not these noble-hearted dreamers who throw down the gauntlet to the all-powerful Holy Synod and to the not less powerful holy knout.

At the time when the "well-disposed" portion of Russian society had turned away in honor from the Russian youth because a few fanatics had believed that they could more quickly attain their aims by the propaganda of action than by the fully as dangerous and difficult work among the people, Ryepin painted his cycle which explains why among the young people there were a few who resorted to murder. Who does not know from the Russian novels those meetings of youths who spent half the night at the steaming samovar discussing the liberation of the people and the struggle against despotism, in debates that have no other result than a heavy head and an indefinite desire for self-sacrifice? The cycle begins with such a discussion. Men and women students are gathered together, unmistakably Russian, all of them, Slavic types, the women with short hair, the men mostly bearded and with long hair. In the smoky room, imperfectly lighted by the lamp, they are listening to a fiery young orator. We find this young man again as village teacher in the second picture. He had gone among the people. In one of the following pictures he has already been informed against, and the police search through his books and find forbidden literature. The police spy and informer, who triumphantly brings the package to light, is pictured to his very finger-tips as the gentleman that he is. In still another picture the young martyr is already sitting between gendarmes on his way to Siberia; and in the last he returns home old and broken, recognized with difficulty by his family, whom he surprises in the simple room. One may see this cycle in the Tretyakov Gallery, and copies of it in the possession of a few private individuals, persons in high authority, who are above fear of the police; and one is reminded of the saying so often heard in Russia, "We are governed by the scoundrels, and our upright men are languishing in the prisons." The nihilist has the features of Dostoyevski who was so broken in Siberia that he thanked the Czar, on his return, for his well-deserved punishment, and who had become a mystic and a reactionary. In another picture a young nihilist on his way to the scaffold is being offered the consolation of religion by the priest, but he harshly motions him back.

All these pictures are homely in their treatment. The poverty of the interior, the inspired faces of the noble dreamers, and the brutal and stupid faces of the authorities speak for themselves clearly enough, and no theatrical effects of composition are necessary to impart the proper mood to the observer. On the contrary, it is just this discretion, the almost Uhde-like simplicity that is so effective. Yet Pobydonostzev and Plehve will scarcely thank the artist for these works that for generations will awaken hatred against the system among all better-informed young men. However, their reproduction is prohibited.

On the other hand, the drawings which Ryepin made for popular Russian literature are circulated by hundreds of thousands among the people. It is an undertaking initiated by Leo Tolstoï with the aid of several philanthropists, for combating bad popular literature. It is under the excellent management of Gorbunov in Moscow. There are annually placed among the people about two millions of books, ranging in price from one to twenty kopeks. It may be taken for granted that the men who enjoy Tolstoï's confidence will not be a party to barbarism. The foremost artists supply the sketches for the title-pages, among them Ryepin, the fiery Tolstoïan. Ryepin's admiration for the great poet of the Russian soil is also evident from his numerous pictures of Tolstoï. He has painted the saint of Yasnaya Polyana at least a dozen times—at his working-table; in the park reclining under a tree and reading after his swim; a bare-footed disciple of Kneipp; or following the plough, with flowing beard, his powerful hand resting on the plough-handle. All are masterly portraits, and, above all things, they reflect the all-embracing kindness that shines in the blue eyes of the poet—eyes that one can never forget when their kindly light has once shone upon him.