Page:Benois - The Russian School of Painting (1916).djvu/127

 for Tolstoy's preaching, mingled with his own rather vague mystical views. His very themes, marked with the stamp of almost hysterical passion, were diametrically opposed to the holy tranquillitytranquility [sic] of Ivanov's aspirations.

Nevertheless, taken in himself. Gay appears as a well pronounced and brilliant artistic personality, especially in his last works, which express a peculiar, very "Russian" attitude toward the Evangel: namely, he views the New Testament as the gospel of exclusively spiritual beauty, and purposely emphasises the outward uncomeliness of both Christ and his surroundings. Had Raphael seen "The Crucifixion" and other of Gay's paintings, monstrous in their ugliness, he would have torn his garments in indignation, for to him, the heir of the Hellenes, the conception of God was inseparable from that of Beauty. Different would be the relation to Gay of Rembrandt, the son of the Reformation, in whose gloomy art the same notes sound as in Gay's. But Rembrandt was too much of an artist not to conceal the intentional ugliness of his images under the beauty of painting and colouring. Gay, however, with truly Russian straightforwardness, and with truly Russian nihilism, ever in quest of harrowing impressions, put aside artistic demands, and, burning with passion and zeal, strove to depict what appeared to him as "truth."