Page:Benois - The Russian School of Painting (1916).djvu/142



T is customary to consider Realism the chief aspect of Russian painting, the trait which distinguishes it from all other schools of painting. Since the time, however, that Realism has ceased to be a contemporary phenomenon and has been perceived in historical perspective, it has lost its supremacy in popular opinion and dwindled down to the normal proportions of a phase among other phases of Russian painting. Henceforward, Realism will be looked upon as one of the several significant currents of our school.

The origin of Russian realistic painting is to be sought among the amateurs and imitators of the eighteenth century, and also in the field of ethnological dabbling. A class of genre painting, termed "the class of domestic exercises," was established at the Academy of Arts for the purpose of forming Russian "Teniers and Wouwermans" for the lovers of native painting. More important for the development of our realistic painting were the works of various foreign ethnologists and the etchings of foreign artists, which were the first