Page:Benois - The Russian School of Painting (1916).djvu/164

, spent his life in roving over tracks which lie far from the true aims of art.

Repin was by nature a painter. He came in the period of the complete decline of our school of painting, when at the Academy there reigned supreme the precepts of Bruni, excellent in themselves, but absolutely out of keeping with the times; when the rest of the artists, following the example of Perov, cast away all thought of painting considered as such; when in our higher society the manneristic and mawkish Zichy held sway. Under such circumstances Repin succeeded in creating for himself an original and powerful manner, and in developing a true and fresh palette. It is noteworthy that in this sphere he remained absolutely independent of Kramskoy, of his pedagogical pedantry and timid copying of nature. At one stroke, Repin stepped quite aside, and reminded us in his painting of the old masters, who knew no other school than assiduous study of nature. Unfortunately, Repin, too, has been kept back by his lack of education. Repin tried hard to educate himself and left far behind him the churlish apprentice that he was when he first came from Chuguyev to Petrograd in 1863. Yet, at heart, Repin remained a painter, whose attitude toward his art is essentially unconscious. Like Vasnetzov, he went beyond the