Page:Benois - The Russian School of Painting (1916).djvu/183

 Very close to Surikov are three prominent contemporary Russian artists. To our regret, Ryabushkin, the most gifted and interesting of them, is already dead. Taking Surikov as a point of departure, Ryabushkin found a sphere of his own. He was taken up with the everyday life of the past, rather than with its grandiose tragedies. It was as if he saw all these scenes of the past in reality, as if he strolled, in person, along all these remote nooks, and entered the attics of the old palaces, and all the curious and picturesque details he saw there remained fixed in his memory. There is not a trace in him of a desire to embellish his subjects. Plainly and without ceremony, like an eyewitness, he renders all the homespun spruceness, all the simple-hearted snobbishness of the times of yore. Ryabushkin did not strive to produce poetical impressions, yet a great poetical charm lives in his works. It is the fascination of ancient diaries, of antique objects and rooms, and of all that brings in its train the very fragrance of bygone days.

Two other artists, S. Ivanov and Apollinarius Vasnetzov, fell under Surikov's influence, and chose old Russia as their field. They are very attractive, though less significant masters, of less decided temperament and originality. Ivanov approaches Surikov pretty closely in his efforts to lend his composition an