Page:Benois - The Russian School of Painting (1916).djvu/34

 of the eighteenth century is portraits; and, partly, landscapes, nature "portraits," as it were. Portrait painting demands great talent and technical knowledge, but it does not necessarily need a pronounced artistic individuality. The Russian artists of the eighteenth century possessed both knowledge and technical skill, but they lacked imagination and freedom. They had no taste for these precious gifts. Just as the caftans and gowns were imported from Paris, so the æsthetics of the Russian nobility was derived directly from the Parisian Academy. What held the interest of our noblemen was not Watteau or Lancret, or the more intelligible Boucher and Fragonard—those marvellous phantasts of the eighteenth century—nor even Chardin or Chodowiecky, those most delicate poets of the hearth—but rather that bombastic official art, which in the Academies passed for Grand-Art.

In the reign of Peter the Great there was founded a school of drawing at the Petrograd Printing-house. Later on, under Catherine I, an art department was organised at the Academy of Sciences, owing to the efforts of Avramov. In 1748, under Elizabeth, a statute was approved establishing the Academy of Fine Arts, at the Academy of Sciences. At its head was put a typical representative of his time, the "Professor of Allegory" Shtelin. Finally, in 1757, owing to the zeal of I. I.