Page:Benois - The Russian School of Painting (1916).djvu/91

 Artists. The narrow æstheticism which the Russian Academy had taught him and which combined a worship of the ancient, as well as of the Bolognese masters,—screened from him living reality. He did not go beyond what the models of Piazza di Spagna gave him. He did not feel the sheer stupidity of that pink-coloured, mawkish idealisation, pleasant but trite, which made Italian life appear in the eyes of tourists as nothing but an illustration to their favourite operas, canzonettas, and romances. His compositions from Italian life differ little from the album and keepsake platitudes, supplied in hundreds by specialists in depicting "happy Italy." But, at the same time, ambitious plans tormented him, and he tried one theme after another, in his eagerness to justify the expectations founded on his talents.

Only eight years after his arrival in Italy Bryullov struck a subject which captivated him and led him to the creation of the long-expected chef-d'œuvre. The thought of painting "The Last Day of Pompeii" was suggested to him by his visit to the ruins of the buried city and by the opera of the now forgotten Paccini "Il ultimo giorno di Pompeii," which he saw at Naples. In three years Bryullov's masterpiece was completed, and, naturally enough, it reflected all the defects of his