Page:Ivan the Terrible - Kazimierz Waliszewski - tr. Mary Loyd (1904).djvu/108

 84 the Russia of the sixteenth century the honour which is her due, and rid the philosophy of art of one of its most baffling riddles. And we must acknowledge, too, that, contrary to long-received assertion, this strange edifice was not an isolated phenomenon of its period, the 'only proof that was ever drawn.' It is connected with a whole system of architecture, the origin of which is probably to be discerned in the wooden buildings so common in this country, and the type of which may be noticed at various places within its boundaries, as at Novomoskovsk, in the present Government of Ekatièrinoslav, and at Diakovo, quite close to Moscow. The lack of other material, or, at all events, the difficulty of getting stone, which paralyzed the development both of architecture and of the statuary's art, necessitated this mode of structure, some impressions of which may have been drawn from India, and the essential characteristic of which is a grouping and confused mingling of a number of incongruous blocks of buildings. The Novomoskovsk church consists of three buildings close together, forming nine distinct compartments. The architects of the Vassili Blajennoï succeeded in producing twice as many, in a mighty jumble of styles, Byzantine, Persian, Hindu, Italian—a wild dance of cupolas and pyramids and campanile. …

It would be rash, perhaps, to judge this building according to notions of art which, though hallowed by the approval of centuries, can hardly be asserted to be an eternal and universal criterion. Gothic architecture stirred quite as bitter a criticism, at one moment, as that our present æsthetic taste might be disposed to apply to the masterpiece of Barma and Postnikov. From the artistic point of view, it may fairly be noted, the type thus originated has never been developed. The architects' eyes were not torn out, indeed, when their work was finished, as the story goes, to prevent their producing another like it. This is a mere reproduction of the legend concerning the maker of the famous Strasburg clock in this same century. But no fresh start, or hardly any, was made, and the legend, like many another, has its meaning. The inspiration of the two Russian artists, thus left to its own devices, evolved nothing but this one architectural fancy; none of their successors cared to renew so strange and barren an attempt, and the solitary proof once drawn, the plate was cast aside.

It would be a grief to me to grieve my Russian friends, but they are beginning to ask too much. Towards the middle of last century, so their most authoritative exponents, such as Tchadaiév and Herzen, averred, they possessed nothing of their own, neither a national art nor any national literature or science. Now they claim everything at once, and even to have had it all since the twelfth century! Messrs. Tolstoi