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TITLE: On book illustrations (1)
AUTHOR:V. G. Belinskii
THIS VERSION:Copyright © 2001 Carol Adlam; all rights reserved. Notes by Carol Adlam and Robert Russell.
Redistribution, or republication of this text in any medium requires the consent of the translator.
Introduction to the text [...] Not for nothing does the cover of Nashi (3) read: 'the first Russian édition de luxe'. Indeed, until now hardly anyone would even have dreamt of such a publication in Russia. The enterprising A.P. Bashutsskii (4) (to whom the original idea for Nashi belongs, and under whose editorship the publication now proceeds) has shown that as far as elegant éditions de luxe are concerned, we do not in fact lag behind Europe itself. In actual fact Nashi is as refined a publication as it is sumptuous. The drawings of Messrs. Timm, (5) Shchedrovskii, (6) and Shevchenko (7) are remarkable for their characteristic originality and faithfulness to reality; woodcuts of these have been produced by Baron Klodt, (8) Deriker, (9) and Baron Nettel'gorst. (10) This alone is already sufficient evidence of the publication's refinement. [...] These Are Our Folk: lithographs of drawings made from nature by I. Shchedrovskii. Printed by Tiulev printing-house. 1845. First folio. Twenty drawings. (11) Mr Shchedrovskii has published a sketchbook under this title of twenty drawings that (at half-sheet size) depict various scenes from the daily life of the common people of St Petersburg. His intention is a fine one, and we are particularly glad that it has been realised successfully. Mr Shchedrovskii's drawings are fine in all respects, but their chief virtue lies in the fact that figures and faces depicted within them are truly Russian. The drawings are printed in three tones. We are delighted to hear that Mr Shchedrovskii promises to publish another such workbook by 1847! The only thing to be regretted is the fact that Mr Shchedrovskii has a fondness for fanciful titles not in completely good taste: his first book is called These Are Our Folk, and he wants to call his second Knowing Our Folk. What is the use of all this? Would it not be better to call them simply Pictures from Russian Life or something else? We hope that this vulgar, boastful tone is not an obligatory condition of Russian populism.... [...] We are not saying that the woodcuts of these pictures (numbering up to fifty) which have been carved by masters of their craft [...], are all minor works. (12) It is better to attend to the composition itself of the pictures, to the draughtsmanship, and then we may state that Tarantas (V.A. Sollogub's (13) tale) is an edition that is not only fine, sumptuous and marvellous, but is also Russian. Look closely at the faces of these peasant men, women, merchants, merchants' wives, landowners, lackeys, civil servants, Tatars, gypsies, and you will agree that the person who drew them (a certain famous amateur who has concealed his name) is not only a master draughtsman, but a great artist who, in addition, knows Russia.(14) A foreigner could not draw thus! Almost all our polytypes are redrawn from French ones, or, at the very least, retain within them a trace of influence from the French type and look like foreigners who have settled down in Russia. But it is not just the faces-look closely at the picture on page 48: it is not just the countryside which is Russian, but the leaden, heavy sky ... The author of these pictures is an artist not by title but by vocation; he is a draughtsman with complete mastery of his pencil, about whom we may speak in the same breath as Tony Jouannot and Horace Vernet. (15) And what confessions Russian life and Russian nature make to this pencil! [...] This is a vivid, many-coloured, inspired, and varied book: it arouses questions in the reader's soul, it disturbs his convictions, it challenges him to debate and even respectfully makes him examine those ideas of the author with which he does not agree...[...] [...] Some excellent pictures (16) drawn by Mr Agin (17) have been appended to I.S. Turgenev's poem The Landowner. (18) We are very glad of the opportunity to do due justice to this young artist's talent. Mr Timm is undoubtedly the best draughtsman in Russia, but there is nothing Russian in his drawing. When one looks at Mr Agin's pictures these lines by Pushkin involuntarily come to mind: 'The Russian spirit is here, the smell of Russia is here'.(19) His pictures for 'The Landowner' are a lovely sight, although with the exception of four which have not worked out well [...]. |