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The review of the Academy exhibition of 1855 by Vasilii Botkin was published in the journal The Contemporary. This journal, edited by the poet Nikolai Nekrasov, became the mouthpiece of the Russian democratic movement during the following ten years until it was closed by the authorities in 1866. Written several months after the death of Nicholas I, Botkin's article is indicative of the emerging re-evaluation of Academic art and as an example of the negative self-assessment of an art critic. Although the author is not openly critical of the Academy, he sets out the conflict between the teaching in the Academy, based on universally accepted models, and the need to create a Russian national school. Botkin argues that the national character of the works at the exhibition manifests itself in the lack of 'theatricalism' and 'romantic idealism', both of which are characteristic of the French school. This emphasis on the natural simplicity and lack of pretentiousness of Russian art is not dissimilar to the views about the Russian national character elaborated by Tolstoi in his stories published during the same period, for instance, Sebastopol Sketches. This initial premise in Botkin's article, however, seems not to be supported by the following argument which concentrates on romantic and theatrical seascapes produced by Ivan Aivazovskii, one of the most prolific and successful landscape artists of the nineteenth century. In contrast to the common practice of writing exhibition reviews, Botkin reverses the hierarchy of the genres, focusing on landscape and genre painting, while the history painting of the Academy student which was awarded a Gold Medal is mentioned only at the end of the review. The author concludes his report with a pessimistic noting of the low popularity of art criticism with the public, which he blames on the critics' inability to convey pictorial images in words.
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