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TITLE: [Petition of the fourteen students of the Academy of Arts to Prince G.G. Gagarin,
Vice President of the Academy of Arts.
1863.] (1)
AUTHOR: The Fourteen
THIS VERSION: Copyright © 2002 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 Dear Sir, Having been officially informed of the Academic Council's intention to set absolutely all of us a human emotion such as homesickness, wrath, etc., as the sole theme to depict at the forthcoming competition, we beg leave to express our thoughts to you on this matter. We, all of us, have repeatedly heard our professors' views that the main point of the Gold Medal examinations lies in the fact that the 'Minor' Gold Medal designates an aptitude for the technical side of art - i.e. know-how in drawing, an understanding of painting, and a certain knack in bringing discrete parts together into a whole, while the 'Major' Gold Medal designates a capacity for the 'moral' (if it can be put like that) aspect of art - i.e., creative ability, compositional merit, and the individual significance of each person's artistic powers. In our present situation each of us has been compelled, involuntarily, to examine himself separately and more profoundly, and when we then compared ourselves with each other we saw what an enormous disparity there was in our artistic inclinations. As an example of this permit us to cite just two differences in inclination: some of us are tranquil people whose sympathies lie with everything calm and sorrowful, while others are energetic and hot-blooded, and their artistic creativity can reveal itself fittingly only via an expression of the powerful impulses of the human soul. Given the theme of homesickness, people of the former temperament would be capable of expressing themselves fully, while the latter would be utterly at a loss; conversely, were the theme of wrath set, the former would fail, being unable to portray what they are incapable of themselves, while those of energetic and passionate temperaments would find the theme congenial, and would be victorious. This is why to set one theme for all, without distinction, will be the salvation of those whose abilities suit the theme, while it will be the downfall of those who, given a free choice of subject, would have been able to express themselves. The nature of the examination as equally evaluative towards all is thus lost, and instead it assumes the character of a lottery. It is good fortune for those whose artistic inclinations correspond with the set theme, and bad luck to the rest. When we came to this conclusion we decided to approach the Academic Council with a humble request to permit us to have a free choice of subjects, but our request was refused. We have recently approached the Council again with a request addressed to Fedor Antonovich Bruni, Rector of the Academy, and we also beg to ask your Eminence to take note of our request in the Council. A. Korzhukin, N. Shustov, M. Peskov, K. Lemokh, P. Zabolotskii, I. Kramskoi, B. Venig, F. Zhuravlev, A. Morozov, A. Grigor'ev, N. Dmitriev, N. Petrov. |