Alexey Makhrov, Introduction to Kovalevskii, 'On the Arts and Artists in Russia'

Copyright © 2003; all rights reserved. Redistribution or republication of this text in any medium requires the consent of the author(s).

This article by Pavel Kovalevskii (published in 1860) continues the campaign by the journal The Contemporary for the development of national and realist art. It develops the ideas expressed by Mikhail Mikhailov in his review of the Academy exhibition published by the same journal in the previous year. Kovalevskii's article is an investigation of the Russian school of art and an assessment of the status of the artist in Russian society. The essay is sharply critical of the Academy's exhibition: the author, who had travelled through Europe and visited foreign exhibitions, finds the display of works in the St Petersburg Academy both inconvenient for the viewer and failing properly to present the paintings. Kovalevskii's text is one of the first attempts to consider the implications of the social class of the Academy's artists, many of whom had underprivileged backgrounds. These artists lived an unenviable life as the 'property' of the Academy, forced to paint its programmes, only to become social outcasts or slaves of the commissions of tax farmers and aristocrats on leaving the Academy.

The author also analyses the major influences on contemporary Russian art and contrasts the 'romantic' heritage of Briullov with the 'naturalism' and simplicity of Ivanov. It offers one of the first thorough critiques of Briullov, including his The Last Day of Pompeii, which had been admired by both artists and critics. In contrast, Ivanov is seen by Kovalevskii as the initiator of a new period in Russian art and the model for young artists. The article emphasises the importance of the genre paintings of Pavel Fedotov, who devoted his works to the depiction of the reality of Russian life and inspired the new generation of artists. The Swiss painter Calame is credited with a positive influence on Russian landscape artists. Kovalevskii's article is one of the first attacks on the art of the fashionable portrait painter Sergei Zarianko and his epigones, such as Nikanor Tiutriumov, whose meticulous, but soulless representations were intended to please unsophisticated but wealthy patrons. Kovalevskii's sound analysis of the development of all the genres of painting in Russia was highly influential: his ideas and assessments were later elaborated by Stasov in his essays, such as 'On the significance of Ivanov in Russian Art'.