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By Root 1261 0

present praise, that technique was opposed to inner virtue, as if it were possible to make a good painting of something bad. He knew that great attention and care were needed to remove the wrappings without harming the work itself, and to remove all the wrappings; but there was no art of painting, no technique here. If what he saw had also been revealed to a little child or to his kitchen-maid, they too would have been able to lay bare what they saw. But the most experienced and skilful painter-technician would be unable, for all his mechanical ability, to paint anything unless the boundaries of the content were first revealed to him. Besides, he saw that if one were to speak of technique he could not be praised for it. In all his paintings, present and past, his eye was struck by defects that came from the carelessness with which he had removed the wrappings and that he could no longer correct without marring the whole work. And he still saw on almost all the figures and faces the remains of wrappings not yet completely removed, which marred the painting.

‘One thing might be said, if you will allow me to make an observation...’ Golenishchev observed.

‘Oh, please do, I’ll be very glad,’ said Mikhailov, smiling falsely.

‘It is that you have made him a man-God and not a God-man.27 However, I know that’s what you meant to do.’

‘I could not paint a Christ whom I do not have in my soul,’ Mikhailov said sullenly.

‘Yes, but in that case, if you will allow me to say what I think ... Your picture is so good that my observation cannot harm it, and besides it’s my personal opinion. With you it’s different. The motif itself is different. But let’s take Ivanov. I think that if Christ is to be reduced to the level of a historical figure, it would have been better if Ivanov had selected a different historical theme, something fresh, untouched.’

‘But what if this is the greatest theme available to art?’

‘If one seeks, one can find others. But the thing is that art doesn’t suffer argument and reasoning. And in front of Ivanov’s painting a question arises both for the believer and for the unbeliever - is he God or not? - and destroys the unity of the impression.’

‘Why so? It seems to me,’ said Mikhailov, ‘that for educated people the question can no longer exist.’

Golenishchev disagreed with that and, keeping to his first thought about the unity of impression necessary for art, crushed Mikhailov.

Mikhailov was excited but unable to say anything in defence of his thinking.

XII

Anna and Vronsky had long been exchanging glances, regretting the clever loquacity of their friend, and Vronsky finally moved on, without waiting for his host, to another smaller picture.

‘Ah, how charming, what a charming thing! A marvel! How charming!’ they said with one voice.

‘What is it they like so much?’ thought Mikhailov. He had forgotten this picture, painted three years ago, forgotten all the agonies and ecstasies he had lived through with this picture, when it alone had occupied him persistently for several months, day and night; forgotten it as he always forgot finished pictures. He did not even like looking at it and had put it out only because he was expecting an Englishman who wanted to buy it.

‘It’s just an old study,’ he said.

‘How good!’ said Golenishchev, who had obviously fallen under the charm of the painting as well.

Two boys were fishing in the shade of a willow. One, the elder, had just dropped his line in and was carefully drawing the bobber from behind a bush, all absorbed in what he was doing; the other, slightly younger, was lying in the grass, his dishevelled blond head resting on his hands, gazing into the water with pensive blue eyes. What was he thinking about?

The admiration for this picture stirred the former excitement in Mikhailov’s soul, but he feared and disliked this idle feeling for the past, and therefore, though glad of the praise, he wanted to distract his visitors with a third picture.

But Vronsky asked if the picture was for sale. Mikhailov, excited by his visitors, now found the talk of money very