The Ringed Castle - Dorothy Dunnett [119]
Adam did not smile. ‘Like God, he instructs with rebuke mixed with mercy. The issue was on a matter of principle,’ he said.
‘The Prince Vishnevetsky does not understand English,’ said Lymond’s voice from across the warm room. ‘Can you bear to discuss the subject in Russian? Blacklock has been longing for sympathy.’
‘I haven’t asked for it,’ said Adam Blacklock.
‘No, you haven’t, but it shows in your paintings. All those ikons in raw umber and egg yolk we’re not supposed to be looking at,’ Lymond said. ‘Chancellor, did you know Ivan Mihkailovich Viscovatu was a painter? You should visit the ikon workshop in the armoury. When the fire destroyed half the work in the Kremlin, they brought in the best painters from Novgorod to replace all the saints in the iconostasis, and the finest ikons to copy their style from. Viscovatu’s own work is not the best, but it has solid quality. Even Blacklock can be brought to admit it.’
Diccon said, ‘What then is the matter of principle?’
‘The Voevoda will tell you,’ said Adam.
‘Tancred is sensitive on the subject,’ said Lymond. Christopher, his eyes shining like brass in the lamplight was staring at him, Diccon suddenly noticed, like the eye of reason before the Divine Light. Lymond went on: ‘… but in fact the point is quite valid. Ikons are holy—you can’t put them in the fire, you must bury them with full ecclesiastical honours when they’re worn out. And they are painted according to a set of extremely strict rules laid down by the Church. It follows then that since most of the painting in Russia is commissioned by the Church—portraiture and sculpture are frowned on, and the Tsar is not interested in any other kind—there is no scope for the artist whatever. He cannot change his technique. He cannot experiment. He must approach every subject according to the versions in the Podlinki, the manuals of iconographic tradition, and obey the laws of the Church Council, the Stoglav. And the Stoglav holds that he who shall paint an ikon out of his imagination shall suffer endless torment. Have I presented your case fairly, Blacklock?’
‘They’ve never seen an oil painting,’ said Adam. ‘They have plate from Germany and Persia and Italy, and fabric from China, and engineers and architects from Padua and Germany——’
‘Thank you,’ said Plummer.
‘… but they’ve hardly seen anything later than Egyptian tomb portraits. No hellenistic painting, and hardly any classical sculpture. Russian art is frozen. It’s been frozen for three hundred years, and men like Viscovatu are using force to keep it that way. Lifetimes are being wasted: all that skill and devotion squandered on nothing—on something which has already been done, and better, by painters now dead.’
There was a passionate silence. ‘You see?’ said Güzel gravely. ‘All this frustration and ill will because no one has thought of separating art from religion. I wondered if Mr Blacklock had noticed my Egyptian portraits?’
Adam, caught off-balance, stared at her, and then in the direction of her amused glance. Chancellor turned his head also. There had been a sarcophagus, now he remembered, in one of the rooms they had passed through before supper. An old one, painted with lotus-flowers.
This was not a sarcophagus, but a statue perhaps nine inches high, delicately made, of a man’s body with the head of an eagle. It was formed of pure gold. ‘Thoth, the God of music and letters,’ said Güzel, and Prince Vishnevetsky, rising, stood with the thing in his hands and looked at his hostess with interest.
He said, ‘What gave me the impression these coffins held spices?’
‘Because I told you so,’ said Güzel. Rising in her turn, she took the small statue from him and replaced it carefully on the inlaid chest from which he had taken it. ‘You may ask the officers of the Tsar’s Customs. Despite my protestations, they opened the next coffin sent me.’
‘Then …?’ said Vishnevetsky. Carefully groomed, his hands loaded with rings, he looked what he was, a romantic leader from an old princely family, once Russian and now long settled in the