Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

142BYZANTINE STYLE IN THE ARTS.

churches, and numerous small edifices of every style except the good style.

The only thing that appeared to me novel and striking in the visit, was the devotion of my guide,

Prince. He bent his forehead, and applied his

lips, with a fervour that was surprising, to all the objects presented for the veneration of the faithful; and in this convent, which encloses several sanctuaries, he performed the same ceremonies in twenty different places. Mean while his drawing-room conversation announced nothing of this devotion of the cloister. He concluded by inviting me also to kiss the relies of a saint whose tomb a monk had opened for us. I saw him make at least fifty signs of the cross; he kissed twenty images and relies: in short, not any one of our nuns in the seclusion of her convent would repeat so many genufluxions, salutations, and inclinations of the head in passing and repassing the high altar of her church, as did this Russian prince, an old officer and aide-de-camp of the Emperor Alexander, in presence of a stranger, in the monastery of the Transfiguration.

The Greeks cover the walls of their churches with fresco paintings in the Byzantine style. A foreigner feels at first some respect for these representations, because he believes them ancient; but when he finds that the churches which appear the most ancient have been recoloured, and often rebuilt but yesterday, his veneration soon changes into profound ennui. The madonnas, even the ones most newly painted, resemble those that were brought into Italy towards the end of the middle aces, to revive there the taste for art. But since then, the Italians — their genius electrized by the con-