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

290INFLUENCE OP THE NORTH

Brulow. His Last Day of Pompeii produced, it is said, some sensation even in Italy. This enormous . piece of canvass is now the glory of the Russian school: let not the reader ridicule the designation : I saw a saloon, on the door of which these words were inscribed—"The Russian School/" The colouring of Brulow's painting appeared to me to be false, though certainly the subject is calculated to conceal this fault: for who knows the shade of the tints that clad the structures of Pompeii on their last day ? The painter has a hard, dry touch, but he exhibits power : his conceptions lack neither imagination nor originality. His heads display truth and variety : if he understood the management of the ehiaro oscuro, he might some day deserve the reputation that is given to him here : at present he is deficient in natural style, in colouring, in lightness, and in grace: there is no want of a species of wild poetry in his compositions, but their general effect is disagreeable. His style, which is stiff, without being devoid of a certain nobleness, reminds one of the imitators of the school of David. In a painting of the Assumption, which we are obliged to admire at Petersburg, because it is the work of the famous Brulow, I observed clouds so heavy that they might have been sent to represent rocks at the Opera.

There are heads, however, in the Pompeii picture which discover real talent. The painting, notwithstanding its faults as a composition, would gain in celebrity by being engraved; for it is in the colouring that its chief defects lie.

It is said that since his return to Russia, the painter has lost much of bis enthusiasm for the art. How