by Anna Karenina (tr Richard Pevear, Larissa Volokhonsky) (Penguin Classics) (epub)
As he was drawing this new pose, he suddenly remembered the energetic face, with its jutting chin, of the shopkeeper he bought cigars from, and he drew that very face, that chin, for his man. He laughed with joy. The figure, from a dead, invented one, had come alive, and it was now impossible to change it. The figure lived and was clearly and unquestionably defined. He could correct it in keeping with what it demanded, could and even must place the legs differently, change the position of the left arm completely and have the hair thrown back. But in making these corrections, he did not alter the figure, but only cast off what concealed it. It was as if he removed the wrappings that kept it from being fully seen. Each new stroke only revealed more of the whole figure in all its energetic force, as it had suddenly appeared to him thanks to the spot of stearin. He was carefully finishing the figure when the cards were brought to him.
‘One moment, one moment!’
He went to his wife.
‘There now, Sasha, don’t be angry!’ he said to her, smiling timidly and tenderly. ‘It was your fault. It was my fault. I’ll settle everything.’ And, having made peace with his wife, he put on an olive–green coat with a velvet collar and his hat and went to the studio. The successful figure was already forgotten. He was now gladdened and excited by the visit to his studio of these important Russians who had come in a carriage.
About his picture, which now stood on his easel, he had one judgement in the depths of his soul – that no one had ever painted such a picture. He did not think that his painting was better than any of Raphael’s,[24] but he knew that what he wanted to convey and did convey in this picture no one had ever conveyed before. He knew that firmly and had known it for a long time, from the very moment he had begun painting it; nevertheless people’s opinions, whatever they might be, were of great importance for him and stirred him to the bottom of his soul. Every observation, however insignificant, which showed that the judges saw at least a small part of what he saw in this picture, stirred him to the bottom of his soul. He always ascribed to his judges a greater depth of understanding than he himself had, and expected something from them that he himself did not see in his picture. And often in the opinions of viewers it seemed to him that he found it.
He approached the door of his studio with quick steps and, despite his excitement, was struck by the soft lighting on the figure of Anna, who was standing in the shadow of the porch and, while listening to Golenishchev vehemently telling her something, at the same time obviously wished to look at the approaching artist. He himself did not notice how, as he came up to them, he snatched and swallowed this impression, just as he had the chin of the shopkeeper who sold cigars, and hid it away somewhere where he could find it when it was needed. The visitors, disappointed in advance by what Golenishchev had told them about the artist, were still more disappointed by his appearance. Of average height, stocky, with a fidgety gait, Mikhailov, in his brown hat, olive–green coat and narrow trousers, when wide ones had long been in fashion, and especially with the ordinariness of his broad face and his combined expression of timidity and a desire to maintain his dignity, produced an unpleasant impression.
‘Come in, please,’ he said, trying to look indifferent and, going into the front hall he took a key from his pocket and unlocked the door.
XI
As he went into the studio, the artist Mikhailov looked his visitors over once again and also noted in his imagination the expression of Vronsky’s face, especially his cheekbones. Though his artistic sense worked incessantly, collecting material, though he felt an ever increasing excitement because the moment for judgements of his work was approaching, he quickly and subtly formed an idea of these three people out of imperceptible tokens. This one (Golenishchev) was a local Russian. Mikhailov did not remember his last name or where he had met him and what they had talked about. He remembered only his face, as he did all the faces he had ever seen, but he also remembered that his was one of the faces laid away in his imagination in the huge department of the falsely important and poor in expression. A mass of hair and a very open forehead lent a superficial importance to the face, on which there was merely a small, childish, anxious expression, focused above the narrow bridge of the nose. Vronsky and Mme Karenina, in Mikhailov’s conjecture, must have been noble and wealthy Russians who, like all wealthy Russians, understood nothing about art, but pretended to be amateurs and connoisseurs. ‘They’ve probably already looked at all the old stuff, and now they’re going around to the studios of the new ones – some German charlatan, some fool of a Pre–Raphaelite Englishman[25] – and have come to me only to complete the survey,’ he thought. He knew very well the dilettantes’ manner (which was worse the more intelligent they were) of going to look at the studios of contemporary artists with the sole aim of having the right to say that art has declined and that the more one looks at the new painters, the more one sees how inimitable the great old masters still are. He expected all that, he saw it in their faces, saw it in the indifferent nonchalance with which they talked among themselves, looked at the manikins and busts and strolled about freely, waiting for him to uncover the painting. But despite that, all the while he was turning over his sketches, raising the blinds and removing the sheet, he felt a strong excitement, the more so because, though to his mind all noble and wealthy Russians had to be brutes and fools, he liked Vronsky and especially Anna.
‘Here, if you please?’ he said, stepping aside with his fidgety gait and pointing to the picture. ‘It’s the admonition of Pilate. Matthew, chapter twenty–seven,’ he said, feeling his lips beginning to tremble with excitement. He stepped back and stood behind them.
For a few seconds, as the visitors silently looked at the picture, Mikhailov also looked at it, and looked with an indifferent, estranged eye. For those few seconds he believed in advance that the highest, the fairest judgement would be pronounced by them, precisely by these visitors whom he had so despised a moment ago. He forgot everything he had thought before about his picture during the three years he had been painting it; he forgot all its virtues, which for him were unquestionable – he saw it with their indifferent, estranged, new eyes and found nothing good in it. He saw in the foreground the vexed face of Pilate and the calm face of Christ, and in the background the figures of Pilate’s servants and the face of John, peering at all that was going on. Each face, grown in him with its own particular character after so much searching, after so many errors and corrections, each face that had brought him so much pain and joy, and all of them rearranged so many times to preserve the whole, the nuances of colour and tone achieved with such difficulty – all this together, seen through their eyes, now seemed to him a banality repeated a thousand times. The dearest face of all, the face of Christ, the focus of the picture, which had delighted him so when he discovered it, was quite lost for him when he looked at the picture through their eyes. He saw a well–painted (or even not so well–painted – he now saw clearly a heap of defects) repetition of the endless Christs of Titian, Raphael, Rubens, with the same soldiers and Pilate. All this was banal, poor, old, and even badly painted – gaudy and weak. They would be right to speak falsely polite phrases in the artist’s presence, and to pity him and laugh at him when they were alone.
This silence became too painful for him (though it lasted no more than a minute). To break it and show that he was not excited, he took himself in hand and addressed Golenishchev.
‘I believe I had the pleasure of meeting you,’ he said to him, anxiously turning to look now at Anna, now at Vronsky, so as not to miss a single detail in the expressions on their faces.
‘Why, yes! We met at Rossi’s, remember, the evening of the recital by that young Italian lady, the new Rachel,[26]* Golenishchev replied freely, taking his eyes from the picture without the least regret and turning to the artist.
Noticing, however, that Mikhailov was waiting for an opinion on the picture, he said:
‘Your picture has progressed considerably since I last saw it. And now, as then,
I find the figure of Pilate extraordinarily striking. One understands the man so well – a kind, nice fellow, but a functionary to the bottom of his soul, who knows not what he does. But it seems to me…’
The whole of Mikhailov’s mobile face suddenly beamed; his eyes lit up. He wanted to say something but could not speak from excitement, and pretended he was coughing. Little as he valued Golenishchev’s ability to understand art, trivial as was the correct observation about the Tightness of Pilate’s expression as a functionary, offensive as it might have seemed to voice such a trivial observation first, while more important things were ignored, Mikhailov was delighted with this observation. He himself thought the same about the figure of Pilate as Golenishchev did. That this opinion was one of a million opinions which, as Mikhailov well knew, would all be correct, did not diminish for him the significance of Golenishchev’s observation. He loved Golenishchev for it, and from a state of dejection suddenly went into ecstasy. The whole painting at once came to life before him with all the complexity of everything that lives. Mikhailov again tried to say that he understood Pilate the same way; but his lips trembled disobediently and he could not get the words out. Vronsky and Anna were also saying something in those soft voices in which people usually talk at exhibitions, partly so as not to insult the artist, partly so as not to say some foolishness aloud, as it is so easy to do when talking about art. It seemed to Mikhailov that the picture had made an impression on them as well. He went over to them.
‘How astonishing Christ’s expression is!’ said Anna. Of all she saw, she liked that expression most; she felt it was the centre of the picture, and therefore that praise of it would please the artist. ‘One can see he pities Pilate.’
This was again one of the million correct opinions that could be held about his picture and the figure of Christ. She said he pitied Pilate. In Christ’s expression there had to be pity, because there was in him the expression of love, unearthly peace, readiness for death and an awareness of the vanity of words. Of course, there was the expression of a functionary in Pilate and of pity in Christ, because one embodied carnal and the other spiritual life. All this and many other things flashed in Mikhailov’s thoughts. And again his face beamed with ecstasy.
‘Yes, and the way the figure’s done, so much air. You can walk around it,’ said Golenishchev, obviously indicating by this observation that he did not approve of the content and idea of the figure.
‘Yes, amazing mastery!’ said Vronsky. ‘How those figures in the background stand out! That’s technique,’ he said, turning to Golenishchev and alluding to a previous conversation between them about Vronsky’s despair of acquiring such technique.
‘Yes, yes, amazing!’ Golenishchev and Anna agreed. In spite of the agitated state he was in, the remark about technique grated painfully on Mikhailov’s heart and, glancing angrily at Vronsky, he suddenly scowled. He had often heard this word ‘technique’ and decidedly did not understand what it implied. He knew that it implied a mechanical ability to paint and draw, completely independent of content. He had often noticed, as in this 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 unpleasant.
‘It was put out to be sold,’ he replied, scowling darkly.
When the visitors had gone, Mikhailov sat down facing the picture of Pilate and Christ and went over in his mind what had been said, or not said but implied, by these visitors. And, strangely, what had carried such weight for him when they were there and when he put himself mentally into their point of view, suddenly lost all meaning for him. He began to look at his picture with his full artistic vision and arrived at that state of confidence in the perfection and hence the significance of his picture which he needed for that tension, exclusive of all other interests, which alone made it possible for him to work.
The foreshortening of Christ’s leg was still not quite right. He took his palette and set to work. As he corrected the leg, he kept studying the figure of John in the background, which the visitors had not noticed but which he knew to be the height of perfection
. After finishing the leg, he wanted to get to this figure, but he felt himself too excited for it. He was equally unable to work when he was cold and when he was too receptive and saw everything too well. There was only one step in this transition from coldness to inspiration at which work was possible. But today he was too excited. He was about to cover the painting, but stopped and, holding the sheet in his hand, gazed for a long time and with a blissful smile at the figure of John. Finally, as if sadly tearing himself away, he lowered the sheet and went home, weary but happy.
Vronsky, Anna and Golenishchev, on their way back, were especially animated and merry. They talked about Mikhailov and his paintings. The word ‘talent’, which they understood as an inborn and almost physical ability, independent of mind and heart, and which they wanted to apply to everything the artist experienced, occurred particularly often in their conversation, since they needed it in order to name something they had no idea of, but wanted to talk about. They said that it was impossible to deny his talent, but that his talent had been unable to develop for lack of education – a common misfortune of our Russian artists. But the painting with the boys stuck in their memory and every now and then they went back to it.
