The Russian School of Painting
Ivanov aimed at. They show him not only as a wonderful master of design and an astonishing connoisseur of form, but also as a deep psychologist. Moreover, in some of his landscape sketches and in his studies in nude he is a bold innovator in colour, foretelling the achievements of Impressionism long before its appearance. In these studies nature is Ivanov's school to a degree which was scarcely attained outside of classic art. This schooling helped him to master, with astonishing ease, the most complicated compositions in the Biblical sketches, with which he busied himself in his leisure hours.
There exists an opinion that Ivanov's essential lack of preparation would have impaired his subsequent activity. Did he not, it is said, entangle himself in his early, somewhat naive religiosity, echoes of which so strangely lingered in him afterwards,—despite his spiritual maturity? And did not his peace of mind come very near being completely unsettled by Strauss's sceptical conclusions, with which Ivanov grew enamoured in the last years of his life? Nevertheless, when one studies Ivanov's sketches, these doubts vanish of their own accord. The master who reproduced the most palpitating and grandiose passages of the Bible with such a convincing grandeur, the artist who was able to depict the evangelic events in such a super-
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