The Russian School of Painting
Surikov's place in the general evolution of our painting. We have just pointed out the part played by him in the evolution from doctrinal realism to pure realism and to idealistic painting. It is proper to determine here also his technical influence proper. Surikov is to be credited with a distinctive, purely—Russian, colour gamut, which was made use of by Repin and Vasnetzov, and the traces of which are felt in the "gloomy" palette of Levitan, Korovin, Syerov, and all the young Moscow masters. He was also the first to discover the strange beauty of the old-Russian colouring, and of the real Russian decorative "style," so distinctive in its studied grotesqueness. These discoveries of his were utilised by the two Vasnetzovs, Sollogub, Polyenov, Malyutin, Ryabushkin and S. Ivanov. Finally, as early as 1882, in his "Menshikov," Surikov found a wholly distinct type of feminine beauty—one of unutterable sadness and deep sensuous charm, which was utilised by Vasnetzov an infinite number of times, and changed by Nesterov into something nauseatingly sentimental. In the eighties and nineties all of Moscow idolised Surikov, and it is natural, therefore, that echoes of his ideas, colours, forms and compositions are found in the works of artists who are furthest removed from him in their general tendency.
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