The Russian School of Painting
works; later on he came to occupy a totally separate place, and now the sphere of his art has nothing in common either with the artists of the past or with modern Western art. At the same time, Vrubel is, unlike his fellow-individualists, one of the greatest experts in his field. He is, above all, a master. But his craftsmanship has no definite connections with either the classics of technique or with the prominent masters of our times. In his academic years he was enamoured of Fortuny and rapidly became as skilful as the famous Spaniard; later on, in the period when he painted his icons for the Kirillov Monastery, he re-educated his taste and skill by the study of Byzantine mosaics; beginning with the nineties Vrubel chooses a new road, which leads him to a strange kingdom where everything: forms, colour, manner, images, are created by the artist himself. Vrubel's art can be likened to an enchanted garden where all the flowers, alive and fragrant, have been invented, created, and grown by the gardener-magician.
Vrubel paints everything. Along with most fantastic subjects we find among his works plain sketches from nature; alongside portraits—decorative patterns, alongside religious revelations—mythological "visions." At the same time, Vrubel is a sculptor, perhaps the best Russian sculptor of the last few decades,
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