The Russian School of Painting
thought as one of the prominent representatives of the realistic tendencies which grew up in the favourable atmosphere of the positivistic philosophy of the second half of the nineteenth century, as a reaction against a turbulent and mystical Romanticism. A strict and sober realist is Kramskoy also in his portraits. Yet in his inner life Kramskoy was far from being an absolutely straightforward apostle of Russian realism. In the experiences of his own spiritual world Kramskoy's was not at all such a perfectly clear and well balanced mind as would appear from his portraits and social activity. The desire for spiritual freedom was not entirely unknown to him. There remained in his mind a living spark of religious intuition and mystical longing, and this lent his figure that peculiar, characteristically Russian depth, warmth, and complexity, which both Vereshchagin and Perov lacked. Unfortunately, neither time, nor education allowed him to develop all his possibilities. And finally the power of his purely artistic gift was infinitely inferior to those spiritual aspirations that dwelled in him.
Kramskoy's "Christ in the Desert" is the most convincing proof of what has been said. The subject-matter of this painting, closely resembling the themes of Dostoyevsky's revelations, held the artist's attention for many years, and, strange to say, also in his youth,
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