Anna Karenina

n entering the studio, Mihailov once more scanned his visitors and
noted down in his imagination Vronsky’s expression too, and especially
his jaws. Although his artistic sense was unceasingly at work
collecting materials, although he felt a continually increasing
excitement as the moment of criticizing his work drew nearer, he
rapidly and subtly formed, from imperceptible signs, a mental image of
these three persons.

That fellow (Golenishtchev) was a Russian living here. Mihailov did not
remember his surname nor where he had met him, nor what he had said to
him. He only remembered his face as he remembered all the faces he had
ever seen; but he remembered, too, that it was one of the faces laid by
in his memory in the immense class of the falsely consequential and
poor in expression. The abundant hair and very open forehead gave an
appearance of consequence to the face, which had only one expression—a
petty, childish, peevish expression, concentrated just above the bridge
of the narrow nose. Vronsky and Madame Karenina must be, Mihailov
supposed, distinguished and wealthy Russians, knowing nothing about
art, like all those wealthy Russians, but posing as amateurs and
connoisseurs. “Most likely they’ve already looked at all the antiques,
and now they’re making the round of the studios of the new people, the
German humbug, and the cracked Pre-Raphaelite English fellow, and have
only come to me to make the point of view complete,” he thought. He was
well acquainted with the way dilettanti have (the cleverer they were
the worse he found them) of looking at the works of contemporary
artists with the sole object of being in a position to say that art is
a thing of the past, and that the more one sees of the new men the more
one sees how inimitable the works of the great old masters have
remained. He expected all this; he saw it all in their faces, he saw it
in the careless indifference with which they talked among themselves,
stared at the lay figures and busts, and walked about in leisurely
fashion, waiting for him to uncover his picture. But in spite of this,
while he was turning over his studies, pulling up the blinds and taking
off the sheet, he was in intense excitement, especially as, in spite of
his conviction that all distinguished and wealthy Russians were certain
to be beasts and fools, he liked Vronsky, and still more Anna.

“Here, if you please,” he said, moving on one side with his nimble gait
and pointing to his picture, “it’s the exhortation to Pilate. Matthew,
chapter xxvii,” he said, feeling his lips were beginning to tremble
with emotion. He moved away and stood behind them.

For the few seconds during which the visitors were gazing at the
picture in silence Mihailov too gazed at it with the indifferent eye of
an outsider. For those few seconds he was sure in anticipation that a
higher, juster criticism would be uttered by them, by those very
visitors whom he had been so despising a moment before. He forgot all
he had thought about his picture before during the three years he had
been painting it; he forgot all its qualities which had been absolutely
certain to him—he saw the picture with their indifferent, new, outside
eyes, and saw nothing good in it. He saw in the foreground Pilate’s
irritated face and the serene face of Christ, and in the background the
figures of Pilate’s retinue and the face of John watching what was
happening. Every face that, with such agony, such blunders and
corrections had grown up within him with its special character, every
face that had given him such torments and such raptures, and all these
faces so many times transposed for the sake of the harmony of the
whole, all the shades of color and tones that he had attained with such
labor—all of this together seemed to him now, looking at it with their
eyes, the merest vulgarity, something that had been done a thousand
times over. The face dearest to him, the face of Christ, the center of
the picture, which had given him such ecstasy as it unfolded itself to
him, was utterly lost to him when he glanced at the picture with their
eyes. He saw a well-painted (no, not even that—he distinctly saw now a
mass of defects) repetition of those endless Christs of Titian,
Raphael, Rubens, and the same soldiers and Pilate. It was all common,
poor, and stale, and positively badly painted—weak and unequal. They
would be justified in repeating hypocritically civil speeches in the
presence of the painter, and pitying him and laughing at him when they
were alone again.

The silence (though it lasted no more than a minute) became too
intolerable to him. To break it, and to show he was not agitated, he
made an effort and addressed Golenishtchev.

“I think I’ve had the pleasure of meeting you,” he said, looking
uneasily first at Anna, then at Vronsky, in fear of losing any shade of
their expression.

“To be sure! We met at Rossi’s, do you remember, at that soirée when
that Italian lady recited—the new Rachel?” Golenishtchev answered
easily, removing his eyes without the slightest regret from the picture
and turning to the artist.

Noticing, however, that Mihailov was expecting a criticism of the
picture, he said:

“Your picture has got on a great deal since I saw it last time; and
what strikes me particularly now, as it did then, is the figure of
Pilate. One so knows the man: a good-natured, capital fellow, but an
official through and through, who does not know what it is he’s doing.
But I fancy....”

All Mihailov’s mobile face beamed at once; his eyes sparkled. He tried
to say something, but he could not speak for excitement, and pretended
to be coughing. Low as was his opinion of Golenishtchev’s capacity for
understanding art, trifling as was the true remark upon the fidelity of
the expression of Pilate as an official, and offensive as might have
seemed the utterance of so unimportant an observation while nothing was
said of more serious points, Mihailov was in an ecstasy of delight at
this observation. He had himself thought about Pilate’s figure just
what Golenishtchev said. The fact that this reflection was but one of
millions of reflections, which as Mihailov knew for certain would be
true, did not diminish for him the significance of Golenishtchev’s
remark. His heart warmed to Golenishtchev for this remark, and from a
state of depression he suddenly passed to ecstasy. At once the whole of
his picture lived before him in all the indescribable complexity of
everything living. Mihailov again tried to say that that was how he
understood Pilate, but his lips quivered intractably, and he could not
pronounce the words. Vronsky and Anna too said something in that
subdued voice in which, partly to avoid hurting the artist’s feelings
and partly to avoid saying out loud something silly—so easily said when
talking of art—people usually speak at exhibitions of pictures.
Mihailov fancied that the picture had made an impression on them too.
He went up to them.

“How marvelous Christ’s expression is!” said Anna. Of all she saw she
liked that expression most of all, and she felt that it was the center
of the picture, and so praise of it would be pleasant to the artist.
“One can see that He is pitying Pilate.”

This again was one of the million true reflections that could be found
in his picture and in the figure of Christ. She said that He was
pitying Pilate. In Christ’s expression there ought to be indeed an
expression of pity, since there is an expression of love, of heavenly
peace, of readiness for death, and a sense of the vanity of words. Of
course there is the expression of an official in Pilate and of pity in
Christ, seeing that one is the incarnation of the fleshly and the other
of the spiritual life. All this and much more flashed into Mihailov’s
thoughts.

“Yes, and how that figure is done—what atmosphere! One can walk round
it,” said Golenishtchev, unmistakably betraying by this remark that he
did not approve of the meaning and idea of the figure.

“Yes, there’s a wonderful mastery!” said Vronsky. “How those figures in
the background stand out! There you have technique,” he said,
addressing Golenishtchev, alluding to a conversation between them about
Vronsky’s despair of attaining this technique.

“Yes, yes, marvelous!” Golenishtchev and Anna assented. In spite of the
excited condition in which he was, the sentence about technique had
sent a pang to Mihailov’s heart, and looking angrily at Vronsky he
suddenly scowled. He had often heard this word technique, and was
utterly unable to understand what was understood by it. He knew that by
this term was understood a mechanical facility for painting or drawing,
entirely apart from its subject. He had noticed often that even in
actual praise technique was opposed to essential quality, as though one
could paint well something that was bad. He knew that a great deal of
attention and care was necessary in taking off the coverings, to avoid
injuring the creation itself, and to take off all the coverings; but
there was no art of painting—no technique of any sort—about it. If to a
little child or to his cook were revealed what he saw, it or she would
have been able to peel the wrappings off what was seen. And the most
experienced and adroit painter could not by mere mechanical facility
paint anything if the lines of the subject were not revealed to him
first. Besides, he saw that if it came to talking about technique, it
was impossible to praise him for it. In all he had painted and
repainted he saw faults that hurt his eyes, coming from want of care in
taking off the wrappings—faults he could not correct now without
spoiling the whole. And in almost all the figures and faces he saw,
too, remnants of the wrappings not perfectly removed that spoiled the
picture.

“One thing might be said, if you will allow me to make the remark....”
observed Golenishtchev.

“Oh, I shall be delighted, I beg you,” said Mihailov with a forced
smile.

“That is, that you make Him the man-god, and not the God-man. But I
know that was what you meant to do.”

“I cannot paint a Christ that is not in my heart,” said Mihailov
gloomily.

“Yes; but in that case, if you will allow me to say what I think....
Your picture is so fine that my observation cannot detract from it,
and, besides, it is only my personal opinion. With you it is different.
Your very motive is different. But let us take Ivanov. I imagine that
if Christ is brought down to the level of an historical character, it
would have been better for Ivanov to select some other historical
subject, fresh, untouched.”

“But if this is the greatest subject presented to art?”

“If one looked one would find others. But the point is that art cannot
suffer doubt and discussion. And before the picture of Ivanov the
question arises for the believer and the unbeliever alike, ‘Is it God,
or is it not God?’ and the unity of the impression is destroyed.”

“Why so? I think that for educated people,” said Mihailov, “the
question cannot exist.”

Golenishtchev did not agree with this, and confounded Mihailov by his
support of his first idea of the unity of the impression being
essential to art.

Mihailov was greatly perturbed, but he could say nothing in defense of
his own idea.