Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1874-03-11
MOSCOW.

MOSCOW.
A Wilderness of Domes--T1Ow They Appear
AggregateIy and in Detail.
From Atkinsons Art Tour
Moscow is the best cOlOred city [
know-the finest of all cities when seen
in distant perspective, with her thou
sand and one golden domes glittering
in the sun against the sky. Carlo viewed
from the citadel, and Constantinople
lively grey and colorless. Moscow
when illumined under sunset shines
with Oriental splendor the eye is daz-
zled as by brilliant stage scene, more
like enchantment than reality. Not
that the color is refined or in strict
harmony often, indeed, all that can be
said is that the painter has used his
paint-pot generously, that yellow
ochres, reds, blue and gold are laid on
thickly. But anything that may be
wanting on the part of the artist is sup
piled by the hand of nature time
brings the harshest of pigments into
tone atmosphere casts delicate, veil
over the perspective vision distance in
short, lends enchantment. It often
happens in semi-barbaric structures
that what the artist intended may be
commonplace and coarse, but that what
he did not intend that is, unforeseen
accidents, or combinations which will
out by the happy change of circum-
stances, proves most effective Such
are the panoramas which arrest the
travellers steps as the eye sweeps over
the house-tops, chimneys, tow
ers, trees, gilded and many-colored
domes which stretch from foreground
to horizon. There are cities which the
stranger should never enter, there are
buildings which the critic can scarcely
dare approach. But magnitude and
multitude move the imagination. One
minaret may be mean, one dome may
insignificant, but the moment the unit
becomes a thousand, and as soon as
space sufficiently expands for atmos-
phere to suggest magnitude ormystery,
then literal facts give place tophantoms,
and poems and pictures are wrought
out of even the commonest materials.
| Yet these colored domes, though they
float as thing of beauty between earth
and sky, arerather dubious in character;
indeed, sometimes they bore themselves
upward and outward as excrescences,
The construction, too, is rather grim
crack; in the Kremlin [ examined
several cupolas under repair then the
outer covering is removed, ribs, as of
an umbrella or of lady's crinoline, are
laid bare. A makeup thus himsy and
sight admits of more easy adaptation
than bricks and mortar to the many
varied forms which fancy may suggest.
The curves and outlines assumed are
graceful, often fantastic ; in some
directions the eye seems to look on a
number of giant gourds, in others a
group of Turks t1lrbans may be sug-
gested, while the smaller domes may be
mistaken for pepper-boxes, decanters,
or castors familiar on the dinner-tables.
In short the variety of forms already in
existence is all but infinite, and others
might readily be invented. Specially
grateful is common type, not larger
i'll diameter than a minaret, bearing a
golden dome at it's crown. One pretty
effect observed within the Kremlin.
The newly wrought cupolas of highly
| FURNISHED surface serve as Claude
| Lorrain mirrors to reflect the moving
clouds, the trees and encircling land
scape. It may we'll be imagined how
gay and glittering a city looks thus set
with Jewels and shining with patens of
bright gold. The coloSs, too are
scarcely less varied t5all the ferns ::
besides gold there is silver, often blue
and green and red, and sometimes, also
a green ground is set with gold stars;
inscriptions with letters Of gold may
likewise be seen as friezes around
towers. SO much, indeed, is Moscow a
city of colors, that the walls even of
ordinary dwellings are Illuminated
brightly with red and yellow, and the
roofs are green. The climax is, of
course, reached by the Kremlin, which
dominates over the city lying beneath
as church, palace, and citadel.
This stronghold, the acropolis Of
Moscow, is fanked by massive and
picturesque towers, surmounted by
rough steep roofs, masked and colored
like the scales Of serpents also over
gateways and at angles are many other
| towers, which group like domes and
pointed pinnacles and golden crosses
into ever-varying panoramas as the
spectator makes the circuit of the walls,
or as the sun, travelling from east to
west, alternates light and shade the
scale is sufficiently extented to gain
changeful play of atmospheric effect.
One Of the towers, that of the "Spaski"
gate, was erected by an Englishman,
Christopher Galloway, in 1926. The
'Troitski tower was also built by
him. While the easements are heavy
and gloomy, after the Oriental fashion,
the upper stories, or sky outlines in
infinite fantasy, play with cloud-land
and seem so to hold themselves aloof
from earth as to become creatures of
elements. The Kremlin should be seen
by sunset, twilight and moonlight
building has such varied moods.
Trunk Hose.
n