The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1875-12-18
MOSCOW.

Moscow is the best colored city I know
the finest OF all cities when seen in distant
perspective, with her thousand and one
golden domes glitterug in the sun against
the sky. Cairo viewed from the citadel,
and Constantinople from the tower of Ca
lata, are comparatively gray and colorless.
Moscow when ilumned under sunset shines
with Oriental splendor; the eye is dazzled
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, blues, and gold
are laid on thickly. But anything that
may be wanting on the part of the artist
is supplied 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. 1t 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
fall out by the happy chance of circum-
| stance, proves most effective. Such are
the panoramas which arrest the travellers
steps as the eye sweeps over the honse tops,
chlmneys, towers trees glded and many
colored domes which stretch from fore
ground to horizon. There are cities which
the stranger should never enter, there are
buildings which the critic can scarcely dare
to approach. But magnitude and multi
tude move the Imagination. One minaret
may be mean, one dome insignificant, but
the moment the unit becomes thousand,
and as soon as space sufficiently expands
for atmosphere to suggest magnitude or
mystery, then literal facts give place to
phantoms, and poems and pictures are
wrought out of even commonest materials
Yet these many colored domes, though
they float as thing of beauty between
earth and sky, are rather dubious in char
acter; indeed, sometimes they thrust them
selves upward and outward as excrescences.
The construction, too, is rather gimcrack;
in the Kremlin examined several cupolas
under repair; when the outer covering of
thin metal is removed ribs, as of an UNI
brella or of a lady's crinoline, are laid bare.
A makeup thus flmsy and slight admits of
more easy adaptation than bricks and NOR
tar to the many varied forms which fancy
may suggest. The curves and outlines
assumed are sometimes graceful, often fan
tastic; in some directions the eye seems to
look on a number of giant gourds, in others
a group of Turks turbans may be sug-
gested, while the smaller domes may be
mistaken for pepper-bo1es, decanters, or
castors familiar on dinner tables. In short
the variety of forms already in existence is
all but infinite, and others might readily
be invented. Specially graceful is a COM
mon type, not larger in diameter than a
minaret, bearing golden dome as it's
crown. One pretty effect observed with
in the Kremlin. The newly wrought Gu
polas of highly FURNISHED surface serve as
Claude Lorraine mirrors to reflect tho
moving clouds, the passing crowds, the
trees and encrcling landscape. 1t may
easily be imagined how gay and glittering
a city looks thus set with jewels and shin
ing with patens of bright gold. The COL
ors, too, are scarcely less varied than the
forms: besides gold, there is silver, often
blue and green and red; sometimes also a
green ground is set with gold stars; in
scriptions in letters of gold may likewise
be seen as friezes around towers. So much,
indeed, is Moscow a city of colers, that the
walls even of ordinary dwellings are ilu-
mined 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, a palace, and citadel. This
stronghold, the acropolis of Moscow, is
tlanked by massive and picturesque towers,
surmounted by rough steep roofs, marked
and colored like the scales of serpents;
also over gateways and at angles are many
other towers which group with domes and
pointed pinnacles and golden crosses into
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
extended to gain changeful play of atmos-
pheric 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 fash
ion, the upper stories, or sky outlines in
infinite fantasy, play with cloudand and
seem so to hold themselves aloof from earth
as to become creatures of the elements.
The Kremlin should be seen by sunset,
twilight, and moonlight-no building has
such varied moods. -From an Art Tour to
Northern Capitals, By j. harrington Akin
son.