Daily Honolulu press. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1886, 1886-02-11
A rRurAEuL RUSSIAN ARTIST.
How He offended the Archbishop "A Plot :
ure which Did Not FIatter the Car.
Uondon Newa1

How He offended the Arohbishop-A Plot :
ure which Did Not FIatter the Gar.
London Newsl
The Russian painter, Vereschagin is again
exhibiting at Vienna one OF his great coll
lections of pictures, and again, according
to custom the exhibition has led TO a pro-
test. This time, as our correspondent has
informed us, the protest comes from no less
person than the archbishop Of Vienna,
who has objected TO what he seems to con-
slider want of reverence In the treatment
Of the holy family in one OF the religious
scenes now on view in that capital. The
artist seems to have painted the Savior as
an eastern carpenter--as indeed Sir John
Millais and Mr.. Holman Hunt did before
him--but without any suggestion of a
higher nature or higher mission. This
is in entire harmony with his lifelong prac-
tice he always paints from the life, and
admits no binding force in the most re-
vered conventions
In his remarkable series on the last Russo
Turkish war, for instance, he did not scruple
to represent the emperor in q very safe
place at Plevna, while thousands of his
bravest troops were throwing away their
lives in the plain below in the vain hope Of
fiattering imperial vanity with the offer of
the fortress as a birthday gift. The pict-
ure gave great offense at court; and the
czarowitz, who had meant to order il as n
present for his august father, repented with
some abruptness of his gracious intention In
like manners in the Toorkistan ssries, which
had preceded this, Vereschagin ventured
sometimes to represent the Russians in
fight, though never in disgrace; and on
one occasion he pictured a dead Russian
soldier left in the desert for the crows. A
Russian officer of the rank observed that it
must be Inaccurate because the Russian
dead were never abandoned; but the painter
replied with some asperity that he had
seen it with his own eyes, for he has fol
lowed all the campaigns he treats.
In a subsequent series he showed some
thing more hideous-a barn full OF wounded
who had been simply forgotten after an en-
gagement, and who had persisted to man.
He has drawn and painted British India in
much the same spirit and his latest excur.
sion is to Palestine, where be has pictured
the life Of sacred history on the suggestions
furnished by the life of to-day aud has
drawn the holy family and the apostles lit.
orally as a set Of humble working folk. It
is one of these pictures that has given Of
Tense to the archbishop To quote our cor
respondent it represents the Savior in the
bosom of his family, and is a very common
place Of poor Jewish carpenters house.
This must be something entirely new in art,
for Mr.. Holman Hunts literary fidelity in
the acces, ories of his famous work on the
subject has not precluded good deal of
idealization in the treatment of the central
figure 1t Is an EXPIRE ssion of much more
than Vereschagin's idiosyncrasy, for in
some sort IL represents the attitude OF
young Russia toward all history, legend
and faith. The archbishop seems to have
carried his complaint to the Arch luke
Charles, but the painter anticipated the
princely remonstrance by Withdraw wing the
work from his gallery.