The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-02-13
vEREsTCHAGIN's NEW PICTURES.
Illustrating Napoleon's Invasion of
 Russia.

Illustrating Napoleons Invasion of Russia
 Another one-man show has been add ed to the Rembrandt and Burne-Jones /, exhibitions, while the Turner's are still
 held back for the GuildhaH in spring.
 The new collection is Verestchagin' s 1 series of 15 pictures illustrating Napo- | Icons invasion of Russia which is sup plemented by 76 studies and sketches, including landscapes, bits of genre, DOT traits and souvenirs of travel, and by 50 photographs of the artists earlier
 pictures. It is badly arranged in the Grafton garrelies, and the catalogue is
 exasperating in minuteness of detail and expository lore but the pictures are interesting as examples of pains taking and exact study and cold and | hard realism which informs the under standing without appealing to heart or imagination. Verestchagin knows the art of war. for he has had personal ex-
 perience as correspondent and artist of the battle field at Plevna, and in the
 Balkan passes during the Russian winter
 campaign. He is a realst, who sees
 only the sombre aspects of war, with it's
 ghastly carnage and revel of horrors.
 In his eagerness to tell the whole truth
 and nothing but the truth about war he
 has unconciousiy become the evangel
 of millennial eirenicon.
 These pictures of Napoleon and his
 soldiers at Borodino, burning Moscow
 and on the long, disastrous retreat have
 I | t.,
 ing air of truthfulness in all details of
 costume, architecture and landscape.
 The artist has taken exceptional pains
 to present the emperor in the furlined Polish cloak and close-atting cap which
 he wore in place of the familiar gray coat and cooked hat: and a series of carefully elaborated historical portraits is to be found in the faces and figures of the staff officers. The spectator does not need to be told that the uniforms of the soldiers, the costumes of the peas ants and the dazzling effects of strong sunlight in snowbound Russia are as accurate as prolonged study and close observation can render them. MT. Yer estchagin's statements of fact on these large canvases pass unchallenged. The precision of the method is tn niStakable although he is weak In technic and lacks a true sense of color. It leaves the spectator unmoved and listless. There is a realistic recitation of the horrors of winter campaign In snowburied country, but the imagina- ton has not been touched by all these depressing matters of fact.
 Frl tot, ,f of A,,n i1, t11n burning city and of the street scenes after the fire are impressive compost
 tions, but how feebly they denote the patriotic significance of the most glori
 ous tradition of Moscow! Napoleon's entry was the signal for magnificent act of self-sacrifice, which redeemed Russian history, from the glaring crimes and bloodstains of khans and boyars The Russians, loving Moscow as the most sacred of their icons, sur rendered it to the flames in order to re- rel a foreign invader and to force. a disastrous retreat. The skies are lurid in these pictures, but the spectator misses the sentiment and inspiration of that splendid triumph of self-sacri- fee which dignified and enobled Rus sian character. In the same way real ism has it's limitations in such pictures as "On the Great Road--Retreat and Flight" and ''Taken and Shot" The snow-painting is most skillful, and the sufferngs of the frost-bitten soldiers and of the wretched peasants, whose homes are .desecrated with wanton out rage, are faithfully reproduced in har- rowing detail; but the figure of the fur wrapped emperor trudging on in mute despair or sentencing to death the way side victims of the retreating army of demoralized stragglers does not excite emotion. It has no pathetic message for the imagination. The German em- peror seems to have been impressed with it as a type of baffled ambition for universal conquest, but doubtless he was influenced by self-consciousness of his own power as the master of a mlll- tary empire. The ordinary spectator is unmoved by the crowned fugitive of destiny. With all his accuracy of