After this initial period of intensive technical preparation, Ivanov turned his attention to the creation of a canvas which would serve as a kind of monumental icon for the new age: a transposition into painting of the heroic sculptural and architectural style of the early nineteenth century. The subject matter that he chose for his first efforts in this direction was invariably Biblicaclass="underline" Samson and Delilah, David before Saul, Joseph's brothers, and-much the best-"Christ with Mary Magdalen." Finally, in the late thirties he began to turn all his attention to the preparation of his "Appear-
IV. THE CENTURY OF ARISTOCRATIC CULTURE
3. The "Cursed Questions'
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ance of Christ to the People." In contrast to Briullov's canvas of 1836, which conveyed the negative message of the fall of Rome in an artistically sloppy and sentimental manner, Ivanov's painting was to carry a positive message in a technically perfect manner. The subject was to be the decisive moment in history when the agitated and uncertain followers of John the Baptist first caught sight of Christ. The style was to be that of Raphael, with the composition based partly on Leonardo's "Last Supper" and Michelangelo's ceiling in the Sistine Chapel.
Throughout his long labors on this painting, he was driven by a concern for authenticity that astonished all who came in contact with him. He spent long hours in synagogues studying Jewish faces, made trips to the courtrooms of Rome to study the expressions of despair on the face of condemned criminals, and invited peasants into his otherwise impenetrable study to tell them jokes and then sketch their spontaneous expressions of happiness and enjoyment. He was particularly haunted by the problem of depicting Christ in art. He sought, up until the very eve of his death, to find the oldest and most authentic representation of Christ's earthly form- studying in museums, Byzantine frescoes, and finally embarking on a trip to Jerusalem and the Near East. At the same time, his sketches for the Christ of his painting reveal a desire to incorporate the beauty of classical statuary into the representation of Christ's visage.
Slowly but inexorably, driven by some dark inner force which bears the mark either of sainthood or demonic pride, Ivanov became obsessed with the idea that he must in fact be Christ in order to be worthy of depicting him. The "golden age of all-humanity" which his canvas was to announce now required "perfection in morality as well as art." He immersed himself in reading the Bible and the Imitation of Christ. When Turgenev tried to show him some humorous drawings in the early forties, Ivanov suppressed his mirth and stared at them for a long time before suddenly lowering his head and repeating softly, "Christ never smiled."110
The course of Ivanov's subsequent religious quest brought a frenzied climax to the century-long search for direct new links with God. At the same time it gives a hint of the new paths into which prophetic impulses and messianic longings were shortly to be channeled. For, although he spoke longingly in 1845 of a need for links with a Christian Church linked to the apostolic age "when religion was not a corpse,"111 he turned neither to the Orthodox Church that had attracted Gogol nor to the Roman Catholic Church that had won the allegiance of other Russians in Rome. Nor did he seek solace in some new form of inner devotion following the sectarian or pietistic tradition, as one might think from the title of his 1846 manuscript, Thoughts upon Reading the Bible. He turned instead to messianic patriotism,
a position that had been implied in the general assumption that Russia was to provide spiritual salvation for all mankind. Ivanov was profoundly moved by a visit to the artist's studio in December, 1845, which was made by Nicholas I during his trip to Rome. Ivanov became lost in a kind of fantastic eschatological chauvinism. Russia became "the last of the peoples of the planet… . The Messiah whom the Jews await and in whose second coming symbolic Christians believe is the Russian Tsar, the Tsar of the last people."112
He borrows the language of occult masonry in speaking of "symbolic Christians," the "elect (elu) of providence" and "all-wise rule" {premudroe tsarstvovanie). Humanity is about to enjoy "the eternal peace, which will be given to it by the great and final people." Truth is to be "the basis of everything"; the artist, who is "the priest (zhrets) of the future of humanity," will soon be superfluous, because there will be no conflict-or even any difference between the sexes. The Tsar will become "entirely equal to Christ in his high authority and belief in God" and will establish his authority "over the Slavic races" and
. . . then shall the prophecy be fulfilled that there shall be one kingdom and one pastor, for all surviving kings will ask his counsel in order to bring order to their governments in a manner befitting each separate nationality.
The Russian artist of today must speak
… in the Asian spirit, in the spirit of prophecy . . . like musicians going before a regiment all aflame, lifting men up and away from worry and grief to the finest moments of life through marvelous sounds.113
Thus, the theme of consecrated combat, so central to later militant Pan-Slavism, was given an early and exalted formulation. Like his friend, the poet Tiutchev, who had also seen messianic portents in Nicholas' visit to Rome, Ivanov saw apocalyptical implications in the revolution of 1848 and hailed Nicholas' stern repressive moves.
Deeply impressed that "the parabola of the bombs has missed my studio," Ivanov set forth on a frenzied secret project to found a new academy for a consecrated army of "public artists." Their shrine was to be a temple to "the golden age of all humanity," which was to be built in Moscow "on that very spot where the fate of Russia was resolved by the speech of Abraham Palitsyn."114 The temple, in turn, was to be dominated by a vast fresco, one half of which was to show the Holy Lands as they appeared in Christ's lifetime, the other to show the Holy Lands as they now
appeared, with Nicholas I in the center as the form taken by the Messiah in His second coming.115 Apparently believing that his project would gain the approval of the Tsar, he made some 250 sketches for murals and icons, including events from secular history and mythology along with sacred subjects.
If the idea of the temple represents a final flight of fantasy, the murals themselves show a deep relation to the problem that had haunted him since beginning his "Appearance of Christ to the People": how can one depict the perfection of Christ in the world of imperfect men? All the murals were to be built around a monumental series portraying the earthly life of Christ. Under the influence of David Strauss' Life of Christ, which he first read in French translation in 1851, he began to conceive of Christ primarily as a human being, whose story of heroism and suffering had been needlessly complicated and etherealized by the historic churches. Abjuring all traditional models for representing the life of Christ, Ivanov's starkly original sketches show a lonely figure passing through real suffering, cruelty, and indifference. There is no trace of sentimentality or artificial adornment. Christ emerges as an almost totally passive figure surrounded by mobs of people and phalanxes of pharisees, with the scourging and crucifixion treated in particular detail. In only two of the 120 scenes in the published version of the series is there any real animation on the face of Christ. In the wilderness, when he is being tempted by the devil, Christ is seated facing straight ahead in the manner of Christ enthroned on the icons, but he is looking nervously at Satan out of the corner of his eye. In the last picture, which shows Christ on the cross, he is looking straight ahead at the viewer with a weird and piercing look that bespeaks less physical suffering than some terrible unspoken doubt about himself.116