This again was one of the million true reflections that could be found in his picture and in the figure of Christ.
She said that He was pitying Pilate.
In Christ's expression there ought to be indeed an expression of pity, since there is an expression of love, of heavenly peace, of readiness for death, and a sense of the vanity of words.
Of course there is the expression of an official in Pilate and of pity in Christ, seeing that one is the incarnation of the fleshly and the other of the spiritual life.
All this and much more flashed into Mihailov's thoughts.
"Yes, and how that figure is done--what atmosphere!
One can walk round it," said Golenishtchev, unmistakably betraying by this remark that he did not approve of the meaning and idea of the figure.
"Yes, there's a wonderful mastery!" said Vronsky.
"How those figures in the background stand out! There you have technique," he said, addressing Golenishtchev, alluding to a conversation between them about Vronsky's despair of attaining this technique.
"Yes, yes, marvelous!" Golenishtchev and Anna assented.
In spite of the excited condition in which he was, the sentence about technique had sent a pang to Mihailov's heart, and looking angrily at Vronsky he suddenly scowled.
He had often heard this word technique, and was utterly unable to understand what was understood by it.
He knew that by this term was understood a mechanical facility for painting or drawing, entirely apart from its subject.
He had noticed often that even in actual praise technique was opposed to essential quality, as though one could paint well something that was bad.
He knew that a great deal of attention and care was necessary in taking off the coverings, to avoid injuring the creation itself, and to take off all the coverings; but there was no art of painting--no technique of any sort--about it.
If to a little child or to his cook were revealed what he saw, it or she would have been able to peel the wrappings off what was seen.
And the most experienced and adroit painter could not by mere mechanical facility paint anything if the lines of the subject were not revealed to him first.
Besides, he saw that if it came to talking about technique, it was impossible to praise him for it.
In all he had painted and repainted he saw faults that hurt his eyes, coming from want of care in taking off the wrappings--faults he could not correct now without spoiling the whole.
And in almost all the figures and faces he saw, too, remnants of the wrappings not perfectly removed that spoiled the picture.
"One thing might be said, if you will allow me to make the remark..." observed Golenishtchev.
"Oh, I shall be delighted, I beg you," said Mihailov with a forced smile.
"That is, that you make Him the man-god, and not the God-man.
But I know that was what you meant to do."
"I cannot paint a Christ that is not in my heart," said Mihailov gloomily.
"Yes; but in that case, if you will allow me to say what I think....
Your picture is so fine that my observation cannot detract from it, and, besides, it is only my personal opinion.
With you it is different.
Your very motive is different.
But let us take Ivanov.
I imagine that if Christ is brought down to the level of an historical character, it would have been better for Ivanov to select some other historical subject, fresh, untouched."
"But if this is the greatest subject presented to art?"
"If one looked one would find others.
But the point is that art cannot suffer doubt and discussion.
And before the picture of Ivanov the question arises for the believer and the unbeliever alike, 'Is it God, or is it not God?' and the unity of the impression is destroyed."
"Why so?
I think that for educated people," said Mihailov, "the question cannot exist."
Golenishtchev did not agree with this, and confounded Mihailov by his support of his first idea of the unity of the impression being essential to art.
Mihailov was greatly perturbed, but he could say nothing in defense of his own idea.
Chapter 12
Anna and Vronsky had long been exchanging glances, regretting their friend's flow of cleverness. At last Vronsky, without waiting for the artist, walked away to another small picture.
"Oh, how exquisite! What a lovely thing!
A gem!
How exquisite!" they cried with one voice.
"What is it they're so pleased with?" thought Mihailov.
He had positively forgotten that picture he had painted three years ago.
He had forgotten all the agonies and the ecstasies he had lived through with that picture when for several months it had been the one thought haunting him day and night. He had forgotten, as he always forgot, the pictures he had finished.
He did not even like to look at it, and had only brought it out because he was expecting an Englishman who wanted to buy it.
"Oh, that's only an old study," he said.
"How fine!" said Golenishtchev, he too, with unmistakable sincerity, falling under the spell of the picture.