“These paintings are the work of a Russian, Verestchagin, a painter equal to any of his contemporaries in artistic ability, and beyond any painter who ever lived in the grandeur of his moral aims and the application of his lessons to the consciences of all who take the least pains to understand him.... “I will only say that he who misses seeing these paintings will miss the best opportunity he may ever have of understanding the age in which he lives; for if ever the nineteenth century has had a prophet, it is the Russian painter, Verestchagin.” I repeat it: I cite this last passage expressed in consideration of its character, as an opinion emitted by a specially religious organ, an opinion made all the more significant in view of the attacks to which I had been submitted by people striving to prove themselves greater papists than the Pope. * * * * * Realism is not antagonistic to anything that is held dear by the contemporary man—it does not clash with common sense, with science, nor with religion. Can any one have anything but the deepest reverence for the teachings of Christ concerning the Father and Creator of all that exists—for the golden rule of Christian charity? It is true that we are enemies of bigotry, of all ostentatious, assumed piety; but who is it that can blame us for this since Christ Himself has said— “But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do; for they think they shall be heard for their much speaking.”[3] As can be easily conceived, we have a different estimation of many things that were explained in another way some hundreds of years ago. The infancy of science and, consequently, of the entire conception of the universe can interest us now, but it can no more direct us. At the threshold of the twentieth century, we can no longer admit that the skies above are peopled by saints and by angels; that the interior of the earth is occupied by devils engaged in their task of roasting the sinners of the world. We refuse even to accept, in its literal sense, the ancient idea of rewards for good deeds, and that of torments in slow fires as punishment for evil deeds. In our capacity of artists we do not deny the ideals of the past ages and of the ancient masters. On the contrary, we give them an honourable place in the history of art; but we refuse to imitate them, for the very simple reason that everything is good in its own time, and that the realism of one century already bears in itself the germs of the idealism of the next. The very masters who are held to be great idealists in art—have not they been great realists in their own time? Who would risk the assertion that Raphael was not a realist in the age in which he lived: that his works did not scandalize many of his contemporaries, whose tastes were formed on the work of primitive masters?