future!--for the sake of the exquisite form of a smile and the profile of a tapering hand; and finally of the artist whom I see in my country becoming identified with all big projects, either undertaking them or excelling in them. But this study would perforce be incomplete if I did not decide to accompany our friend on his exodus toward the West and to put together the main facts of his recent activity which sends its rays over the entire world--an activity of which, for the most part, I am a witness. Therefore, en route to Paris! [Illustration] A SHOW IN AN ARMCHAIR In 1906 or thereabouts, following immediately upon the first Russian revolution that failed so grievously, the group of young artists and poets marched side by side through the breach that had been opened in the citadel of public opinion. The “modernists” of “Mir Iskousstva”, who had been jeered by the common herd, came into their own. But a certain uneasiness troubles this rising power; it feels itself incomplete, limited in a fatal manner. It is not equipped to reestablish great painting; it can only count upon illustrators, decorators, and poets of the [Illustration: DRAWING OF COLOUR FOR THE REVIEW “APOLLO”] past. And, as is the case with authority everywhere when it feels itself threatened, so too this group, not being able to assert itself, was anxious to spread out. Accordingly, they looked for new fields to conquer. Once again we see Diaghileff leading the attack. He releases that great exodus of Russians to the West--the brilliant and victorious march on Paris. The offensive starts with a Russian exhibition at the “Salon d’Automne”, an exhibition which under the guise of being retrospective is in reality a fighting manœuvre. A collection of icons, of numerous portraits of the eighteenth century symbolizes the return to a tradition which the young men of the “Monde Artiste” proclaim to be their own. Similarly the arbitrary gaps indicate their complete break with the unnatural art of the “wanderers”, the latter having been nearly entirely eliminated. Bakst took part in this enterprise not alone as a painter. He decorated the hall of the eighteenth century, which had been transformed into a grove, with a trellis surmounted by vases. This conception of an exposition hall forming an organic whole, making a coherent <g>ensemble</g>, and therefore having a distinctive atmosphere--is not this, again, a gift belonging to the Russians?