STUDYING LINE AND COLOUR IN RUSSIA

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MARK TWAIN'S LOVE OF COLOUR IN ALL COSTUMING >>

neck hung strings of coral and amber beads. There was indeed a decorative woman!

As for her background, it was simple enough to throw into relief the brilliant vision

that she was. Not, however, a scheme of interior decoration to copy! The walls

were whitewashed; a large stove of masonry was built into one corner, and four

beds and a cradle stood on the other side of the room, over which hung in a row

five virgins, the central one being the Black Virgin beloved by the Poles. The

legend is that the original was painted during the life of the Virgin, on a panel of

dark wood. Here, too, was the marriage chest, decorated with a crude design in

bright colours. The children, three or four of them, ran about in the national

costume, miniatures of their mother, but barefoot.

It was the same in Hungary, when we were taken by the mayor of a Magyar town to

visit the characteristic farmhouse of a highly prosperous farmer, said to be worth

two hundred thousand dollars. The table was laid in the end of a room having four

beds in it. On inquiring later, we were told that they were not ordinarily used by the

family, but were heaped with the reserve bedding. In other words, they were

recognised by the natives as indicating a degree of affluence, and were a bit of

ostentation, not the overcrowding of necessity.

CHAPTER XXII

STUDYING LINE AND COLOUR IN RUSSIA

ROM Hungary we continued our quest of line and colour of folk

costume into Russia.

Strangely enough, Russia throws off the imperial yoke of autocracy,

declaring for democratic principles, at the very moment we undertake to put into

words the vivid picturesqueness resulting largely from the causes of this astounding

revolution. Have you been in Russia? Have you seen with your own eyes any phase

of the violent contrasts which at last have caused the worm to turn? Our object

being to study national characteristics as expressed in folk costume, folk song, folk

dance, traditional customs and fêtes, we consulted students of these subjects, whom

we chanced to meet in London, Paris, Vienna and Buda Pest, with the result that we

turned our faces toward southern or "Little" Russia, as the part least affected by

cosmopolitan influences.

Kiev was our headquarters, and it is well to say at once that we found what we

sought,--ample opportunity to observe the genuine Russian, the sturdy, dogged,

plodding son of toil, who, more than any other European peasant seems a part of

the soil, which in sullen persistency he tills. We knew already the Russians of

Petrograd and Moscow; one meets them in Paris, London, Vienna, at German and

Austrian Cures and on the Riviera. They are everywhere and always distinctive by

reason of their Slav temperament; a magnetic race quality which is Asiatic in its

essence. We recognise it, we are stirred by it, we are drawn to it in their literature,

their music, their painting and in the Russian people themselves. The quality is an

integral part of Russian nature; polishing merely increases its attraction as with a

gem. One instance of this is the folk melody as treated by Tschaikowsky compared

with its simple form as sung or danced by the peasant.

PLATE XXVIII

A skating costume worn by Miss Weld of

Boston, holder of the Woman's Figure

Skating Championship.

This photograph was taken in New York on

March 23, 1917, when amateurs contested for

the cup and Miss Weld won--this time over

the men.

The costume of wine-coloured velvet

trimmed with mole-skin, a small close toque

to match, was one of the most appropriate and

attractive models of 1916-1917.

Courtesy of New York Herald Modern Skating

Costume 1917 Winner of Amateur Championship of

Fancy Skating

Some of the Russian women of the fashionable world are very decorative. Our first

impression of this type was in Paris, at the Russian Church on Christmas (or was it

some other holy day?) when to the amazement of the uninitiated the Russian

women of the aristocracy appeared at the morning service hatless and in full

evening dress, wearing jewels as if for a function at some secular court. Their

masculine escorts appeared in full regalia, the light of the altar candles adding

mystery to the glitter of gold lace and jewels. Those occasions are picturesque in

the extreme.

The congregation stands, as in the Jewish synagogues, and those of highest rank are

nearest the altar, invariably ablaze with gold, silver and precious stones, while on

occasions the priest wears cloth of gold.

In Paris this background and the whole scene was accepted as a part of the pageant

of that city, but in Kiev it was different. There we got the other side of the picture;

the man and the woman who are really Russia, the element that finds an outlet in

the folk music, for its age-old rebellious submission. One hears the soul of the

Russian pulsating in the continued reiteration of the same theme; it is like the

endless treadmill of a life without vistas. We were looking at the Russia of Maxim

Gorky, the Russia that made Tolstoy a reformer; that has now forced its Czar to

abdicate.

We reached Kiev just before the Easter of the Greek Church, the season when the

pilgrims, often as many as fifty thousand of them, tramp over the frozen roads from

all parts of the empire to expiate their sins, kneeling at the shrine of one of their

mummied, sainted bishops.

The men and women alike, clad in grimy sheepskin coats, moved like cattle in

straggling droves, over the roads which lead to Kiev. From a distance one cannot

tell man from woman, but as they come closer, one sees that the woman has a

bright kerchief tied round her head, and red or blue peasant embroidery dribbles

below her sheepskin coat. She is as stocky as a Shetland pony and her face is

weather-beaten, with high cheekbones and brown eyes. The man wears a black

astrachan conical cap and his hair is long and bushy, from rubbing bear grease into

it. He walks with a crooked staff, biblical in style, and carries his worldly goods in

a small bundle flung over his shoulder. The woman carries her own small burden.

As they shuffle past, a stench arises from the human herd. It comes from the

sheepskin, which is worked in, slept in, and, what is more, often inherited from a

parent who had also worn it as his winter hide. Added to the smell of the sheepskin

is that of an unwashed human, and the reek of stale food, for the poorest of the

Russian peasants have no chimneys to their houses. They cannot afford to let the

costly heat escape.

Kiev, the holy city and capital of Ancient Russia, climbs from its ancestral

beginnings, on the banks of the River Dneiper, up the steep sides and over the

summit of a commanding hilltop, crowned by an immense gold cross, illumined

with electricity by night, to flash its message of hope to foot-sore pilgrims. The

driver of our drosky drove us over the rough cobbles so rapidly, despite the hill,

that we were almost overturned. It is the manner of Russian drosky drivers. The

cathedral, our goal, was snowy-white, with frescoes on the outer walls, onion-

shaped domes of bronze turned green; or gold, or blue with stars of gold.

We entered and found the body of the church well filled by peasants, women and

men in sheepskin. One poor doe-eyed creature crouched to press his forehead

twenty times at least on the stone floor of the church. Eagerly, like a flock of sheep,

they all pushed forward to where a richly-robed priest held a cross of gold for each

to kiss, taking their proffered kopeks.

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