The summit is
fitly crowned by a crucifix, almost in the flat, in order not to
evade the law of the Russian Church, which prohibits statues in the
round; the figure of Christ is silver, the cross and the drapery
of gold or silver-gilt. On either side of the crucifix stand in
their prescriptive stations the Madonna and St. John. On the story
beneath comes the entombment, all covered with gold and silver,
in a low-relief which indicates the forms of the figures beneath;
the heads, which are not in relief but merely pictorial, are the
only portions of the picture actually visible.
These altar-screens, which in Russia are counted not by tens but
by hundreds and thousands, are highly ornate. Silver and gold and
jewellery are conjoined with painting after the nursery and doll-like
fashion approved in the South of Spain and at Naples. Only in the
most corrupt of Roman Catholic capitals does ecclesiastical art
assume the childish forms common in Russia. Resuming the description
of the above altar-screen, we find next in range below the entombment
a large composition, comprising God the Father surrounded by cherubs,
with two full-grown seraphs, encircled by six gold wings, standing
on either side.
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