The Icon and the Axe

a continuation and development of the grandiose, inspiring finale of Wagner's Gotterdammerung. . . . But . . . Wagner's fire brings destruction. Scriabin's, rebirth . . . the creation of that new world which opens up in the presence of man's spiritual ecstasy. . . . His fundamental condition is ecstasy, flight. His element is fire. . . . Fire, fire, fire; everywhere fire. And accompanying it, the sounding of alarm bells and the ringing of invisible chimes. Awesome expectation grows. Before the eyes rises up a mountain breathing fire. "The Magic Fire" of the Wagnerian Valkyries is childish amusement, a cluster of glow-worms in comparison with the "consecrating flame" of Scriabin. . . .30

The "consecrating flame" of Prometheus is provided by a totally new harmonic system. Among other features, Scriabin introduced the mystic

chords of the flagellants into his music, just as Blok had ended his "Twelve" with the flagellant image of a returning "Christ" at the head of a "boat" of twelve apostolic followers. He also devised a correlation between the musical scale and the color spectrum, writing into the score chords of color to be projected through the symphony hall by a "keyboard of light," a giant reflecting machine to be played like a toneless piano. Fascination with color was a particular feature of an age anxious to compensate for the grayness of early industrialization. Rimsky-Korsakov had independently conceived of correlating sound and color; and the rediscovery of the pure colors of the newly restored icons encouraged a new generation of painters to see in color itself many of the miraculous powers originally attributed to the icons. Vasily Kandinsky, who exhibited the first of his pioneering, non-representational paintings in 1910, the year of Scriabin's "Prometheus," insisted that "color is in a painting what enthusiasm is in life,"81 and that each color should start a "corresponding vibration of the human soul,"32 ranging from the total restfulness of heavenly blue to the "harsh trumpet blast" of earthly yellow.33

In the last year of his life, Scriabin turned to the great work he hoped would unify the arts and lift man to the level of the gods. In the score for "Prometheus," he had already insisted that the chorus wear white robes to emphasize the sacramental nature of the occasion. Now he began sketching out plans for a "Mystery" that was to involve two thousand performers in a fantastic fusion of mystery play, music, dance, and oratory. It was to be a "ritual" rather than music, with no spectators, only performers; the emission of perfumes was written into the score, along with sounds and colors, to provide a kind of multi-sensory polyphony; and the action was to begin in Tibet and end in England.34 The fact that this "Mystery" could not be staged-or even clearly written out by Scriabin-was not held against him by artists of the silver age, most of whom agreed with Kandinsky that art is "the expression of mystery in terms of mystery."35 Humanity was not yet spiritually prepared for anything but mystery. A great cataclysm was needed to prepare humanity for the sublime ritual that would unify the good, true, and beautiful. The cataclysm came with the beginning of World War I, shortly after Scriabin had set forth the first plan ("initial act" he called it) for his "Mystery." Scriabin died just a few months later.

The purpose of art was not to depict but to transform the real world for most artists of the age. In their desire to bring the most advanced art directly into life, they staged innumerable exhibits, concerts, and cultural tours throughout provincial Russia. A highlight perhaps occurred in the summer of 1910, when Scriabin's complex tonal patterns were played on a boat floating down the Volga under the direction of young Serge Kousse-

vitzky, wafting music out across the unresponsive and uncomprehending countryside.

This Promethean aristocratic art helped spur on a simultaneous revival of popular art, which in turn provided fresh stimulus for the restless avant-garde. The aristocracy developed fresh interest in ceramics, woodcarving, weaving, and embroidery as industrialization began to threaten them. Cottage industries and peasant crafts were given new encouragement by the provincial zemstvos; and a totally new form of musical folk poem, the harmonically complex chastushka, arose as a kind of grass roots equivalent to the new and more musical poetry of the symbolists.36