TY - JOUR T1 - Exhibition review JF - British Journal of General Practice JO - Br J Gen Pract SP - 215 LP - 215 DO - 10.3399/bjgp08X279599 VL - 58 IS - 548 AU - Jeffrey Aronson Y1 - 2008/03/01 UR - http://bjgp.org/content/58/548/215.abstract N2 - FROM RUSSIA French and Russian Master Paintings 1870–1925 from Moscow and St Petersburg Royal Academy Main Galleries, 26 January to 18 April 2008That the first edition of War and Peace (1863–1869) begins with swathes of French, which Tolstoy translated into Russian for the 1873 edition, reminds us that French was the language of the pre-revolutionary Russian aristocracy. It is fitting, therefore, that the first painting we see in this French–Russian exhibition is Ilya Repin's portrait of a besmocked Tolstoy, barefoot, pretending unconvincingly to be a Russian peasant. The exhibition shows us the extent to which French painters influenced their Russian counterparts during a period, turbulent for both countries, that began with the Franco–Prussian war, included the Russo–Japanese war, the minor Russian revolution and Potemkin mutiny of 1905, the first World War, and the Russian Revolution proper, and ended with the signing of the Locarno Treaty.The exhibition starts deceptively quietly, with a small room of paintings by the French … ER -