"A Poet in Russia is More Than a Poet"

My art class goes to museums on Thursdays, which is pretty awesome, and today at the Russian Museum (which displays works only by Russian artists) we learned about Ivan Aivazovsky.

The Wave

       This painting is, first of all, really cool. It shows the struggle between man and nature, and man (obviously) is taking a beating and will soon be swallowed up by nature, which is massive compared to little man.
       Anyway the interesting thing is that Aivazovsky, who lived in the 19th century, did such a good job on his seascape paintings that he received a longstanding position in the Russian Navy - "Painter to the Staff" - and could wear the naval ministry uniform. The Russian Navy sent him a squadron of ships on the tenth anniversary of his artistic career. As our art teacher put it, "Can you imagine this happening in any country other than Russia?"
       When our civilization teacher asked about the national character of the US, we talked about longstanding political documents like the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, and we were very proud of our national texts. During the seventy years under the USSR, though, only two Russian leaders neglected to write a constitution under their own name. A very different climate. For this reason, the national text of Russia is literature: Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Akhmatova, Gogol. Political ideas are greeted with suspicion in Russia, and for good reason. Ideas in literature, however, have united the Russian people and built a national character. The upshot of this is that Russia finds art and literature very important, and I think the reverse is true for most of America. I'm not saying we have to send ships to artists on their birthdays or whatever. But as an American student who values music and art, I hope our educational system moves more in the direction of the Russian system. Art and literature should be revered in schools, not cut out of them.