2015 Old Russian Art

The main source for the reconstruction of the material and the spiritual world of early Slavic cultures, whose appearance on the hystorical scene relates to the final stage of the Great Migration is archaeological evidence. Researchers note almost complete lack of pieces of applied art, both their own and imported, in the early Slavic archaeological materials of the third quarter of the Ist millennium AD. For a long time Martynovsky treasure found in the Middle Dnieper in the early 20th century was unique in this respect. Famous “Martynovka men” and “horses” were interpreted as a fairly realistic images of people and animals — the heroes of the epic and pagan deities (B. A. Rybakov, V. N. Vasilenko, N. Chausidis) or as participants in stadia (G. F. Korzoukhina).
Today the number of known casting flat metal figures of Martynovka type and templates greatly increased. They are distributed over the entire periphery of the Byzantine Empire including the Balkans, the Caucasus and the Middle Danube in the 7th century AD.
By analogy based on the location of anthropomorphic and symmetrical zoomorphic images on fibu­las the composition is reconstructed. It can be related to common in early medieval European arts and crafts plot “The prophet Daniel in the lion’s den”, which in turn goes back to the Eastern Christian models.
Composition “Daniel with lions” was perceived in early Slavic arts and crafts, regardless of its understanding and interpretation. The source for the anthropomorphic image was the image of a beardless barbarian warrior dressed in tunic, which is widely represented in Byzantine mosaics, embroideries and casting. Additionally, evidences of the original Byzantine impulse are decorative elements such as etched palm branches, peacock and the camel head in the design of antropozoomorfic brooches.
It is interesting to note that other types of the Dnieper fibulas have both typological and stylistic prototypes among the synchronous German examples: motives of the bird with a curved beak, a dra­gon’s head, spirals. Especially revealing is the comparison of the typological series of brooches in the Dnieper region and Visigothic Spain: the processes of formation are convergent, forming similar typological series in the most eastern and the most western outskirts of the East German world.

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Due to a clear system of mural decoration, an Orthodox church embodies in full measure the idea of God’s world. In the 14th century Byzantium the world view of its society depended on philosophic-­theological disputes.
The main theme of these disputes was the nature of the Divine light. The idea of the possibility for a worshiper to see the Divine light thanks to ascetic way of life became the ideological basis of Palaeologan Renaissance. It differs from the philosophy of Western European Renaissance, but is also
humanistic.
The theme of this paper is the influence of the doctrine of Hesychasm on the style of the late 14th century frescoes from the churches of the Dovmontov Gorod in Pskov. In these murals intensive light strokes, applied on bodies of the saints, help to depict the ascetic spirituality. Painters tried to picture the Divine light which transfigured bodies of the saints during their prayer. It means that an individual spiritual work can allow a person to feel God’s grace. This idea expresses the essence of Orthodox humanism.

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Omphalion is a specially marked place in central part of the temple. It originated from omphalos, the sacred stone at Delphi, which was considered as the “navel of the Earth”. In Christian church it was situated in the center of building under the dome. On the territory of Kievan Rus’ omphalia were found only in some monuments.
All the omphalia of Rus’ could be divided into two groups considering the used material and technology. The first group includes facings of the Tithe church and St. Sophia Cathedral in Kiev, the Savi­our Cathedral in Chernigov, St. Michael Cathedral in Pereyaslavl and Borisoglebskiy Cathedral in Chernigov. The composition in these monuments is made from many small pieces, and includes expensive prestigious materials: marble in the Tithe Churche, smalt in St. Sofia, and slate slabs inlaid with smalt in other three monuments. The second group includes facings in the churches in Galich principality: in the Saviour and the Annunciation churches in Galich, in the rotunda of Oleshkov and St. Paraskeva Church in Zvenigorod. The composition of all of these monuments represents concentric circles, inlaid entirely with glazed ceramic tiles with large figurative compositions in the centre. These two variants belong to two different traditions. The monuments of the first group are directly linked to the tradition of Byzantine mosaics. The monuments of the second group belong to the Galich architecture, which had its roots in Poland, where omphalia were made of large-scale ceramic tiles (facings in Gniezno and Trzhemesne). In Poland itself, this tradition also originated from the Byzantine Empire.
Thus the Russian omphalia existed within the Byzantine tradition, but in its two versions: direct and mediated. Both of them were variants of a common technology “opus sectile”.

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The figurative cycle of the south door of the Nativity of the Virgin Cathedral in Suzdal, created between 1227 and 1238, is usually perceived to be the cycle of angels. However, Old Testament scenes prevail in it numerically, so that the door might as well be considered a true digest of Biblical history. Due to a large number and variety of Old Testament episodes, the Suzdal cycle remains unique not only in the earliest, pre-Mongol, period of Old Rus’, but also throughout the entire Russian Middle Ages.
The iconography of particular scenes generally following Byzantine models is rather unconventional, as many details do not conform to orthodox Biblical narrative and have no parallels in Christian art of that time. Among them “Adam naming the animals”, “Cain killing Abel”, “Angel drowning Sodom and Gomorrah”, “Angels fortifying David for a battle with Goliath” deserve special attention.
The inclusion of some unusual scenes in the door iconographic program and inconsistency of its chronological order should also be explained. Thus, “The Fall of Satan” placed at the top of the door valve as if amid the Days of Creation opens the Genesis recital, and the naming of animals follows the expulsion of progenitors from the Paradise.
The deviations from the canonical Old Testament story might be caused by the need to highlight a certain symbolic interpretation of the well-known account of the Holy Scripture. Yet the iconographic anomalies might be inspired by literary works common in the pre-Mongol Rus’: apocrypha, chronicles, hagiography and hymnography.
With regard to many details, the Old Testament iconography of the south door cycle does not accord with the ‘official’ version of the Sacred history, reflecting a vigorous tradition of Biblical apocryphal writings of the early 13th century Rus’.

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The present paper aims to investigate the stylistics of frescoes of the Archangel Michael church and to find their possible analogues in Eastern Christian art of the early 15th century in order to define more precisely by whom and when they were executed.
The researchers agree that the frescoes of the Skovorodka church might have been made at the edge of the 14th–15th or in the early 15th century. Specialists tend to connect their style with the art trend that developed in Moscow in the 15th century and revealed itself fully in the works by Andrei Rublev. Among the possible Russian analogues the researchers mention the icon ‘Apostle Thomas’ from the State Russian museum, Gospel from Zaraisk and frescoes of the Nativity church on the Red Field in Novgorod. In context of Eastern Christian art the Skovorodka murals are usually compared with those of the Morava school in Serbia, particularly Kalenic and Resava. The current research is an attempt to widen the circle of possible stylistic analogues for the frescoes of the Skovorodka church which can help to specify the circumstances of their creation.

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Cenobitic monasticism develops in the medieval Russia from the 14th century. Attention to the images of the monks appears in the Russian art in the second half of the 14th — first half of the 15th century (monastic scenes on the icon of St. Nicolas with his vita, from Nicolo-Ugreshskiy mona­stery, late 14th century (State Tretiakov Gallery), scene “Miracle of Archangel Michael at Chonae” on the icon of Archangel Michael with acts, about 1399 (Moscow Kremlin Museums), monastic scenes in wall paintings on the pillars in the Dormition cathedral, about 1400, and on the sanctuary screen in the Nativity of the Virgin church of Savvino-Storozhevskiy monastery, 1420s, both in Zvenigorod). Image of the holy monk is especially deep and touching in St. Sergius of Radonezh tomb pall, 1420s (Sergiev Posad museum-reserve).
In the mid-15th century, the vita cyclus of St. Sergius of Radonezh appears in the wall paintings of St. Sergius church (1459 or 1463) in Novgorod. The monastery in it looks like Jerusalem in the illustrations of New Testament.
Monastic subjects spread widely in the late 15th and in the early 16th century, already in the post-Byzantine period. One should mention figures of monks on the sanctuary screen in Dormition cathedral of Moscow Kremlin, 1480s. In this period, idealized images of the monasteries appear in the vitae scenes in icons of the Russian saints, monks and first Russian metropolitans.
In the 16th century, monastic subjects are represented with “Heavenly Ladder”, “Vision of Eulogius”, “Miracle with gold in the monastery of Dochiar”. Some of the monasteries are represented
as architectural ensembles (St. Catherine monastery, Sinai; Savvatiev Orshinskiy; Solovki and Alexandro-Svirskiy). They find parallels in the post-Byzantine painting as well. Among the Russian works depicting monasteries, two varieties can be distinguished: a) icons with scenes of monastic life; b) icons with views of the monasteries’ architectural ensemble. The first group finds analogies in Byzantine and post-Byzantine art, in the scenes of death of holy monks. Icons with architectural views have some features of pilgrim icons with images of the Holy Land with places of veneration.
Such a variety of subjects and iconographical types of the monastic theme depicted in the Russian art is a consequence of the special role the monasteries played in Russian medieval culture.

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It is not very common for the Russian medieval art to be investigated in the terms of some stylistic trends which have their certain distinct set of special features. This approach was often neglected because of the existing idea of Russian medieval art as of very special phenomenon developed separately from the Western European tradition. The latter was usually studied in the connection with stylistic differentiation which was not taken seriously for the medieval Russian art. Still different periods of the national art history have been studied as the consequent stages that could be described in connection with some general trends both in painting and in architecture. In this respect one should point to the works by G. Vagner (“Canon and Style in Old Russian Art”) and by A. Nekrasov (“Essays on History of Old Russian Architecture of the 11th–17th Centuries”).
Undoubtedly the closest contacts with the Western artistic tradition especially concerning architecture were taking place in the end of the 15th century and in the first quarter of the 16th century. It was the time when Italian architects were invited by Ivan III and Vassiliy III to rebuild the Moscow Kremlin and to construct cathedrals and churches in various Russian lands. Still the researchers have not yet worked out an appropriate idea how to define this architecture in the context of the stylistic analysis, which was noted by G. Vagner. The report deals with ideas and concepts of the authors mentioned as well as with revealing and explaining of the difficulties associated with formation of the consistent comprehensive definition for the architecture of the late 15th century and up to the 1530s as a very important period of the Russian architectural history.

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Western iconographic adoptions of Russian icons are exceptionally rare up until the 16th century. The famous Four-part icon of the Kremlin Annunciation Cathedral, however, painted between 1547 and 1551, contains a number of Western elements. The most controversial one amongst them is the so-called Gnadenstuhl, the Trinitarian image of God the Father holding the Crucifix, with the curious wings covering the body of the crucified Christ. The fact that the Western origin of the imagery was evident even for the contemporaries is attested by the controversy between dyak Ivan Viskovaty and Metropolitan Makary (1542–1563), erupted in Moscow in 1553. Ivan, protesting against some incomprehensible innovations of mid-16th century, Russian painting, focussed in particular on the winged Gnadenstuhl. Interestingly, however, Makary, one of the greatest and most educated patrons of medieval Russian Orthodox art, was not concerned by this alien detail on the Kremlin icon and even defended this innovation whilst he rejected any possible link with the heretic Latins. Art historians are puzzled as to how to reconcile this contradiction, suggesting that Makary either was not honest or “did not comprehend the theological content of the image.”
In this paper, challenging both the dishonesty and the ignorance of Makary, I will scrutinize the Metropolitan’s overlooked response to Viskovaty in which he explains the meaning of the Gnadenstuhl and Christ’s wings. The aim of this investigation is twofold. Firstly, I seek to decipher the message of this imagery on the Four-part icon. Secondly, I intend to explore the motives behind Makary’s defence which can shed new light on the problem of Western-Eastern interactions of this period. At the end of my paper I will raise the question as to whether it is possible to speak about “Western influence” in 16th century Russian painting.

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Živković

University of Belgrade; Institute for Byzantine studies of Serbian academy of Sciences and Arts, Serbia

Several very valuable Russian icons are kept in the treasury of the Hilandar monastery, where they came as the gifts of Tzars of the Third Rome. Among them, one should focus special attention to an icon of Euthymios of Suzdal the Wonderworker, probably painted by some muscovite painter in the middle of the 16th century. The work in question was already noticed by the researchers of the Hilandar icon collection, but it was not published and studied adequately, so even the identity of the Russian saint was not correctly determined. That would be the main aim of our communication. Apart from it, the Hilandar icon of Euthymios of Suzdal will be treated as very valuable visual testimony of his cult and iconography, bearing in mind the fact that it is one of the oldest preserved solitary depictions of the saint in question.

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This paper explores the problem of the iconographical borrowings in the late Russian icon painting. The study intends to reveal the sources of a rare iconography “Christ the Great Hierarch with the Crucifix”, which emerged in the middle of the 17th century. Iconographical analysis confirmed the argument that the Western European iconographic type of so-called “Quinitas”, which was created for the altar in the Church of Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Torun about 1390, exercised a significant influence on Russian icons with the multiple images of Christ. Using an iconological approach, the author analysed the Western European prototype within its historical cultural and theological context.
The study pays special attention to the genetic relationship between this iconographical scheme, which is known only in a few icons from the 17th–19th centuries, and the iconographical innovation in the Novgorod icon painting in the middle of the 16th century. The author illuminates genesis and iconographic evolution of the iconographic types with the multiple images of Christ, explores their semantic proximity and the notional invariance, and describes the degree of adaptation of the original Western European motifs in Russian art. As a result, it is concluded that the concept of visualisation of an abstract idea and of creating a picture as a theological sentence by using several conventional schemes is what connects both iconographical types — “Quinitas” and “Christ the Great Hierarch with the Crucifix”. The apologetic treatise with commentaries which was found in the State Historical Museum explains the theological perception of the icons with the double and triple images of Christ. This approach becomes a theoretical basis in the icon painting school of the metropolitan Makary. Studying an original Russian iconological reflection in the middle of the 16th century and the iconographical scheme, the author sets up a typology of the metahistorical images of Christ.

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