Andrey Gamlitskiy
Research Institute of Theory and History of Fine Arts of the Russian Academy of Arts, Russia
Nobody doubts the important role of the use of western prints as examples for Russian art of the 17th century. As a rule they were albums of engravings on biblical themes (ouvrages), published in the end of the 16th–17th centuries in the Netherlands and Germany.
The report focuses on the little known issue of place and role of the albums on biblical themes in Western culture and arts. It was found out that the birth of the future samples of Russian art was associated with intense religious struggle in Europe in the second half of the 16th century. The initiators of the publications were free-religious dissidents (the Familists, the Remonstrants, the Mennonits), orthodox Calvinists, and Jesuits, which is directly reflected in the figurative and plastic language of illustrations.
These publications were actively used as models not only in Western Europe but also in Asia. Stained glasses, canvases and monumental paintings in churches of England, France, Germany, reliefs of Dutch houses, items of mass goods and even Chinese ink painting and engraving were based on these illustrations.
The comparison shows that the English post-medieval masters of the 16th century, Russian icon painters, and Chinese artists, reproducing the patterns from the newly discovered artistic system, used the same principles. They “converted” them into their own artistic system, including familiar realia.
Thus the facts collected by the author can significantly correct and even completely revise established views in Russian art criticism on Western engraved patterns as some minor monuments. They also allow to get some new insight into the process of dealing with the Western artistic experience in the 17th century Russia.