Independent scholar, Rome, Italy. The author of numerous publications on cultural history and art. Tarasov obtained a Ph.D. in History at the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences and a Ph.D. in Art History at Department of History and Theory of Arts of the State Moscow University. He held posts at the State Moscow University, Department of History, and at the Department of Cultural History of the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Senior Research Fellow). Tarasov has been awarded fellowships at the Istituto Ellenico di Studi Bizantini e Postbizantini di Venezia, Italy, at the Getty Research Institute, USA and at Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna, Austria.
The book is devoted to the parallel 'discovery' of Russian medieval art and the Italian 'primitiv... more The book is devoted to the parallel 'discovery' of Russian medieval art and the Italian 'primitives' at the beginning of the twentieth century. Contents: 1. Fashion, Taste and Form. 2. From Images of Italy to Early Russian Art. 3. The New Museum of Medieval Icons. 4. Florenskii, Metaphysics and Revers Perspective.
Contents: 1. Connoisseurs and collectors. 2. The Byzantine Madonna. 3. The circle of the Grand Du... more Contents: 1. Connoisseurs and collectors. 2. The Byzantine Madonna. 3. The circle of the Grand Ducal court. 4. In the perspective mirror. 5. The "Golden Age" of icon collecting. 6. Man – object – collection. Tables. Comments. Bibliography. Summary: The book offers a new, historical and cultural reading of the personal collection of Post-Byzantine and medieval Russian paintings. The discovery, study and collection of medieval icons and early Italian painting, of course, developed along parallel paths in Western Europe and in Russia. In the nineteenth century this was the preserve mainly of amateur archaeologists, and in the next century it was taken up by professional experts (connoisseurs). This volume therefore engages not only with the writings and personal art collections of Bernard Berenson (1865 – 1959), Roberto Longhi (1890 – 1970) or Federico Zeri (1921 – 1998), but also with the typologically similar works and art collections of Pavel Muratov (1881 – 1950), Alexander Anisimov (1887 – 1937) and Dmitrii Ainalov (1862 – 1939). Part of the collection of icons by D.V. Ainalov (which was acquired in the 1920s – early 30s by the German art historian Finnina Halle) is, for example, today in the Icon Museum in Recklinghausen. Many of Soviet and modern art historians, who worked as art critics and expert consultants, also had their own small collections of icons and paintings. The author’s private collection of Post-Byzantine and medieval Russian icons, which underpins this volume, also belongs to this type of collection. Each of the ten icons from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries reproduced in this book is closely connected with the history of the study and collecting of medieval Russian painting in Soviet Russia. Hence the iconography and symbolism of the artistic language of these icons are explored within the broad context of the development of their study and collection, and of the art market. Thus, the Novgorodian ‘Transfiguration’ icon, dating from the first half of the sixteenth century, comes from the former collection of one of the founders of Russian art nouveau, the architect Alexey Shchusev (1873 – 1949), and invites the reader to consider the aesthetic reassessment of medieval icons in the early twentieth century. The problem of attribution of the works of Dionysius (1444 – 1502) and the masters of his circle is highlighted by an analysis of the artistic features of the Moscow icon ‘Mother of God Hodegetria’, dating from the end of the fifteenth century. The Post-Byzantine Greek icon ‘Theotokos Hodegetria’, from the last quarter of the fifteenth century, allows us to trace not only the spread of late Paleologian icons in the artistic environments of Athos and Moscow, but also highlights the peculiarities of collecting medieval icons in Soviet Russia after World War II, for example. The book devotes particular attention to the theory of reverse perspective by Pavel Florensky (1882 – 1937), as well as to the analysis of the artistic language of icons that is grounded in it. A wealth of historical and cultural research on the collection presented in this book is complemented by the first publication of a lithograph by Marc Chagall (1887 – 1985), given by the artist to the Moscow collector of icons and Russian avant-garde art George Kostakis (1919 – 1990) in 1973. Executed by the hand of the artist himself and containing a dedication, this lithograph, as shown, has a special meaning, since it returns the reader to the very beginnings of research on the theme of ‘the icon and the avant-garde’, which today is attracting increasing attention. The last chapter of the book is devoted to theoretical reflection on the phenomenon of collecting medieval icons. It concludes that a collector’s living engagement with ancient icons constantly refreshes their emotional and creative perception of the most diverse cultural phenomena. Turning to the philosophy of the sign and the ontology of existence, noting the multiplicity of points of view in the construction of the medieval image’s artistic space, the collector is continuously reminded that medieval icons may pose the most important existential questions.
Chapter 4 of the book: Oleg Tarasov. Framing Russian Art. From Early Icons to Malevich. London: Reaktion Books, 2011, pp. 261 - 375.
Finally, the chapter of 4 of the book is devoted to the framing of pictures by the 19th century R... more Finally, the chapter of 4 of the book is devoted to the framing of pictures by the 19th century Russian Romantics, as well as to the problem of the frame in the culture of the Russian avant-garde of the 1910’s - 1920’s. The Romantic aesthetic was concerned not with the problem of imagination [as was Baroque aesthetics], nor of reason [like the aesthetics of Neoclassicism], but of emotional experience and the psychological perception of the object. Thus if the frames of the Baroque or Neoclassical periods deployed fantasy or reason in the service of their mental images, the frames of famous pictures by Vereshchagin or the Russian ‘Wanderers’ brought their consciousness to bear on a quite different objective – the naturalistic depiction of a moralistic maxim or of a historical episode. This was the background against which the Russian avant-garde declared the end of the age of easel painting, thereby ‘overcoming’ the frame-as-window and putting forward a fundamentally new aesthetic of images.
Chapter 3 of the book: Oleg Tarasov. Framing Russian Art. From Early Icons to Malevich. London: Reaktion Books, 2011, pp. 207 - 260.
The second part of the book is basically devoted to the framing of the secular picture. In the th... more The second part of the book is basically devoted to the framing of the secular picture. In the third chapter I investigate the framing, thus the exaltation, of persons of power (particularly in the halls of the Great Kremlin Palace). Above all this concerns the function of the frame of the ceremonial portrait, which changes in consequence not only of art theory, but of the conception of state power. The power of an imperial portrait consists in its frame’s bearing the formula of a title according to the proper pattern. The frame links the portrait with the historical and mythological context.
Chapter 2 of the book: Oleg Tarasov. Framing Russian Art. From Early Icons to Malevich. London: Reaktion Books, 2011, pp. 104 - 203.
This chapter is devoted to an analysis of the interior of the church of the Saviuor Not Made by H... more This chapter is devoted to an analysis of the interior of the church of the Saviuor Not Made by Hands at Abramtsevo (1881 – 2), which serves as an interesting example from which to trace the very history of the framing of the Russian religious image. In the process particular attention is paid to museum displays of Old Russian icons at the beginning of the twentieth century, when in the context of the neo-Kantian aesthetics, Old Russian icons began to be regarded as works of painting.
Основная тема книги – влияние новых теорий эпохи модерна на производство предметов культа и эсте... more Основная тема книги – влияние новых теорий эпохи модерна на производство предметов культа и эстетическое открытие древнерусских икон. Религиозные образы в стиле модерн В.М. Васнецова впервые показываются несущими все черты массовой культуры, неразрывно связанными с церковно-государственной мифологией Николая II. Повышенное внимание уделяется культовым предметам Абрамцева и Талашкина, производство которых вдохновлялось идеями Движения искусств и ремесел. Переоценка древнерусской иконы (П.Муратов, Н.Щекотов), новое коллекционирование древнерусской живописи (И.С.Остроухов, С.П.Рябушинский), а также складывание новых реальностей антикварного рынка древних икон и произведений раннеитальянских художников впервые показывается в европейском контексте. Материалы из музеев, библиотек и архивов России, Италии и Англии не только привлекут внимание читателя к ранее неизвестным фактам, но и позволят ему увидеть интересные взаимосвязи в европейской культуре начала ХХ века.
Icons in Russian art nouveau style from the imperial family's collection; religious works by Vasnetsov, Vashkov and Princess Tenisheva; the new aesthetic theories of Wolfflin, Dilthey and Berenson that influenced the reevaluation of medieval art and the building of new collections of early Italian, Byzantine and Old Russian painting in Western Europe and Russia - these are just some of the topics dealt with in this volume. Materials sourced in the museums, libraries and archives of Russia, Italy and England may bring to readers' attention not only little-known facts, but allow them to witness interesting interconnections within European culture of the early 20th century.
Introduction and the Chapter 1 of the book: Oleg Tarasov. Framing Russian Art. From Early Icons to Malevich. London: Reaktion Books, 2011, pp. 7 - 104.
In the Introduction I'd like to emphasize that the differentiation and development of different f... more In the Introduction I'd like to emphasize that the differentiation and development of different forms of frame for the visual image is a most important phenomenon in European culture. It is linked by a multitude of invisible threads to changes in humanity’s picture of the world and its value-system. On that level the frame suggests and permits the study of a picture not in isolation, but in its close interaction with the whole culture of an age. More concretely, out of this there also emerges the fundamental object of my investigation – the history of the interaction of person and image, in which the frame is problematized as a distinct means for perceiving the world. The Introduction also defines the methodological and historiographic preconditions for this task. The first part of the book is devoted to the framing of the icon. In the first chapter “Symbolic Unity” I devote particular attention to the autonomy of the frame of the medieval sacred image, that is to say to the close link between the appearance of the window-like frame with the development of the concept of an independent mimetic image.
Icon and Devotion is the first historical survey in English of the making and meaning of Russian ... more Icon and Devotion is the first historical survey in English of the making and meaning of Russian icons. The craft of icon-making is set into the context of forms of worship that emerged in the Russian Orthodox Church in the mid-17th century. I show how icons have held a special place of “Holy Russia”. I also look closely at a range of issues, from the sacred meanings of icons to how and why they were made. Wonder-working saints and the schismatic Old Believers appear in these pages, which are copiously illustrated with paintings, many of which have never before been published in the English-speaking world. By tracing the artistic vocabulary, techniques and working methods of icon painters in the last 400 years, I try to show how icons have been integral to the history of Russian art, influenced by folk traditions and Western European currents alike. This book will interest not only specialists in icons and the history of Russian art but everyone with a general interest in Russian history and culture.
The notion of the frame in art can refer not only to a material frame bordering an image, but als... more The notion of the frame in art can refer not only to a material frame bordering an image, but also to a conceptual frame. Both meanings are essential to how the work is perceived. In Framing Russian Art, I investigate the role of the frame in its literal function of demarcating a work of art and in its conceptual function affectingthe understanding of what is seen. The first part of the book is dedicated to the framework of the Russian icon. Here, I explore the historical and cultural meanings of the icon's, setting, and of the iconostasis. Then my study moves through Russian and European art from ancient times to the twentieth century, including abstract art and Suprematism. Along the way, I pay special attention to the Russian baroque period and the famous nineteenth century Russian battle painter Vasily Vereshchagin. This enlightening account of the cultural phenomenon of the frame and its ever-changing functions will appeal to students and scholars of Russian art history.
В книге излагается принципиально новая, культурологическая концепция русской иконы XVII – начала ... more В книге излагается принципиально новая, культурологическая концепция русской иконы XVII – начала ХХ века. На обширном архивном, литературном и изобразительном материале в ней затрагивается необыкновенно широкий круг вопросов: символика и иконография народных икон и их связь со старым и новым типами благочестия, массовое производство икон, тайный язык, быт и костюм иконных торговцев, формирование художественного языка икон под влиянием изменений в религиозной и светской культуре и многое другое. Обширный иллюстративный материал издания включает карты и фотографии, портреты и документы, цветные и черно-белые репродукции икон, лубков и гравюр, большая часть которых публикуется впервые.
Книга посвящена одной из волнующих современную науку тем – раме и ее роли в нашем восприятии визу... more Книга посвящена одной из волнующих современную науку тем – раме и ее роли в нашем восприятии визуального образа. Какое значение имеет рама для понимания того, что мы видим, будь то икона, картина или фотография ? Вот один из главных вопросов настоящего исследования, которое впервые затрагивает проблему рамы в русском искусстве. При этом рама понимается довольно широко: это не только обычная рамка, окаймляющая картину, но и определенный способ восприятия реальности. Поэтому читатель найдет в издании во многом неожиданный иллюстративный материал, включающий как обрамления икон, картин и гравюр, так и церковные и дворцовые интерьеры, скульптурные монументы, экспозиции музеев и выставок. В работе применяются и новые методы исследования рамы, сочетающие иконологический анализ произведений искусства с культурной антропологией.
The basic task of this volume is to present the ancient icon as a work of art in the cultural c... more The basic task of this volume is to present the ancient icon as a work of art in the cultural context of the ‘modern’. In Russian, the concept of the ‘modern’ (= Russian art nouveau) presupposes not only a style of art, but also a new aesthetic means of apprehending the world linked with the cult of art. This special world-view arose just at the beginning of the age of ‘modernity’, i.e. at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, and fundamentally determines the picture of the world of humankind right to the present day. The artistic system of the Byzantine and Old Russian icon was the language of a religious art, that up to the early 20th century was understandable largely within a religious community who apprehended the icon as a holy object, while its artistic merit was evaluated from that point of view. Such, for example, was the community of the Russian Old Ritualists. In the system of secularized culture of the early 20th century, the reception of the ancient icon was already moving into a different system of concepts, whereby it began to be regarded in terms of ‘masterpiece’: a unique work of art. The dependence of this concept on religious ritual was first indicated in the writings of W. Benjamin. The masterpiece clearly inherits its aura of ‘distance’ and ‘inaccessibility’ from the sacred object. In this book the question is posed: how, and by what route, did this re-evaluation of the Byzantine and Old Russian icon take place precisely at the beginning of the age of ‘modernity’? Our investigation demonstrates once again that it was just in the ‘fin de siècle’ period that aestheticism and the Nietzschean ‘death of God’ involved the affirmation of a multitude of different ways of looking at the world. Hence in the artistic practice of the period there can be seen not only the all-embracing flowering of symbolism and the appearance of avant-garde tendencies, but linked with these the re-evaluation of ‘primitive’ art, that earlier had not been considered as ‘art’ at all. The discovery of reverse perspective as a self-sufficient system of ordering artistic space ensured the aesthetic re-evaluation of the ancient (‘primitive’) icon on a par with Renaissance painting. The dominion of linear perspective over the totality of the point of view of the external spectator was cast into doubt. The first section of the book is devoted to the study and analysis of the artistic language of the iconic image in the art nouveau period – something that has not previously attracted the attention of specialists. It can be found in copies and reproductions of religious works by V.M.Vasnetsov, cult objects from the art-manufacturing workshops at Abramtsevo and Talashkino, and also icon frames from the firm ‘Sons of P.I.Olovyanishnikov’ in 1900-1910. These works inform us how the language of the Russian religious picture was transformed; we learn about the poetics of art nouveau iconic images, the influence of Symbolist aesthetics, medieval and folk art and theatre, and the ideas of the Western ‘Arts and Crafts’ movement on the formation of their artistic system. The particular ways saints and landscape, inscriptions and ornament were portrayed – these were essentially under the sway of a new philosophy of church interior design, which in Russia was embodied in the chapels at Abramtsevo and Talashkino, and in England in the famous London Church of the Holy Trinity in South Kensington. In their religious paintings the Pre-Raphaelites reconceptualised the medieval legends of King Arthur. In just the same way Vasnetsov, Polenova and Malyutin reconceptualised historical myths and Russian folk epics in their religious images. Responding to universal concepts of the artistic apprehension of the world, their art was invoked to assist the transformation of life. This emphasizes a basic difference between their art and that of the early icons. It abandoned the limitations of observable reality and discovered a hallucinogenic order of nature and the unmistakable influence of magical practice. The basic themes of the second part of the book are the new formalist theory of art; connoisseurship; and their influence on the study and collection of early icons as painterly masterworks. The study of art as an independent scholarly discipline dates from the middle of the 19th century. But it was not until the turn of the 19th-20th centuries that the form of an art-work is singled out from other aesthetic problems to become a separate subject for scholars, critics and artists to contemplate. It was then that schemes of formal analysis of works of visual art were hammered out in Western European scholarship. In this book we witness the various influences of Diehl, Millet, Wolfflin and Berenson on the ways early Italian, Byzantine and Old Russian painting were studied at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. The new aesthetic theory permitted a positive response to the deviations from visible forms in the medieval work of art. On this level the Western European ‘Primitives’ revealed many features in common with Byzantine and Old Russian icons. In this book the question of the discovery of Old Russian icons in 1900-1910 is for the first time posed in the context of the new interest in Italian early Renaissance painting and the formation of major private and museum collections in Russia, Western Europe and the USA. German art scholarship and formal psychological aesthetics, unprecedented revelations of the aesthetic value of Italian and Flemish ‘Primitives’, British essayists and Moscow collections of French Impressionism and the avant-garde – all these in their various ways assisted the revaluation of the Old Russian icon and the discovery of its aesthetic significance. It is also noteworthy that the study of the artistic form of early icons was intimately linked with the new realities of the antiques market, the development of advertising, of activity in the field of exhibitions and the design of art journals. A new type of journal and book illustration of early icons came into being, which educated the eye and allowed nuances of form to be perceived. Nowadays the concept of a ‘masterwork’, from one angle, is an article of faith. One of the basic themes of postmodern theory, essentially that of the unspecialized and typical, is to deny any difference between a masterwork and any other work of art, even if created for mass consumption. Nevertheless from the other point of view the concept of artistic ‘masterwork’ will continue to exist as long as do museums with their permanent exhibitions. The early icon occupies a most distinguished place among them. Like abstract art, the icon points permanently towards the unreliability of surrounding reality. In this sense it remains entirely ‘contemporary’ within the most serious aesthetic investigations of the limits of the visible world in the age of modernity.
Oleg Tarasov, Florensky and 'reverse perspective': investigating the history of a term. - in Sobornost/Eastern Churches Review, vol. 43:1, 2021, pp. 7 - 37. , 2021
O.Tarasov. The Russian Icon and the Culture of the "modern": The Renaissance of Popular Icon Painting in the Reign of Nicholas II. - Experiment, vol. 7, 2007, pp. 34 - 47.
Around 1900 Russian trade icon painting became an integral part of "stil modern" culture.
О.Ю.Тарасов. Атрибуция как феномен культуры. - Культура сквозь призму идентичности. Сб. статей. Отв. ред. Л.И.Софронова, Н.М.Филатова. М., 2006, с. 383 - 389.
О.Ю. Тарасов. Сакрализация иконописца в русской традиции. - Человек в контексте культуры. Славянский мир. Сб. статей. Отв. ред. И.И.Свирида. М., 1995, с. 53 - 64.
О.Ю. Тарасов. Старообрядческое иконопочитание и тема Антихриста. - Культура и история. Славянский мир. Сб. статей. Отв. ред. И.И.Свирида. М., 1997, с. 140 - 158.
The book is devoted to the parallel 'discovery' of Russian medieval art and the Italian 'primitiv... more The book is devoted to the parallel 'discovery' of Russian medieval art and the Italian 'primitives' at the beginning of the twentieth century. Contents: 1. Fashion, Taste and Form. 2. From Images of Italy to Early Russian Art. 3. The New Museum of Medieval Icons. 4. Florenskii, Metaphysics and Revers Perspective.
Contents: 1. Connoisseurs and collectors. 2. The Byzantine Madonna. 3. The circle of the Grand Du... more Contents: 1. Connoisseurs and collectors. 2. The Byzantine Madonna. 3. The circle of the Grand Ducal court. 4. In the perspective mirror. 5. The "Golden Age" of icon collecting. 6. Man – object – collection. Tables. Comments. Bibliography. Summary: The book offers a new, historical and cultural reading of the personal collection of Post-Byzantine and medieval Russian paintings. The discovery, study and collection of medieval icons and early Italian painting, of course, developed along parallel paths in Western Europe and in Russia. In the nineteenth century this was the preserve mainly of amateur archaeologists, and in the next century it was taken up by professional experts (connoisseurs). This volume therefore engages not only with the writings and personal art collections of Bernard Berenson (1865 – 1959), Roberto Longhi (1890 – 1970) or Federico Zeri (1921 – 1998), but also with the typologically similar works and art collections of Pavel Muratov (1881 – 1950), Alexander Anisimov (1887 – 1937) and Dmitrii Ainalov (1862 – 1939). Part of the collection of icons by D.V. Ainalov (which was acquired in the 1920s – early 30s by the German art historian Finnina Halle) is, for example, today in the Icon Museum in Recklinghausen. Many of Soviet and modern art historians, who worked as art critics and expert consultants, also had their own small collections of icons and paintings. The author’s private collection of Post-Byzantine and medieval Russian icons, which underpins this volume, also belongs to this type of collection. Each of the ten icons from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries reproduced in this book is closely connected with the history of the study and collecting of medieval Russian painting in Soviet Russia. Hence the iconography and symbolism of the artistic language of these icons are explored within the broad context of the development of their study and collection, and of the art market. Thus, the Novgorodian ‘Transfiguration’ icon, dating from the first half of the sixteenth century, comes from the former collection of one of the founders of Russian art nouveau, the architect Alexey Shchusev (1873 – 1949), and invites the reader to consider the aesthetic reassessment of medieval icons in the early twentieth century. The problem of attribution of the works of Dionysius (1444 – 1502) and the masters of his circle is highlighted by an analysis of the artistic features of the Moscow icon ‘Mother of God Hodegetria’, dating from the end of the fifteenth century. The Post-Byzantine Greek icon ‘Theotokos Hodegetria’, from the last quarter of the fifteenth century, allows us to trace not only the spread of late Paleologian icons in the artistic environments of Athos and Moscow, but also highlights the peculiarities of collecting medieval icons in Soviet Russia after World War II, for example. The book devotes particular attention to the theory of reverse perspective by Pavel Florensky (1882 – 1937), as well as to the analysis of the artistic language of icons that is grounded in it. A wealth of historical and cultural research on the collection presented in this book is complemented by the first publication of a lithograph by Marc Chagall (1887 – 1985), given by the artist to the Moscow collector of icons and Russian avant-garde art George Kostakis (1919 – 1990) in 1973. Executed by the hand of the artist himself and containing a dedication, this lithograph, as shown, has a special meaning, since it returns the reader to the very beginnings of research on the theme of ‘the icon and the avant-garde’, which today is attracting increasing attention. The last chapter of the book is devoted to theoretical reflection on the phenomenon of collecting medieval icons. It concludes that a collector’s living engagement with ancient icons constantly refreshes their emotional and creative perception of the most diverse cultural phenomena. Turning to the philosophy of the sign and the ontology of existence, noting the multiplicity of points of view in the construction of the medieval image’s artistic space, the collector is continuously reminded that medieval icons may pose the most important existential questions.
Chapter 4 of the book: Oleg Tarasov. Framing Russian Art. From Early Icons to Malevich. London: Reaktion Books, 2011, pp. 261 - 375.
Finally, the chapter of 4 of the book is devoted to the framing of pictures by the 19th century R... more Finally, the chapter of 4 of the book is devoted to the framing of pictures by the 19th century Russian Romantics, as well as to the problem of the frame in the culture of the Russian avant-garde of the 1910’s - 1920’s. The Romantic aesthetic was concerned not with the problem of imagination [as was Baroque aesthetics], nor of reason [like the aesthetics of Neoclassicism], but of emotional experience and the psychological perception of the object. Thus if the frames of the Baroque or Neoclassical periods deployed fantasy or reason in the service of their mental images, the frames of famous pictures by Vereshchagin or the Russian ‘Wanderers’ brought their consciousness to bear on a quite different objective – the naturalistic depiction of a moralistic maxim or of a historical episode. This was the background against which the Russian avant-garde declared the end of the age of easel painting, thereby ‘overcoming’ the frame-as-window and putting forward a fundamentally new aesthetic of images.
Chapter 3 of the book: Oleg Tarasov. Framing Russian Art. From Early Icons to Malevich. London: Reaktion Books, 2011, pp. 207 - 260.
The second part of the book is basically devoted to the framing of the secular picture. In the th... more The second part of the book is basically devoted to the framing of the secular picture. In the third chapter I investigate the framing, thus the exaltation, of persons of power (particularly in the halls of the Great Kremlin Palace). Above all this concerns the function of the frame of the ceremonial portrait, which changes in consequence not only of art theory, but of the conception of state power. The power of an imperial portrait consists in its frame’s bearing the formula of a title according to the proper pattern. The frame links the portrait with the historical and mythological context.
Chapter 2 of the book: Oleg Tarasov. Framing Russian Art. From Early Icons to Malevich. London: Reaktion Books, 2011, pp. 104 - 203.
This chapter is devoted to an analysis of the interior of the church of the Saviuor Not Made by H... more This chapter is devoted to an analysis of the interior of the church of the Saviuor Not Made by Hands at Abramtsevo (1881 – 2), which serves as an interesting example from which to trace the very history of the framing of the Russian religious image. In the process particular attention is paid to museum displays of Old Russian icons at the beginning of the twentieth century, when in the context of the neo-Kantian aesthetics, Old Russian icons began to be regarded as works of painting.
Основная тема книги – влияние новых теорий эпохи модерна на производство предметов культа и эсте... more Основная тема книги – влияние новых теорий эпохи модерна на производство предметов культа и эстетическое открытие древнерусских икон. Религиозные образы в стиле модерн В.М. Васнецова впервые показываются несущими все черты массовой культуры, неразрывно связанными с церковно-государственной мифологией Николая II. Повышенное внимание уделяется культовым предметам Абрамцева и Талашкина, производство которых вдохновлялось идеями Движения искусств и ремесел. Переоценка древнерусской иконы (П.Муратов, Н.Щекотов), новое коллекционирование древнерусской живописи (И.С.Остроухов, С.П.Рябушинский), а также складывание новых реальностей антикварного рынка древних икон и произведений раннеитальянских художников впервые показывается в европейском контексте. Материалы из музеев, библиотек и архивов России, Италии и Англии не только привлекут внимание читателя к ранее неизвестным фактам, но и позволят ему увидеть интересные взаимосвязи в европейской культуре начала ХХ века.
Icons in Russian art nouveau style from the imperial family's collection; religious works by Vasnetsov, Vashkov and Princess Tenisheva; the new aesthetic theories of Wolfflin, Dilthey and Berenson that influenced the reevaluation of medieval art and the building of new collections of early Italian, Byzantine and Old Russian painting in Western Europe and Russia - these are just some of the topics dealt with in this volume. Materials sourced in the museums, libraries and archives of Russia, Italy and England may bring to readers' attention not only little-known facts, but allow them to witness interesting interconnections within European culture of the early 20th century.
Introduction and the Chapter 1 of the book: Oleg Tarasov. Framing Russian Art. From Early Icons to Malevich. London: Reaktion Books, 2011, pp. 7 - 104.
In the Introduction I'd like to emphasize that the differentiation and development of different f... more In the Introduction I'd like to emphasize that the differentiation and development of different forms of frame for the visual image is a most important phenomenon in European culture. It is linked by a multitude of invisible threads to changes in humanity’s picture of the world and its value-system. On that level the frame suggests and permits the study of a picture not in isolation, but in its close interaction with the whole culture of an age. More concretely, out of this there also emerges the fundamental object of my investigation – the history of the interaction of person and image, in which the frame is problematized as a distinct means for perceiving the world. The Introduction also defines the methodological and historiographic preconditions for this task. The first part of the book is devoted to the framing of the icon. In the first chapter “Symbolic Unity” I devote particular attention to the autonomy of the frame of the medieval sacred image, that is to say to the close link between the appearance of the window-like frame with the development of the concept of an independent mimetic image.
Icon and Devotion is the first historical survey in English of the making and meaning of Russian ... more Icon and Devotion is the first historical survey in English of the making and meaning of Russian icons. The craft of icon-making is set into the context of forms of worship that emerged in the Russian Orthodox Church in the mid-17th century. I show how icons have held a special place of “Holy Russia”. I also look closely at a range of issues, from the sacred meanings of icons to how and why they were made. Wonder-working saints and the schismatic Old Believers appear in these pages, which are copiously illustrated with paintings, many of which have never before been published in the English-speaking world. By tracing the artistic vocabulary, techniques and working methods of icon painters in the last 400 years, I try to show how icons have been integral to the history of Russian art, influenced by folk traditions and Western European currents alike. This book will interest not only specialists in icons and the history of Russian art but everyone with a general interest in Russian history and culture.
The notion of the frame in art can refer not only to a material frame bordering an image, but als... more The notion of the frame in art can refer not only to a material frame bordering an image, but also to a conceptual frame. Both meanings are essential to how the work is perceived. In Framing Russian Art, I investigate the role of the frame in its literal function of demarcating a work of art and in its conceptual function affectingthe understanding of what is seen. The first part of the book is dedicated to the framework of the Russian icon. Here, I explore the historical and cultural meanings of the icon's, setting, and of the iconostasis. Then my study moves through Russian and European art from ancient times to the twentieth century, including abstract art and Suprematism. Along the way, I pay special attention to the Russian baroque period and the famous nineteenth century Russian battle painter Vasily Vereshchagin. This enlightening account of the cultural phenomenon of the frame and its ever-changing functions will appeal to students and scholars of Russian art history.
В книге излагается принципиально новая, культурологическая концепция русской иконы XVII – начала ... more В книге излагается принципиально новая, культурологическая концепция русской иконы XVII – начала ХХ века. На обширном архивном, литературном и изобразительном материале в ней затрагивается необыкновенно широкий круг вопросов: символика и иконография народных икон и их связь со старым и новым типами благочестия, массовое производство икон, тайный язык, быт и костюм иконных торговцев, формирование художественного языка икон под влиянием изменений в религиозной и светской культуре и многое другое. Обширный иллюстративный материал издания включает карты и фотографии, портреты и документы, цветные и черно-белые репродукции икон, лубков и гравюр, большая часть которых публикуется впервые.
Книга посвящена одной из волнующих современную науку тем – раме и ее роли в нашем восприятии визу... more Книга посвящена одной из волнующих современную науку тем – раме и ее роли в нашем восприятии визуального образа. Какое значение имеет рама для понимания того, что мы видим, будь то икона, картина или фотография ? Вот один из главных вопросов настоящего исследования, которое впервые затрагивает проблему рамы в русском искусстве. При этом рама понимается довольно широко: это не только обычная рамка, окаймляющая картину, но и определенный способ восприятия реальности. Поэтому читатель найдет в издании во многом неожиданный иллюстративный материал, включающий как обрамления икон, картин и гравюр, так и церковные и дворцовые интерьеры, скульптурные монументы, экспозиции музеев и выставок. В работе применяются и новые методы исследования рамы, сочетающие иконологический анализ произведений искусства с культурной антропологией.
The basic task of this volume is to present the ancient icon as a work of art in the cultural c... more The basic task of this volume is to present the ancient icon as a work of art in the cultural context of the ‘modern’. In Russian, the concept of the ‘modern’ (= Russian art nouveau) presupposes not only a style of art, but also a new aesthetic means of apprehending the world linked with the cult of art. This special world-view arose just at the beginning of the age of ‘modernity’, i.e. at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, and fundamentally determines the picture of the world of humankind right to the present day. The artistic system of the Byzantine and Old Russian icon was the language of a religious art, that up to the early 20th century was understandable largely within a religious community who apprehended the icon as a holy object, while its artistic merit was evaluated from that point of view. Such, for example, was the community of the Russian Old Ritualists. In the system of secularized culture of the early 20th century, the reception of the ancient icon was already moving into a different system of concepts, whereby it began to be regarded in terms of ‘masterpiece’: a unique work of art. The dependence of this concept on religious ritual was first indicated in the writings of W. Benjamin. The masterpiece clearly inherits its aura of ‘distance’ and ‘inaccessibility’ from the sacred object. In this book the question is posed: how, and by what route, did this re-evaluation of the Byzantine and Old Russian icon take place precisely at the beginning of the age of ‘modernity’? Our investigation demonstrates once again that it was just in the ‘fin de siècle’ period that aestheticism and the Nietzschean ‘death of God’ involved the affirmation of a multitude of different ways of looking at the world. Hence in the artistic practice of the period there can be seen not only the all-embracing flowering of symbolism and the appearance of avant-garde tendencies, but linked with these the re-evaluation of ‘primitive’ art, that earlier had not been considered as ‘art’ at all. The discovery of reverse perspective as a self-sufficient system of ordering artistic space ensured the aesthetic re-evaluation of the ancient (‘primitive’) icon on a par with Renaissance painting. The dominion of linear perspective over the totality of the point of view of the external spectator was cast into doubt. The first section of the book is devoted to the study and analysis of the artistic language of the iconic image in the art nouveau period – something that has not previously attracted the attention of specialists. It can be found in copies and reproductions of religious works by V.M.Vasnetsov, cult objects from the art-manufacturing workshops at Abramtsevo and Talashkino, and also icon frames from the firm ‘Sons of P.I.Olovyanishnikov’ in 1900-1910. These works inform us how the language of the Russian religious picture was transformed; we learn about the poetics of art nouveau iconic images, the influence of Symbolist aesthetics, medieval and folk art and theatre, and the ideas of the Western ‘Arts and Crafts’ movement on the formation of their artistic system. The particular ways saints and landscape, inscriptions and ornament were portrayed – these were essentially under the sway of a new philosophy of church interior design, which in Russia was embodied in the chapels at Abramtsevo and Talashkino, and in England in the famous London Church of the Holy Trinity in South Kensington. In their religious paintings the Pre-Raphaelites reconceptualised the medieval legends of King Arthur. In just the same way Vasnetsov, Polenova and Malyutin reconceptualised historical myths and Russian folk epics in their religious images. Responding to universal concepts of the artistic apprehension of the world, their art was invoked to assist the transformation of life. This emphasizes a basic difference between their art and that of the early icons. It abandoned the limitations of observable reality and discovered a hallucinogenic order of nature and the unmistakable influence of magical practice. The basic themes of the second part of the book are the new formalist theory of art; connoisseurship; and their influence on the study and collection of early icons as painterly masterworks. The study of art as an independent scholarly discipline dates from the middle of the 19th century. But it was not until the turn of the 19th-20th centuries that the form of an art-work is singled out from other aesthetic problems to become a separate subject for scholars, critics and artists to contemplate. It was then that schemes of formal analysis of works of visual art were hammered out in Western European scholarship. In this book we witness the various influences of Diehl, Millet, Wolfflin and Berenson on the ways early Italian, Byzantine and Old Russian painting were studied at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. The new aesthetic theory permitted a positive response to the deviations from visible forms in the medieval work of art. On this level the Western European ‘Primitives’ revealed many features in common with Byzantine and Old Russian icons. In this book the question of the discovery of Old Russian icons in 1900-1910 is for the first time posed in the context of the new interest in Italian early Renaissance painting and the formation of major private and museum collections in Russia, Western Europe and the USA. German art scholarship and formal psychological aesthetics, unprecedented revelations of the aesthetic value of Italian and Flemish ‘Primitives’, British essayists and Moscow collections of French Impressionism and the avant-garde – all these in their various ways assisted the revaluation of the Old Russian icon and the discovery of its aesthetic significance. It is also noteworthy that the study of the artistic form of early icons was intimately linked with the new realities of the antiques market, the development of advertising, of activity in the field of exhibitions and the design of art journals. A new type of journal and book illustration of early icons came into being, which educated the eye and allowed nuances of form to be perceived. Nowadays the concept of a ‘masterwork’, from one angle, is an article of faith. One of the basic themes of postmodern theory, essentially that of the unspecialized and typical, is to deny any difference between a masterwork and any other work of art, even if created for mass consumption. Nevertheless from the other point of view the concept of artistic ‘masterwork’ will continue to exist as long as do museums with their permanent exhibitions. The early icon occupies a most distinguished place among them. Like abstract art, the icon points permanently towards the unreliability of surrounding reality. In this sense it remains entirely ‘contemporary’ within the most serious aesthetic investigations of the limits of the visible world in the age of modernity.
Oleg Tarasov, Florensky and 'reverse perspective': investigating the history of a term. - in Sobornost/Eastern Churches Review, vol. 43:1, 2021, pp. 7 - 37. , 2021
O.Tarasov. The Russian Icon and the Culture of the "modern": The Renaissance of Popular Icon Painting in the Reign of Nicholas II. - Experiment, vol. 7, 2007, pp. 34 - 47.
Around 1900 Russian trade icon painting became an integral part of "stil modern" culture.
О.Ю.Тарасов. Атрибуция как феномен культуры. - Культура сквозь призму идентичности. Сб. статей. Отв. ред. Л.И.Софронова, Н.М.Филатова. М., 2006, с. 383 - 389.
О.Ю. Тарасов. Сакрализация иконописца в русской традиции. - Человек в контексте культуры. Славянский мир. Сб. статей. Отв. ред. И.И.Свирида. М., 1995, с. 53 - 64.
О.Ю. Тарасов. Старообрядческое иконопочитание и тема Антихриста. - Культура и история. Славянский мир. Сб. статей. Отв. ред. И.И.Свирида. М., 1997, с. 140 - 158.
Oleg Tarasov. Spirituality and the Semiotics of Russian Culture: From the Icon to Avant-Garde Art. - In: Modernism and the Spiritual in Russian Art: New Perspectives. Ed. by L.Hardiman, N.Kozicharov. L., 2017, p. 115 - 128.
The relationship between the avant-garde and the icon is of great importance for the discussion o... more The relationship between the avant-garde and the icon is of great importance for the discussion of the semiotics of Russian culture and the spiritual tradition in Russian art. The first reason is a historical one. From this perspective, the icon and the avant-garde image are diametrically opposite sign systems. In the icon, symbol coincides with meaning. Not by accident, it was the act of naming that gave icons their force. In the medieval consciousness a title was inseparable from the identity of the person bearing it. However, the avant-garde image (the abstract image in particular) is a pure sign able to acquire new meanings spontaneously. The sign and its meaning are in an arbitrary relationship here. Moreover, in the medieval system of aesthetics an icon could be understood only in the context of the ritual associated with it. As we know, in medieval aesthetics, elements giving pleasure did not belong to the artistic idea. From this came the principle that the icon was not considered as a form of 'free' art that was drawn into the service both of the Church and the government. Only in Renaissance art theory did pleasure become one of the aims of art. For the icon, the individual perspectives of the artist and the spectator do not come into play. As a result, the art of the medieval icon painter lay in knowledge of the rules of the craft, as opposed to creative imagination. The aim of the icon is to enable an individual to perceive an image as a truth imposed upon the mind from outside, as revealed only to the Holy Fathers and the saints.
Олег Тарасов. Флоренский и обратная перспектива. Из истории термина. - Искусствознание, 2019, вып. 4, с. 26 - 57., 2019
Эпоха модерна - это переходная эпоха от классического к неклассическому знанию в философии. Поэто... more Эпоха модерна - это переходная эпоха от классического к неклассическому знанию в философии. Поэтому появившееся в начале ХХ века понимание древнерусской иконы как «шедевра живописи» стало не только завоеванием формальной школы искусствознания, но также постклассической философии и богословия. Особая роль здесь принадлежала, как известно, Павлу Александровичу Флоренскому (1882-1937), утверждавшему, что живопись древней иконы представляет нам невидимые, ноуменальные структуры окружающего мира. Не останавливаясь на уровне стилистических описаний, Флоренский трактует икону в контексте своей символической философии («конкретной метафизики»), открывая тем самым подлинное назначение обратной перспективы как оригинальной пространственной системы средневекового образа. Святоотеческая традиция богословия иконы развивалась здесь не только на фоне современных эстетических теорий, но и в контексте новых достижений математической теории. Усердное изучение философом в 1910-е годы классиков религиозного мистицизма привнесло в его интерпретацию обратной перспективы характерное для мистиков увлечение иными «способами знания".
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Books by Oleg Tarasov
Icons in Russian art nouveau style from the imperial family's collection; religious works by Vasnetsov, Vashkov and Princess Tenisheva; the new aesthetic theories of Wolfflin, Dilthey and Berenson that influenced the reevaluation of medieval art and the building of new collections of early Italian, Byzantine and Old Russian painting in Western Europe and Russia - these are just some of the topics dealt with in this volume. Materials sourced in the museums, libraries and archives of Russia, Italy and England may bring to readers' attention not only little-known facts, but allow them to witness interesting interconnections within European culture of the early 20th century.
The artistic system of the Byzantine and Old Russian icon was the language of a religious art, that up to the early 20th century was understandable largely within a religious community who apprehended the icon as a holy object, while its artistic merit was evaluated from that point of view. Such, for example, was the community of the Russian Old Ritualists. In the system of secularized culture of the early 20th century, the reception of the ancient icon was already moving into a different system of concepts, whereby it began to be regarded in terms of ‘masterpiece’: a unique work of art. The dependence of this concept on religious ritual was first indicated in the writings of W. Benjamin. The masterpiece clearly inherits its aura of ‘distance’ and ‘inaccessibility’ from the sacred object. In this book the question is posed: how, and by what route, did this re-evaluation of the Byzantine and Old Russian icon take place precisely at the beginning of the age of ‘modernity’? Our investigation demonstrates once again that it was just in the ‘fin de siècle’ period that aestheticism and the Nietzschean ‘death of God’ involved the affirmation of a multitude of different ways of looking at the world. Hence in the artistic practice of the period there can be seen not only the all-embracing flowering of symbolism and the appearance of avant-garde tendencies, but linked with these the re-evaluation of ‘primitive’ art, that earlier had not been considered as ‘art’ at all. The discovery of reverse perspective as a self-sufficient system of ordering artistic space ensured the aesthetic re-evaluation of the ancient (‘primitive’) icon on a par with Renaissance painting. The dominion of linear perspective over the totality of the point of view of the external spectator was cast into doubt.
The first section of the book is devoted to the study and analysis of the artistic language of the iconic image in the art nouveau period – something that has not previously attracted the attention of specialists. It can be found in copies and reproductions of religious works by V.M.Vasnetsov, cult objects from the art-manufacturing workshops at Abramtsevo and Talashkino, and also icon frames from the firm ‘Sons of P.I.Olovyanishnikov’ in 1900-1910. These works inform us how the language of the Russian religious picture was transformed; we learn about the poetics of art nouveau iconic images, the influence of Symbolist aesthetics, medieval and folk art and theatre, and the ideas of the Western ‘Arts and Crafts’ movement on the formation of their artistic system. The particular ways saints and landscape, inscriptions and ornament were portrayed – these were essentially under the sway of a new philosophy of church interior design, which in Russia was embodied in the chapels at Abramtsevo and Talashkino, and in England in the famous London Church of the Holy Trinity in South Kensington. In their religious paintings the Pre-Raphaelites reconceptualised the medieval legends of King Arthur. In just the same way Vasnetsov, Polenova and Malyutin reconceptualised historical myths and Russian folk epics in their religious images. Responding to universal concepts of the artistic apprehension of the world, their art was invoked to assist the transformation of life. This emphasizes a basic difference between their art and that of the early icons. It abandoned the limitations of observable reality and discovered a hallucinogenic order of nature and the unmistakable influence of magical practice.
The basic themes of the second part of the book are the new formalist theory of art; connoisseurship; and their influence on the study and collection of early icons as painterly masterworks. The study of art as an independent scholarly discipline dates from the middle of the 19th century. But it was not until the turn of the 19th-20th centuries that the form of an art-work is singled out from other aesthetic problems to become a separate subject for scholars, critics and artists to contemplate. It was then that schemes of formal analysis of works of visual art were hammered out in Western European scholarship. In this book we witness the various influences of Diehl, Millet, Wolfflin and Berenson on the ways early Italian, Byzantine and Old Russian painting were studied at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. The new aesthetic theory permitted a positive response to the deviations from visible forms in the medieval work of art. On this level the Western European ‘Primitives’ revealed many features in common with Byzantine and Old Russian icons. In this book the question of the discovery of Old Russian icons in 1900-1910 is for the first time posed in the context of the new interest in Italian early Renaissance painting and the formation of major private and museum collections in Russia, Western Europe and the USA. German art scholarship and formal psychological aesthetics, unprecedented revelations of the aesthetic value of Italian and Flemish ‘Primitives’, British essayists and Moscow collections of French Impressionism and the avant-garde – all these in their various ways assisted the revaluation of the Old Russian icon and the discovery of its aesthetic significance. It is also noteworthy that the study of the artistic form of early icons was intimately linked with the new realities of the antiques market, the development of advertising, of activity in the field of exhibitions and the design of art journals. A new type of journal and book illustration of early icons came into being, which educated the eye and allowed nuances of form to be perceived. Nowadays the concept of a ‘masterwork’, from one angle, is an article of faith. One of the basic themes of postmodern theory, essentially that of the unspecialized and typical, is to deny any difference between a masterwork and any other work of art, even if created for mass consumption. Nevertheless from the other point of view the concept of artistic ‘masterwork’ will continue to exist as long as do museums with their permanent exhibitions. The early icon occupies a most distinguished place among them. Like abstract art, the icon points permanently towards the unreliability of surrounding reality. In this sense it remains entirely ‘contemporary’ within the most serious aesthetic investigations of the limits of the visible world in the age of modernity.
Papers by Oleg Tarasov
Icons in Russian art nouveau style from the imperial family's collection; religious works by Vasnetsov, Vashkov and Princess Tenisheva; the new aesthetic theories of Wolfflin, Dilthey and Berenson that influenced the reevaluation of medieval art and the building of new collections of early Italian, Byzantine and Old Russian painting in Western Europe and Russia - these are just some of the topics dealt with in this volume. Materials sourced in the museums, libraries and archives of Russia, Italy and England may bring to readers' attention not only little-known facts, but allow them to witness interesting interconnections within European culture of the early 20th century.
The artistic system of the Byzantine and Old Russian icon was the language of a religious art, that up to the early 20th century was understandable largely within a religious community who apprehended the icon as a holy object, while its artistic merit was evaluated from that point of view. Such, for example, was the community of the Russian Old Ritualists. In the system of secularized culture of the early 20th century, the reception of the ancient icon was already moving into a different system of concepts, whereby it began to be regarded in terms of ‘masterpiece’: a unique work of art. The dependence of this concept on religious ritual was first indicated in the writings of W. Benjamin. The masterpiece clearly inherits its aura of ‘distance’ and ‘inaccessibility’ from the sacred object. In this book the question is posed: how, and by what route, did this re-evaluation of the Byzantine and Old Russian icon take place precisely at the beginning of the age of ‘modernity’? Our investigation demonstrates once again that it was just in the ‘fin de siècle’ period that aestheticism and the Nietzschean ‘death of God’ involved the affirmation of a multitude of different ways of looking at the world. Hence in the artistic practice of the period there can be seen not only the all-embracing flowering of symbolism and the appearance of avant-garde tendencies, but linked with these the re-evaluation of ‘primitive’ art, that earlier had not been considered as ‘art’ at all. The discovery of reverse perspective as a self-sufficient system of ordering artistic space ensured the aesthetic re-evaluation of the ancient (‘primitive’) icon on a par with Renaissance painting. The dominion of linear perspective over the totality of the point of view of the external spectator was cast into doubt.
The first section of the book is devoted to the study and analysis of the artistic language of the iconic image in the art nouveau period – something that has not previously attracted the attention of specialists. It can be found in copies and reproductions of religious works by V.M.Vasnetsov, cult objects from the art-manufacturing workshops at Abramtsevo and Talashkino, and also icon frames from the firm ‘Sons of P.I.Olovyanishnikov’ in 1900-1910. These works inform us how the language of the Russian religious picture was transformed; we learn about the poetics of art nouveau iconic images, the influence of Symbolist aesthetics, medieval and folk art and theatre, and the ideas of the Western ‘Arts and Crafts’ movement on the formation of their artistic system. The particular ways saints and landscape, inscriptions and ornament were portrayed – these were essentially under the sway of a new philosophy of church interior design, which in Russia was embodied in the chapels at Abramtsevo and Talashkino, and in England in the famous London Church of the Holy Trinity in South Kensington. In their religious paintings the Pre-Raphaelites reconceptualised the medieval legends of King Arthur. In just the same way Vasnetsov, Polenova and Malyutin reconceptualised historical myths and Russian folk epics in their religious images. Responding to universal concepts of the artistic apprehension of the world, their art was invoked to assist the transformation of life. This emphasizes a basic difference between their art and that of the early icons. It abandoned the limitations of observable reality and discovered a hallucinogenic order of nature and the unmistakable influence of magical practice.
The basic themes of the second part of the book are the new formalist theory of art; connoisseurship; and their influence on the study and collection of early icons as painterly masterworks. The study of art as an independent scholarly discipline dates from the middle of the 19th century. But it was not until the turn of the 19th-20th centuries that the form of an art-work is singled out from other aesthetic problems to become a separate subject for scholars, critics and artists to contemplate. It was then that schemes of formal analysis of works of visual art were hammered out in Western European scholarship. In this book we witness the various influences of Diehl, Millet, Wolfflin and Berenson on the ways early Italian, Byzantine and Old Russian painting were studied at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. The new aesthetic theory permitted a positive response to the deviations from visible forms in the medieval work of art. On this level the Western European ‘Primitives’ revealed many features in common with Byzantine and Old Russian icons. In this book the question of the discovery of Old Russian icons in 1900-1910 is for the first time posed in the context of the new interest in Italian early Renaissance painting and the formation of major private and museum collections in Russia, Western Europe and the USA. German art scholarship and formal psychological aesthetics, unprecedented revelations of the aesthetic value of Italian and Flemish ‘Primitives’, British essayists and Moscow collections of French Impressionism and the avant-garde – all these in their various ways assisted the revaluation of the Old Russian icon and the discovery of its aesthetic significance. It is also noteworthy that the study of the artistic form of early icons was intimately linked with the new realities of the antiques market, the development of advertising, of activity in the field of exhibitions and the design of art journals. A new type of journal and book illustration of early icons came into being, which educated the eye and allowed nuances of form to be perceived. Nowadays the concept of a ‘masterwork’, from one angle, is an article of faith. One of the basic themes of postmodern theory, essentially that of the unspecialized and typical, is to deny any difference between a masterwork and any other work of art, even if created for mass consumption. Nevertheless from the other point of view the concept of artistic ‘masterwork’ will continue to exist as long as do museums with their permanent exhibitions. The early icon occupies a most distinguished place among them. Like abstract art, the icon points permanently towards the unreliability of surrounding reality. In this sense it remains entirely ‘contemporary’ within the most serious aesthetic investigations of the limits of the visible world in the age of modernity.