Russian Medieval Art

Авторы обращаются к теме строительной истории древних Спасо-Преображенского и Михайло-Архангельского соборов Нижегородского кремля, рассматривая ее через призму археологических исследований XX века и ранних изобразительных источников XVI-XVII веков. Эти архитектурные памятники осмысляются как звено эволюции белокаменного зодчества Северо-Восточной Руси XIII века и как образцы уникального трёхглавого трёхпритворного типа храмовой архитектуры.

The authors turn to the topic of the building history of the ancient Transfiguration Cathedral and the Archangel Michael Cathedral of the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin, examining it through the prism of archeological research of the XX century and early pictorial sources of the XVI–XVII centuries. These architectural monuments are interpreted as a link in the evolution of the white-stone architecture of North-Eastern Russia in the XIII century and as examples of the unique three-headed triple-vestibule type of church architecture.

A new view of the icon has been developing in recent years, which differs significantly from our customary approach.  When talking about icons, we typically think of a flat schematic representation of a religious subject matter, depicted usually on a wooden board. This stereotype is deeply unsatisfactory, because in the Byzantine world icons were understood as spatial images functioning as mediators with the divine realm.  An ideal icon was thus not a flat representation, but a spatial whole constructed according to a different set of rules. In this paper we shall try to elucidate some of these rules with the help of case studies.

To begin with, we shall examine a spatial icon formed in the Kievan St. Sophia Cathedral by a mosaic image of Christ Pantocrator in the main dome, which has been shown to have a matching 'reflection' on  the bottom of the chalice used in this cathedral. Then we shall see how the golden smalt used by Byzantine masters worked to create an aura of glistering light in the space surrounding the mosaic icon of the Virgin.

Further on, I will argue that spacial aspects of iconicity can be understood through a notion of "chora", a mysterious platonic formative space-matter, notoriously difficult to comprehend in terms of Western rationalist thinking. Being a meeting ground of dialectical opposites, "chora" unites the ideal with the material, the abstract with the concrete, the holy with the mundane. We shall then turn to the icon of Divine Light in the Hagia Sophia church in Constantinople as an important example of such a spatial icon, defying positivist methodology.

We shall also critically examine some misconceptions about icons, such as those related to the role of 'pattern-books' and the reverse perspective. Last but not least, a more general notion of 'iconicity' and its manifestations in various artistic forms within cultures with Byzantine roots shall be discussed.

The piece of furniture known in Russian as the Tsar's “Place of Prayer” of the Moscow Kremlin was demolished in the 1960s and had not been studied properly ever since. In this article its form has been reconstructed based on the 19th-century drawings, 20th-century photographs and church inventory records.
The architectural form of the Tsar’s “Place of Prayer” with its unusual 16–faceted star-shaped canopy placed on an octagonal base has analogies with two Russian buildings: the Moscow Cathedral of St Basil the Blessed (1555–1561) and the Murom Church of Sts Kosmas and Damianos (1555–1556). These analogies allow the author to date the Tsar’s “Place of Prayer” in the Annunciation Cathedral back to the mid-16th century, exactly when, after the ruinous fire of 1547, its interior has been reconstructed. Later, this installation was reconstructed many times. Its only original surviving pieces are the three icons of the Holy Trinity, Saint Boris and Saint Gleb. The icons are the work of court icon-painters of the first third of the 17th century and might have been inserted into the gables that framed the base of the canopied top of the Tsar’s “Place of Prayer”.
The article is accompanied with an appendix, which includes all available textual descriptions of the Tsar’s “Place of Prayer” from the inventories of the Annunciation Cathedral.

Saint Nicholas’ cycle depicted in the narthex of the Monastery of Šiševo (1630) consists of 17 shots shaped in the 15 framed scenes which make it the most narrative one among the preserved examples in the Republic of Macedonia. The presentation of the saint’s life traditionally begins with the biographical scenes (birth with bath miracle, baptism and schooling), continuing with the rites of chirotony (consecration of deacon, priest and of bishop), which are followed by three appearances of the saint (to Ablabius, Constantine and to the three generals in prison), and six miracle rescues (of three maidens from prostitution, three men from execution, Demetrius from drowning, Christopher from death, Basil from Saracens and ship from sinking), ending with the burial of St. Nicholas and the Stefan Dečanski recovery from blindness...

In The Icon and the Square, Maria Taroutina examines how the traditional interests of institutions such as the crown, the church, and the Imperial Academy of Arts temporarily aligned with the radical, leftist, and revolutionary avant-garde at the turn of the twentieth century through a shared interest in the Byzantine past, offering a counternarrative to prevailing notions of Russian modernism.

Focusing on the works of four different artists--Mikhail Vrubel, Vasily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich, and Vladimir Tatlin--Taroutina shows how engagement with medieval pictorial traditions drove each artist to transform his own practice, pushing beyond the established boundaries of his respective artistic and intellectual milieu. She also contextualizes and complements her study of the work of these artists with an examination of the activities of a number of important cultural associations and institutions over the course of several decades. As a result, The Icon and the Square gives a more complete picture of Russian modernism: one that attends to the dialogue between generations of artists, curators, collectors, critics, and theorists.

The Icon and the Square retrieves a neglected but vital history that was deliberately suppressed by the atheist Soviet regime and subsequently ignored in favor of the secular formalism of mainstream modernist criticism. Taroutina's timely study, which coincides with the centennial reassessments of Russian and Soviet modernism, is sure to invigorate conversation among scholars of art history, modernism, and Russian culture.

Pierwszy polskojęzyczny przewodnik po Nowogrodzie Wielkim. Zaprezentowano w nim około czterdziestu pięciu zabytków historycznych miasta i okolic, ułożonych w porządku geograficznym, np. nowogrodzkiego kremla, soboru katedralnego Sofii, siedziby arcybiskupów nowogrodzkich, Dworu Jarosławowego, Targu, siedzib kupców hanzeatyckich, Grodziszcza Rurykowego. Czytelnik znajdzie tu syntetyczny opis dziejów miasta i związanego z nim bytu politycznego – średniowiecznej republiki kupieckiej, a także najważniejszych zagadnień z zakresu jego specyfiki kulturowej i religijnej, ukształtowanej pod wpływem cywilizacji bizantyńskiej, choć rozwijającej się samodzielnie.

Nowogród Wielki, jedno z wielu miast w europejskiej części współczesnej Rosji, położone – jak śpiewał Jacek Kaczmarski – „wśród pól i rozlewisk”, to prawdziwa enigma. Od wielu wieków nieprzerwanie fascynuje twórców kultury i badaczy do tego stopnia, że w powszechnym wyobrażeniu na jego temat prawda historyczna często nierozłącznie splata się z mitem. Nowogród Wielki od średniowiecza rozpalał wyobraźnię swoim bogactwem prężnego ośrodka handlowego, utrzymującego już od schyłku XII wieku kontakty z Hanzą, a tym samym będącego – na wiele wieków przed założeniem Sankt Petersburga – swego rodzaju ruskim oknem na Europę. Unikalna kultura miasta nad Wołchowem, rozkwitająca najpełniej w XIII—XV wieku, a następnie brutalnie zdławiona przez władców moskiewskich, zadaje kłam stereotypowemu wyobrażeniu, że Słowianie Wschodni nie są zdolni do życia w ustroju demokratycznym.

The Miracle of St. Nicholas of Myra about a Cuman and the Pereyaslavl' Hoard of 1912:

The stamped silver medallion with St. Nicholas's image from the Pereyaslavl’ hoard of 1912 is considered in this article as a kind of archaeological "illustration" for the Miracle about a Cuman. This medieval Russian narration is dated by the late 11th - early 12th centuries and shows the begining of penetration of St. Nicholas's cult into the Cuman religious beliefs. The Pereyaslavl' hoard of 1912 was interpreted as a deposit of the military trophies of some Cuman. St. Nicholas's image was cut out from a stamped silver frame of an icon and was fixed to some secondary wooden base as far as 10 holes for small nails were made on the edge of the medallion. So careful fixing doesn't correspond to another cases of secondary using of such images and thus it can indicate some special attitude of an owner to this medallion.

Сергий Радонежский и русское искусство второй половины XIV – первой половины XV века в контексте византийской культуры. Тезисы докладов международного научного симпозиума. Москва,10–12 ноября 2014 года. – М.: Государственный институт искусствознания, 2014. – 54 с.

Статья посвящена малоизвестному памятнику московской живописи XV в. – иконе «Богоявление» из частного собрания Воробьёвых. Недавно на этом произведении была обнаружена надпись, содержавшая имя иконописца, однако ее текст был опубликован с лакунами, в числе которых оказалось и имя мастера. Мы предлагаем свою реконструкцию надписи, основанную на других принципах ее чтения, которое нужно начинать с правой части текста и оканчивать левой. Кроме того, следует исходить из предположения, что один из фрагментов надписи исполнен тайнописью. Новое прочтение и расшифровка криптографического фрагмента позволили утверждать, что икона была написана неким попом Иваном, который вложил ее в неизвестный храм. Судя по всему, этот клирик был сравнительно образованным человеком, желавшим и показать знание тайнописи, и уточнить смысл изображенного сюжета. Он поместил надпись со своим именем в пещеру в правой части иконы, очевидно, выражая мысль о том, что при крещении верующий «погребается» вместе с Христом, чтобы затем воскреснуть вместе с Ним. Редкий для русской иконописи XV в. тип надписи дает новую информацию о средневековых вотивных текстах и их месте в замысле произведений.
The paper deals with a little-known monument of the 15th century Moscow painting – the icon of Epiphany (Baptism of Christ) from the private collection of the Vorob’ev family. Recently, an inscription containing the name of the icon painter was discovered on this work, but its text was published with lacunae, including the name of the artist. We offer our own reconstruction of the inscription based on different principles of its reading, which should be started from the right half of the text and continued in its left part. In addition, one should assume that the text in question was partly cryptographic. The new reading and decoding of the cryptographic fragment made it possible to assert that the icon was painted by some priest Ivan, who donated it to an unknown church. Apparently, this cleric was a relatively educated person who wanted to show both his knowledge of cryptography and of the subject depicted. He placed an inscription with his name in the cave in the right part of the icon, apparently expressing the idea that during the baptism the believer “is buried” with baptized Christ, in order to be resurrected with Him. Such a “visualized” type of inscriptions, rare for Russian icon painting of the 15th century, gives new information about the votive texts and their place in the concept of works.

Статья посвящена датировке и атрибуции пядничной иконы
«Богоматерь Боголюбская» (собрание Сергиево-Посадского музея-
заповедника). На ней представлено изображение Богоматери в
молении в полный рост, без Младенца на руках, которое
соответствует иконографическому типу, который в византийском
искусстве получил название Параклисис (Меситрия, Агиосоритисса).
Интерпретация этого сюжета на иконе позволяет отнести ее к
искусству 1430 – начала 1440-х гг., а колорит — включить ее в круг
произведений тверской школы.
An article is devoted to the problem of date and attribution of a small-
size icon «Virgin Bogolubskaya» (Sergiev-Posad Art and Historical
Museum). Its composition, which represents full-lenth Virgin in prayer
without a Child on her arms, corresponds to the Byzantine iconography of

Panagia Paraclisis (Παράκλησις), Mesitria or Agiosoritissa. The
interpretation of the main subject makes it possible to attribute the icon to
the art of the 1430-1440s, and the color – to include it in the circle of the
Tver artistic school.

On the So Called "Pagan Idols" near Pskov in the 16th Century:

According to Anatoly Kirpichnikov, the anthropomorphic stone sculpture, which was found near Pskov in 1897 and was lost later, can be identified as one of two pagan idols, the presence and veneration of which there in 1590 was described by the German traveler Johan David Wunderer. However, there is no reasoned ethnocultural definition and dating of this stone sculpture. And the calvinist Wunderer, apparently, described as the pagan idols the Orthodox wooden or stone sculptures of saints, the veneration of which was widespread in Russia in the 14-16 centuries.

Статья посвящена проблемам датировки и атрибуции пядничной иконы с изображением Богоматери Одигитрии в рост из Сергиево-Посадского музея. Исследование редкой иконографии памятника во взаимосвязи с его стилистическими особенностями позволяет отнести его к кругу московских памятников начала XV века. Это подтверждают выявленные аналогии из числа произведений раннего творчества Андрея Рублева (Васильевский чин 1408 г.).
An article considers the problem of date and attribution of a small-size icon with the image of full-length Virgin Hodegetria from Sergiev-Posad Art and Historical Museum. A study of its rare iconography and stylistic peculiarities allows to attribute it to Moscow artistic school and to date by the beginning of the 15 c. The closest stylistic analogies are found in the early Art of Andrey Rublev (Vasilievsky Deisis, 1408), althought the master of the Hodegetria did not belong to his circle.