Icons. Nikodim Kondakov

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      The veneration for icons in early Russia soon exceeded the bounds of ancient custom and the visual side of prayer took the form of endless bowing to icons. In the enumeration of Latin errors, which forms part of the epistle of Michael Cerularius (A.D.1054), much is made of their refusal of reverence for the ‘holy icons’, which was one of the most conspicuous outer signs of Orthodoxy.[30] However, in Russia icons attained an incomparably wider development than in Byzantium; a practically new class, that of the devotional icon (molénnaya), arose (almost unknown to the Greeks except in the type of folding icons for journeys, derived from the pilgrim icons) and there came into being a great artistic craft.

      This development was of course closely connected with the abundance of wood supplied by the boundless forests of northern Russia – in the east it was difficult to get hold of a panel for a big fixed icon that would not warp or split. In Russia the icon-makers showed off their mastery of woodwork in executing the orders of the Stróganovs. It should be noted that only eighteenth-century icons and common ones at that (raskhózhiya, made for general sale, not for particular orders) are warped ‘outwards’ with the painted side convex so that they split and the shpónki or cleats for keeping them straight fall out of their grooves at the back. Early icons of the Novgorod, Pskov and First Moscow or so-called Stróganov schools remain straight, though it is true that the straightness is sometimes attained by the restorers steaming or ‘poulticing’ them on one side.

      At the time when Russian icon-painting in the Suzdal’ and Novgorod school touched its highest point, the word ‘sizable’ (mêrnaya from mêra, measure) came to be applied to an icon which was of the size customary for each class of icon. This is an important point, as the term often occurs in the inventories of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The ‘sizable’ icon came in when the dimensions of the icons in the different tiers of the iconostas had become settled and the types of devotional icons more or less fixed. This fixing of dimensions resulted in a transformation of the nature of the craft: every pupil or under-workman could now copy a drawing and transfer it (perevód is the kind of stencil so produced) to another icon for an iconostas or oratory without having to make it larger or smaller, that is to say, without having to possess any skill in drawing. From this we can easily see why the drawing in the Novgorod school simplifies the Byzantine scheme to such a degree, whereas in the Moscow school, such rude simplification is less prevalent: of course the church iconostases were of the first importance in this, as by ready tracings they could be executed by pupils or mere journeymen.

      Greek iconostases[31] and their imitations, the iconostases of early Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and the like, consisted of marble or wooden pillars or columns, joined below by slabs (cancelli, transennae), above by an entablature: in the spaces between the columns were the large ‘fixed’ icons and the smaller ‘Festivals’. Upon the occasion of a festival it was usual to place the appropriate icon upon a lectern or desk for the faithful to kiss: accordingly icons of this class were the most likely to be easily taken from their places and put within reach and this Greek custom was adopted in Russia. But in fifteenth century Russia, and soon after in the Greek countries, there arose a new type of iconostas with five or six tiers. This seems to be the result of the introduction of the triple icon called Deisus. The Deesis (I keep the Greek shape of the word) showed Christ enthroned with the Virgin on his right and S. John the Baptist on his left: it might consist of whole figures, half-lengths, or merely heads. As long as this was a single icon, though it spoilt the symmetry of the other ‘fixed’ icons, it was put in the bottom tier. When it became a triple icon, it was set above the Festivals where the Greeks (and Latins) had of old put the Crucifixion flanked sometimes by Mary and S. John the Divine.

      26. Royal Doors, middle of the 16th century.

      Regional Museum of Rivne, Ukraine.

      27. Royal Doors, 15th to 16th century.

      National Museum, Przemys’l, Poland.

      28. Saint Sergius and Saint Bacchus, 7th century.

      Museum of Western and Oriental Art, Kiev.

      When the three icons of the Deesis were put up high, they were flanked on each side by figures of Archangels, Apostles, and Fathers. This is often called a chin[32] and might form a whole Deesis tier, sometimes called the tier of Holy Fathers (Svyatíteli). Next made was the crowning tier of the Prophets on each side of the Virgin and Child. Much later, added above this, was the tier of the Patriarchs. Both these tiers might have the figures either whole or half length. They might even be fixed to the chancel arch, so as entirely to separate the apse from the nave. Above all was sometimes a row of Cherubim. The first mention of these high iconostases is in 1508.

      The iconostas of the Uspenski Cathedral at Moscow provides an excellent example. In the bottom row are the Royal Doors with the Annunciation and the Four Evangelists; to the north or left of this is the Kiot of СКАЧАТЬ