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Moscow School of Painting (c.1500-1700) : Icons, Murals
Moscow School of Painting (c.1500-1700) : Icons, Murals
Contents
• Introduction
• Muscovite Icon Painting
• Characteristics of Muscovite Icons
• Stroganov Workshop, Solvychegodsk
• Patronage of the Tsars
• Simon Ushakov and Naturalism in Russian Painting
• Church Mural Paintings: Yaroslavl and Kostroma
Saviour Made Without Hands (1658) Before and After the Moscow School
Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow. For earlier styles of Medieval painting in Russia, please see our article on the
By Simon Ushakov.
Novgorod School of Icon Painting (1100-1500). For later painting styles from
the 17th century, see: Petrine art (1686-1725) in St Petersburg, under Tsar
Peter the Great. This introduced Russian Painting (18th century), dominated by
religious murals and portraiture. After this, the modern school emerged: please
see Russian Painting (19th Century).
Introduction
From Kiev, the home of Russian medieval painting, the centre of gravity of
Russian art shifted to Novgorod (as well as Yaroslavl, Vladimir-Suzdal, Pskov
and Tver) before settling in Moscow. By the sixteenth century, the great
interest the Muscovites took in mundane affairs loosened the ties which had so
far knit the Russian people and church into a single entity. Religion still stood at
the basis of Muscovite life, but henceforth both the Crown and the people
tended to react to events differently from the clerics, and although all remained
for the time unconscious of the split, the effect of the layman's more worldly
outlook can be clearly perceived in the decreased religious intensity of
Muscovite icon painting. The appearance in Moscow of large numbers of
Western religious etchings likewise had an important impact on icon-painters,
Mother of God Hodigitria (1502-3)
Russian Museum, St. Petersburg. increasing their doubts as to the need for the severe limitations which the old
An exquisite example of early iconographic tradition imposed upon their art.
Christian Medieval art by Dionysius,
an early master of the Muscovite School.
NOTE: For the greatest icon painters before the Moscow school, see:
Theophanes the Greek, Founder of Novgorodian school; Andrei Rublev, noted
for the Holy Trinity Icon (c.1416); and other Medieval Artists (1100-1400).
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These doubts came to a head in the sixteenth century as the indirect result of a
fire which devastated Moscow in 1547. It destroyed so many of the capital's
icons that the Tsar was obliged to borrow icons from Novgorod, Smolensk,
Dmitrov and Zvenigorod, and as he was anxious to return them to their homes
as soon as possible, he strengthened the ranks of Moscow's icon-painters by
also borrowing artists from Novgorod and Pskov, Between them the painters he
employed produced some excellent panels, and all might still have been well
with the future of icon-painting, but for the interference of a bigoted priest,
clerk to the Tsar's council and himself no mean painter, named Viscovati. It is
tempting to ascribe Viscovati's intervention to professional jealousy, aggravated
by a warped and prejudiced mind somewhat akin to that of John Knox, the
Scottish Reformation preacher. Whatever his reason, Viscovati criticized the
panels of Christian art produced by his contemporaries on religious grounds,
claiming that they deviated from iconographic tradition. He demanded that the
second Stoglav council be summoned to sit with Silvester, Ivan IV's favourite
cleric, to examine the icons from an ethical standpoint. Compliance with this
request introduced official, as distinct from traditional, control over icon-
painters, who were henceforth expected to adhere to the authorized versions of
religious scenes as recorded in the ancient manuals called "Podliniki"
(Authentic versions).
The first Russian equivalent of an Academy of Fine Arts took the form of
workshops established in the Palace of Arms by Ivan IV, nicknamed the
Terrible (1533-1584). The finest Muscovite paintings, illuminations and
metalwork were created by the artists employed there, many of whom were
greatly attracted by Western naturalism. Nevertheless, these artists succeeded
in producing sufficient icons of quality during the later half of the sixteenth and
the first quarter of the seventeenth centuries to constitute a distinctive and
highly creditable school of Muscovite icon-painting.
These panel paintings - typically executed in tempera rather than the older
encaustic paint, or more modern oils - are easily recognizable by the profusion
of detail in their exceedingly decorative backgrounds. The abundance of
architectural features is especially characteristic, as well as the fact that these
buildings reproduce contemporary architectural trends instead of imaginary
outlines. On the other hand, such non-Russian features as, for instance,
mountains, are handled purely decoratively instead of either naturalistically or
in the traditional manner. The saints have the round faces of Muscovites, but
the colours of their robes, though still pleasing, cannot compare with the
magnificent vitality of the colour schemes used by the Novgorod school of
icon painting, and tend to be dull and metallic. Broadly speaking, the full
extent of Moscow's colour palette ranges from blood-reds and yellows to
browns, with black shadows.
It was towards the end of the sixteenth century that two nephews of the first
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Muratov dates the Stroganov workshop's output to the years from 1580 to
1620, for he considers that the style ended with the death in 1621 of its
greatest exponent, Procopius Chirin. Although Chirin is the school's
acknowledged master, Nicephorus Savin does not fall far short of him. The
latter's icon of St. John in the Desert is a superb piece of precise painting. A
close examination of its elaborate background - which can stand the test of
enlargement to any size - reveals a scene as fascinating in its way as any
created by the Netherlandish painter Hieronymus Bosch.
Savin's brother Nazarius, together with his assistant Arafiev, were the first
Stroganov artists to attract Moscow's attention by means of the fresco
paintings which they produced in 1580 for Solvychegodsk Cathedral. As a
result of this, many of the workshop's artists were summoned to Moscow to
work for the Tsar, notably Simon Borozdin, Ivan Sobelev, Mihailov,
Emilyan Moskvitin, and the brothers Nicephorus and Nazarius Savin and
Istom Savin, to name but a few. Many of them were honoured with the title of
"Royal Icon Painters", one usually conferred only upon the Palace of Arms
artists.
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whom he toyed with the idea of marrying, and it was left to Godunov to be the
first royal sponsor of portraiture in Moscow.
But none of these teachers exercised anything like the same influence as the
etchings which were percolating into Moscow from Western Europe. The most
important of these appeared in Piscator's Bible, published in Amsterdam in
1650, It was illustrated by nearly three hundred woodcuts copied by Piscator,
alias Jan Visscher, from the works of Western artists. The woodcuts disclosed
a new world to the Muscovites, revealing the full power of naturalistic painting,
and their influence is apparent in the work of more than one painter.
Simon Ushakov (1626-1686) was the most outstanding of the painters thus
affected. He was obviously fascinated by Western religious paintings, for he
was tempted to try his hand at producing naturalistic illustrations to the
Scriptures. His achievements in this sphere were thoroughly successful; were
they better known Ushakov would certainly be numbered among Europe's great
draughtsmen. His fine woodcut depicting Man's Seven Deadly Sins is full of the
vigour and conviction which are unfortunately lacking in his icons. Yet Ushakov
is mainly known for his icons, which have always been greatly admired in
Russia. Indeed, his contemporaries had so high a regard for his genius that
Ushakov had the signal honour of being appointed "Court Painter" at the
unusually early age of twenty-one. This unfortunately meant that he had to
devote a good deal of time to icon-painting. His icon of the Virgin of Vladimir
(1652); his Christ (1657) and his Annunciation (1659), though ranking as his
best icons, are marred by excessive humanism and sentimentality, and suggest
that Ushakov was too preoccupied with naturalism to be able to devote himself
heart and soul to icon-painting. Though his panels are strictly iconographic yet
they prove Ushakov to have been an icon-painter of compromise, and this very
ability to compromise resulted in his icons serving as models of perfection from
the turn of the seventeenth century to as late as the middle of the nineteenth.
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depicted realistically, but that their features are cleverly reproduced on sheets
of paper, and whenever we icon-painters see either printed or skilfully painted
likenesses of Christ or the Virgin whether in the possession of foreigners or of
our own people, our eyes are filled with exceeding love and happiness, nor are
we inflamed with jealousy, nor do we revile the foreigners because we see
them in possession of well painted religious pictures. On the contrary we
esteem such blessed objects above all worldly chattels, and we lovingly either
purchase them or beg for them as gifts of inestimable value, and we receive
Christ's image with veneration, and kiss it lovingly. Whence comes it then that
we are now instructed to represent all saintly faces as swarthy and sombre? Is
it that the human race is cast in a single mould? Were all saints dusky and
haggard looking?" Joseph proceeded to plead for permission to depict saints as
physically beautiful, and reminded the clerics that God referred to "the good as
fair and comely, the evil as dark, bloody and emaciated", and recalled that
when Moses descended from Sinai afier hearing God's words "none could look
upon him, such was the radiance of his countenance".
Although we do not how how Ushakov reacted to this appeal, his superb
woodcuts shows that he was in sympathy with many of Joseph's views, and
there are suggestions that he welcomed every opportunity to work on anything
but icons. He appears to have spent a good deal of his time designing gold-
and-enamel church vessels in the Palace of Arms metal workshops, and he is
also known to have decorated firearms, and drawn maps and plans. Certain
contemporaries refer to his paintings on paper, but give no information about
their subjects or style, so Ushakov's reputation as an artist rests today on his
panels, frescoes and woodcuts.
The wall-space which the paintings had to cover was so vast that a number of
new iconographic scenes had to be evolved to provide the painters with the
necessary subject-matter, The fact that many of the new scenes were taken
from Piscator's Bible is an indication of the interest which Russia as a whole,
the provinces no less than Moscow, took in both Early Renaissance painting
(c.1400-1490) and High Renaissance painting (c.1490-1530). But although the
Yaroslavl and Kostroma painters drew their material from Piscator, it never
occurred to them to reproduce his woodcuts in their original form, for none of
them was a servile copyist. All automatically transposed Piscator's scenes into
essentially Russian compositions painted in a style which reveals a surprising
kinship with the designs produced today in the Palekh papier mache workshops
sponsored by the Soviet Government. If space were available it would be
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Yet, for all their charm and interest, these wall-paintings fall as far short of
inspired art as do the delicate, accomplished and sophisticated Stroganov icons
and the outstandingly decorative panels executed in the Palace of Arms
workshops. We must conclude that although Moscow produced a class of art-
lovers whose high critical standards and powers of quick appreciation played
their part in the surprisingly rapid development of Russia's eighteenth-century
Westernized art, she was psychologically unequal to inspire work of the same
high quality as Novgorod.
• For the meaning of important Russian frescoes and tempera pictures, see: Famous Paintings Analyzed.
• For information about Muscovite painting and sculpture, see: Homepage.
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