Echoes of Faith in 16th-Century Icon-Painting

The text below is the excerpt of the book Icons (ISBN: 9781783107001), written by Nikodim Pavlovich Kondakov, published by Parkstone International.

Works of art must be analysed from two points of view: the artistic form and the spiritual content, but this analysis is one, as form and content are each the immediate condition of the other and depend one upon the other. At the first, theoretical, glance it would appear that form is the decisive, since it is the forms power that condition the possibility of expressing the subject in execution. This attitude is natural and necessary as long as art lives independently, but when it begins to borrow from external models the fashion of its development changes and with it that of the artistic handicraft. Such has been the position of European art in general ever since the beginning of the sixteenth century, when the great artistic upward movement that we are accustomed to call the Renaissance finished its work, and there was attained, as it were, a definite artistic mould recognised by almost all Europe as perfect, or at least generally acceptable, and as the only conceivable basis for further progress. At this moment came the culmination of the creative process in French religious art and there set in a period of neglect which destroyed in countless numbers the masterpieces that filled the churches at the close of the Middle Ages.

The next stage was the elaboration of the results achieved by the genius and skill of Raphael, Michelangelo, and Da Vinci, and at the same time a worship of them as being the perfection of art, at least upon the side of form. The circle of artists who were responsible for this aesthetic valuation proclaimed that the perfection they had attained was the model that all should imitate, side by side with the antique. Naturally Eastern Europe hastened to adopt certain forms of this art and apply them to its own religious craft, all the more so because in the sixteenth century the west was still continuing to treat religious subjects. The famous Panselinos, working at Protaton on Mount Athos about 1540, used the artistic models of Italy in order once more to renew Byzantine art by the forms and methods of Italian painting, and it is clear that Panselinos was not the only one. As the representative of a special level of craftsmanship, Panselinos is put by himself in the Greek painters’ guides, but mention is also made of the Italo- Cretan painting and its head, with Theophanes the Cretan, who was working on Athos at about the same time, decorating the chief church of the Lavra in 1535. These two schools only differed in manner and were not in opposition to each other. However, Panselinos is not to be considered a representative of the Venetian craft of icon-painting in the same way that we can assert this of the Italo-Cretans, as both Venice and Crete have the same rich deep colouring and have passed it on to their derivatives.

The icons of the sixteenth century, whether Greek or Russian, and of both the Nóvgorod and of the earliest Moscow schools, have something in common about their style and some kinship with Italian design in the sixteenth century and the Venetian colouring. But the general look continues to impress upon us that Greek icon-painting, in every respect, held fast to the fundamental Byzantine type. This makes all the questions involving western influence on east European art very subtle and complicated. It is a case of similar artistic processes going on simultaniously, but taking their own course quite separately.

The more characteristic and surprising is the parallel between east and west which we can observe in the content of religious art. At the end of the fifteenth century east Greek icon-painting, and after it, that of Russia began a long-enduring process by which the subjects treated were extended to embrace a number of mystical and didactic themes unknown to Byzantium. S. Sophia – the Divine Wisdom, an idea long familiar to Byzantium but only in the late fifteenth century embodied and represented upon a Greek icon; The Only-Begotten Son – The Word of God; The Fatherhood of God; In the Grave in the Flesh; Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord; Let us come, ye People, and, worship God in three Persons; The Six Days; God rested on the Seventh Day; Credo; Pater Noster; It is meet to glorify thee, Theotokos; In thee rejoiceth, Gracious One (B.V.M.), every Creature; The Praise of the Theotokos; The Burning Bush; The Assembly of Our Lady; The Assembly of the Archangel Michael; The Assembly of the Archangel Gabriel; All Ss. Sunday; Mid-Pentecost; The Liturgy; The Indiction; The Vision of Eulogius; The Restoration of the Church of the Resurrection, and suchlike.

With the appearance of the didactic subjects there began during the fourteenth century a growing complication of the whole iconography of the Eastern Church. This affected both the compositions of the Festivals telling the story of Christ, the Virgin, and of the Church, and also the subjects for the iconostases. In these there appeared the Orders (Chiný) or tiers of Prophets and Patriarchs, representations of the sages of antiquity, the parables, and subjects from the monastic cycle, edifying, didactic, anecdotic, highly composite and including many figures. A feature of these compositions is that they are not so much artistic as literary, many of them illustrating and incorporating prayers, canticles and formulae used in the service of the Church, but that it will require much work to seek out in Greek and Russian texts the passages which have given rise to all of them and to order them in an historical group. We can but select a few outstanding examples from this class and give these only in late versions. If we apply to this special group the general name of ‘didactic icons’, which will serve until a better can be found, we shall definitely exclude the prejudice with which some interpreters approach the matter – a prejudice that makes them find in these icons a deep and mystical symbolism and ascribe it all to the spirit of the Russian people.

As a matter of fact, this symbolism was elaborated by the Greek monastic icon-painting of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. We cannot indeed so far point to Greek originals for all these subjects, but their descriptions in the Greek painters’ guides are as good evidence as actual works of art, and we must constantly bear in mind that further study of icons in the Grecian east will reveal to us many originals. It is equally wrong to deny the existence of any mystical side to the Greek models; a symbolic manner of presenting both subjects and details has been the constant practice of Christian art from the first beginnings of icon-painting in the east. Of course, there is no denying that such didactic themes encouraged both monks and laymen in ancient Russia to apply ill-understood reading to a consciously superior delight in far-fetched interpretations and edifying divinations.

Of course, at the base of all iconographic subjects was religion, and faith is yoked to mystic presentation. It is our business to make clear this religious basis. However, there is no need to read symbolic significance and see spiritual illumination in the fact that the lions on each side of Daniel are painted different bright colours.

To get a better insight into Icons, please continue this exciting adventure by clicking on:

Ebook

Hardcover