Icon painting has reached its zenith in Ukraine between the 11th and 18th centuries. This art is appealing because of its great openness to other influences - the obedience to the rules of Orthodox Christianity in its early stages, the borrowing from Roman heritage or later to the Western breakthroughs - combined with a never compromised assertion of a distinctly Slavic soul and identity. This book presents a handpicked and representative selection of works from the 11th century to the late Baroque period.
Leseprobe
21. Menology from the Month of February, c. 15 th century.
Saint Catherine ' s Monastery, Mount Sinai, Egypt.
Remarkable is a series of icons painted on the lid of a wooden box of the sixth century from the Lateran treasure, now in the Vatican. The box is about 8 inches (20 cm.) long, shallow, and filled with a mass of wax and plaster in which are embedded pebbles and other fragments from holy places in Palestine. Five small-scale compositions show the Ascension and the Resurrection (or rather the Women at the Sepulchre) above, the Crucifixion across the middle, and below the Nativity and the Baptism. In this order the pilgrim had visited the holy places: the church of the Ascension on the Mount of Olives, the church of the Resurrection, the church of Golgotha in Jerusalem, the cave of the Nativity at Bethlehem and the banks of the Jordan. Each subject is characteristic both in composition and in the types of the figures, but here we are concerned only with the material setting. The theme of the Resurrection is pictured In the form of the approach of the women to the sepulchre (Mary hastens thither first of all, in agreement with the Apocrypha current at the time). Accordingly the composition shows us the gates of the small rotunda of Our Lord's sepulchre; this looks from outside like a low octagonal tower crowned by a conical metal roof like a bell-tent, with a cross at the top: the open doors allow us to see an altar with a cross upon it in the front room of the sepulchre, now the Chapel of the Angel. The sepulchre is a cave hewn out of the rock. The cover is protected from top to bottom by a grille or trellis. Above the pointed roof hangs (from the ceiling of Constantine's great rotunda, the church of the Anastasis) a circular candelabrum such as used to be called rota, later corona luminis, a hoop with openings in it to take lamps. To this day the pilgrims take away from Jerusalem as mementoes icons of the Resurrection with a picture of the modern marble canopy which contains the remains of the cave; out of its doors rises Christ, flying upwards according to the Catholic representation.
The scene of the Nativity gives also an ancient recollection of the cave at Bethlehem, still open and accessible from outside to pilgrims, as it was before Constantine built his great church over it. The cave is a shallow niche hewn in the rock, above it is the star, within is the manger with the Child, at the entrance on the left Mary lies on a mattress, on the right Joseph sits sleepily. Jesus at his Baptism is figured as a child standing in the water up to his neck. John puts his hand upon him, two disciples stand behind, on the right are two Angels offering towels and above the hand of God sending down the Dove. This is a very ancient composition, as are those of the Ascension and of the Crucifixion, with the two thieves (youthful) and the figure of Christ clothed in the purple robe. This type goes back to the fourth or fifth century. Other surviving icons point to the Syro-Egyptian origins of this kind of painting. First we must mention the well-known tradition of the Vernicle, the napkin at Edessa upon which the face of Christ was imprinted. We have copies of this under the names of the Holy Mandylion, [22] 'the image not made with hands', and 'the holy napkin', in wall-paintings from the eleventh or twelfth centuries, and devotional icons of this type are very common in Russia from the fourteenth century. This tradition was clearly founded upon the Egyptian portraits painted upon mummy cloths. It is well known that the Byzantine icon that rose to prominence in the fifth to sixth centuries was afterwards brought to a sudden stop by the growth in the eighth century of
Leseprobe
21. Menology from the Month of February, c. 15 th century.
Saint Catherine ' s Monastery, Mount Sinai, Egypt.
Remarkable is a series of icons painted on the lid of a wooden box of the sixth century from the Lateran treasure, now in the Vatican. The box is about 8 inches (20 cm.) long, shallow, and filled with a mass of wax and plaster in which are embedded pebbles and other fragments from holy places in Palestine. Five small-scale compositions show the Ascension and the Resurrection (or rather the Women at the Sepulchre) above, the Crucifixion across the middle, and below the Nativity and the Baptism. In this order the pilgrim had visited the holy places: the church of the Ascension on the Mount of Olives, the church of the Resurrection, the church of Golgotha in Jerusalem, the cave of the Nativity at Bethlehem and the banks of the Jordan. Each subject is characteristic both in composition and in the types of the figures, but here we are concerned only with the material setting. The theme of the Resurrection is pictured In the form of the approach of the women to the sepulchre (Mary hastens thither first of all, in agreement with the Apocrypha current at the time). Accordingly the composition shows us the gates of the small rotunda of Our Lord's sepulchre; this looks from outside like a low octagonal tower crowned by a conical metal roof like a bell-tent, with a cross at the top: the open doors allow us to see an altar with a cross upon it in the front room of the sepulchre, now the Chapel of the Angel. The sepulchre is a cave hewn out of the rock. The cover is protected from top to bottom by a grille or trellis. Above the pointed roof hangs (from the ceiling of Constantine's great rotunda, the church of the Anastasis) a circular candelabrum such as used to be called rota, later corona luminis, a hoop with openings in it to take lamps. To this day the pilgrims take away from Jerusalem as mementoes icons of the Resurrection with a picture of the modern marble canopy which contains the remains of the cave; out of its doors rises Christ, flying upwards according to the Catholic representation.
The scene of the Nativity gives also an ancient recollection of the cave at Bethlehem, still open and accessible from outside to pilgrims, as it was before Constantine built his great church over it. The cave is a shallow niche hewn in the rock, above it is the star, within is the manger with the Child, at the entrance on the left Mary lies on a mattress, on the right Joseph sits sleepily. Jesus at his Baptism is figured as a child standing in the water up to his neck. John puts his hand upon him, two disciples stand behind, on the right are two Angels offering towels and above the hand of God sending down the Dove. This is a very ancient composition, as are those of the Ascension and of the Crucifixion, with the two thieves (youthful) and the figure of Christ clothed in the purple robe. This type goes back to the fourth or fifth century. Other surviving icons point to the Syro-Egyptian origins of this kind of painting. First we must mention the well-known tradition of the Vernicle, the napkin at Edessa upon which the face of Christ was imprinted. We have copies of this under the names of the Holy Mandylion, [22] 'the image not made with hands', and 'the holy napkin', in wall-paintings from the eleventh or twelfth centuries, and devotional icons of this type are very common in Russia from the fourteenth century. This tradition was clearly founded upon the Egyptian portraits painted upon mummy cloths. It is well known that the Byzantine icon that rose to prominence in the fifth to sixth centuries was afterwards brought to a sudden stop by the growth in the eighth century of
Titel
Icons
Untertitel
Unterstützte Lesegerätegruppen: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
EAN
9781783107001
ISBN
978-1-78310-700-1
Format
E-Book (epub)
Hersteller
Herausgeber
Genre
Veröffentlichung
15.09.2015
Digitaler Kopierschutz
frei
Dateigrösse
74.54 MB
Anzahl Seiten
396
Jahr
2015
Untertitel
Englisch
Unerwartete Verzögerung
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