Ukrainian Iconography
nick cobb
Ukraine: Artists Recreate Glories Of Kyiv Rus
By Lily Hyde
Kyiv, 12 August 1998 (RFE/RL) - There is an ancient belief among
Orthodox Christians in Kyiv
that when Christ returns to Earth on judgment day, he will walk the
route connecting the city's
ancient Golden Gate built in the days of Kyiv Rus with St. Sophia
Cathedral and St. Michael's
Church of the Golden Domes.
On a crystal-clear summer morning, the Mikhailivsky bell tower looks
fabulous enough for the belief
to be true. It rises from the square like a blue and gold illusion; and
to a certain extent it is. The walls
are certainly solid, the gleam of the dome is genuine gold leaf. But the
curling white moldings and little
windows on the tower's facade are not real, they are painted
trompe-l'oeil fantasies from the brushes
of artists Serhy Bayandin and Yuri Huzenko.
The monastery of Mikhailivsky Zolotoverkhy, or St. Michael's of the
Golden Domes, was destroyed
by the Soviets in 1934 to make way for government buildings in the
center of the city. It is now being
rebuilt, with government money and donations. The church, which in its
original, 12th-century
incarnation took five years to build, is rising again at dream-like
speed.
The 48-meter bell tower took six months to reconstruct, and artists are
hurrying to complete the
icons and frescos that adorn it in time for Ukrainian Independence day
on August 24.
Huzenko and Bayandin, restorers and specialists in trompe-l'oeil, or art
designed to give a
three-dimensional illusion to a flat surface, were responsible for the
tower's sky-blue exterior with its
decorative trickery, and for icons over the entrance on east and west
facade. The 16 panels of the
'drum' around the top of the dome depicting apostles and prophets are
their work, and they are now
completing sketches for a second 'drum' around the main dome of the
church.
Neither Huzenko nor Bayandin profess any strong religious convictions,
but for the past six months
they have immersed themselves in Orthodox artistic traditions and
history and "lived here like monks"
in order to produce art that recreates in style and feeling the
paintings of the destroyed original
church. "Right now we are living and breathing this, so we have to know
what we are painting,"
Huzenko told RFE/RL.
The artists, who teamed up seven years ago, have a repertoire of styles
ranging from Byzantine to
Baroque, Rococo to Realist. What they lack is a style of their own, but
it is that which makes them
so good as artist-restorers.
"We've studied so thoroughly and worked such a long time as restorers
that we've already formed
the mentality of the period we're working in, and when people see our
work, the colors,
composition, drawing, they think it was done not now but back then,"
says Huzenko. "Unlike most
artists who are interested in self expression, we want to express the
style and spirit of different
epochs. We have a great commitment to making our work convincing."
The artists spend much of their time in libraries and museums
researching their work, says Bayandin.
For that reason they found it no problem to base as much of the bell
tower designs as possible on
pictures of what was there before.
Photographs of the original designs are few and poor quality, and at
first artists drew up their own
designs for the frescos on the walls on either side of the tower. The
authorities deemed otherwise
however, and now the scenes, depicting on one side the miracles of St.
Barbara, are based on the
hazy sepia photographs of the originals, transformed into limpid, fresh
pinks, blues and yellows.
Although the outside of the bell tower matches the original plans and
dimensions, inside, thanks to
new building techniques allowing the walls to be less thick, builders
created a chapel that was never
there originally.
Built to commemorate the Triokhsvyatitelska church, which stood where
then ministry of foreign
affairs now looms, the little white chapel has a gilded iconostasis,
also Bayandin and Huzenko's
work.
For the iconostasis and icons on the bell tower facades and the domes,
Huzenko and Bayandin drew
on traditional images of saints and prophets. Their dusty workshop,
right next to the canteen used by
monks and seminary students, is stacked with drawing boards and the tall
panels on which the
figures for the cathedral dome's 'drum' will be painted.
Despite their dedication to accuracy, the two artists have stopped stop
short of the painstaking
processes undertaken by the original icon painters. Paints used to be
mixed by hand from mineral
and plant extracts, egg yolk and tree resin, while the panels had to be
specially prepared from lime
wood covered with layers of glaze made from fish glue and chalk.
Icon art originally demanded religious commitment from the painter, as
every icon was an act of
prayer. Bayandin and Huzenko relaxed that rule too.
"Earlier it was very strict - icon painters had to be religious
believers," says Bayandin. "Now we
need more faith in ourselves, that we can complete them. I don't
specially go to church but I've tried
to do my best through using my talents, so that people may use my icons
for prayer. It's very
pleasing when people approach them not merely as an artistic work but as
icons, that's the best
reward for my work."
12-08-98
12-08-98