Russian Evolution - Religious Icons After The 'Golden Age'
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>Date: Wed, 09 Jun 2004 20:00:42 -0700
>From: "VRev. Victor Sokolov" <rector@h...>
Published by The Washington Post, June 5, 2004
Russian Evolution: Religious Icons After The 'Golden Age'
By Linda Hales
Washington Post Staff Writer
(The Washington Post, June 5, 2004) - The connoisseur's playbook for
assessing Russian icons hasn't been updated in more than 70 years. Medieval
treasures are viewed as artistic masterpieces from a distinct Golden Age.
All that came later -- including silver frames studded with jewels, and
Renaissance-style renditions of saints amid sumptuous decor -- is evidence
of a spiritual art form in decline.
Now comes "Tradition in Transition: Russian Icons in the Age of the
Romanovs." The exhibition at Hillwood Museum & Gardens takes an
unconventional view. The art form didn't die in 1700, as scholars often
maintain -- it evolved.
For evidence, guest curator Wendy R. Salmond presents 43 icons, highly
decorated covers and religious books dating from the 18th to the early 20th
century. The artifacts were gathered by Hillwood's founder, Marjorie
Merriweather Post, and two other American private collectors, all of whom
benefited from diplomatic postings in Moscow during the 1930s, when Russian
art was selectively made available to westerners in exchange for hard currency.
Post and crew collected "late" icons, meaning they were made long after
the so-called Golden Age of the 15th century. Salmond contends that late
can also be great. All icons serve as spiritual windows to Heaven. Salmond
believes that icons of the recent centuries provide a window on Russian
society during its most tumultuous years.
In the changing facial features of a saint, Salmond reads the impact of
Peter the Great. The modernizing czar not only banished beards and rough
table manners as he imported culture from the West, he also tried to rid
Russian Orthodoxy of unsophisticated icon painters. Salmond spots the rise
of an elite class in the encrustation of pearls on an image of the Mother
of God.
Commercialism, even in a country dominated by peasants, sparked a market
for icons mass-printed on color presses. In a darkened hovel, where
miracles were needed, what saintly spirit would notice the difference?
An elaborate 1912 icon bears witness to the gap between ruler and subject
just before the Russian Revolution. Called the "Mother of God Pledge of
Sinners," the icon begins with the traditional painting of tempera on wood.
But this small painting -- it measures 5 by 3 11/16 inches -- was finished
with a cover of finely worked gold studded with pearls and emeralds. The
Mother of God wears not only a jeweled crown but also a matching
double-strand diamond necklace and bracelet worthy of a czarina's birthday
ball.
If a fine icon could resemble a bauble from the Faberge workshop, the
exhibition catalogue notes that folk icons created in village workshops
were being produced by painters known as "God smearers."
Hillwood's exhibition seeks to illustrate how a coherent visual language
evolved in the pursuit of modernization. Greek painters gave way to
distinctly Russian characterizations, which faltered in the face of western
realism, perspective, shading and purely decorative finesse. Some icon
makers tried oil paint, in addition to the traditional tempera pigments
mixed with egg yolk. During the reign of Catherine the Great, rococo
styling flourished.
One branch of the church persisted with old rituals and time-honored
renditions of saints, which are still replicated today, and experts aren't
complaining. Richard Temple in London, who is considered the dean of icon
dealers, responded to a query by e-mail:
"I personally only like the craftsmanship of the 16th and 17th centuries.
Later they seem to me too often gaudy and kitsch," he wrote. An icon that
"does not fall into the baroque and naturalistic or European style is still
powerful, when it conforms to the ancient symbolic and schematic manner."
Gerard Hill, director of Russian works of art for Sotheby's, has no
trouble seeing Russia's troubled social fabric reflected in the jeweled
icon covers that Post loved to collect.
"It was symptomatic of the whole period," Hill says.
But when considering an icon's value as art, he also returns to tradition.
"I think you can find exquisitely painted icons from this period," Hill
says, if only because some late-19th-century workshops were still dedicated
to painting in the 14th-century style.
"For the ordinary person who hasn't studied the subject, it is hard to
tell the difference," he says. "But the wonderful thing is that you can
stand before these two icons, and the icon from the 14th century will move
you unconsciously. It has a spiritual essence that will be communicated."
Salmond, an associate professor of art history at Chapman University in
Orange, Calif., has studied Hillwood's icons for years. And in this
exhibition, she has made the best of a pretty good thing. The two major
collections of Golden Age icons are in Russia. Americans such as Post were
able to acquire only newer icons.
"In the context of the times, none of these were considered national
treasures," Salmond says, acknowledging that bejeweled objects were far too
decadent for the Soviet era. "You can either say that's a decline, or you
can say, 'My God, how interesting.' "
Post, heir to the cereal fortune of her father, C.W. Post, collected
18th- and 19th-century French and Russian decorative arts. Her interest in
Russian works of art began when her husband, Joseph Davies, served as U.S.
ambassador to the Soviet Union in 1937-38. Post and Davies began to gather
icons, as did Post's friend Frances Wilkinson Rosso, wife of Italian
ambassador to Moscow Augusto Rosso. Davies was followed in his post by
Laurence A. Steinhardt, who also collected icons. The Steinhardt and Rosso
collections enable Salmond to tell her story. Steinhardt collected icons
with gilding but also those of the peasantry.
The word "icon" comes from the Greek word for image. Russians inherited
icon painting from Byzantium, where it had evolved from a tradition of
mosaic and fresco painting in early Byzantine churches. Images and artistic
style were originally sanctioned by the Orthodox church as art worthy of
spiritual contemplation. Rules dictated how each scene and saint should be
depicted, which explains how an archaic style of painting abandoned by the
West continues today. It was not until the 14th century that Russian
painters Russified the imagery.
By the 19th century, artistry gave way to business. The demand for icons
grew with the population, and mechanical reproduction was introduced. Icons
were printed, and even imported from Europe. Gold and silver covers were
originally made to protect complete paintings. In cheaper modern versions,
silver became tin, and painters completed only faces, hands and feet, which
showed through. The 1917 revolution halted the production of icons, and
workshop painters shifted to papier-mache boxes, decorating them with
scenes from folk tales instead of spirits from Heaven.
Even in Russia, icons were not appreciated as art until the era was at a
close. In 1901 Czar Nicholas II established a commission for the
development of icon painting and donated money to sustain village
craftsmen. He also staged a major exhibition of icons in 1913 to mark the
300th anniversary of his family's dynasty. About that time, restorers began
cleaning old icons that had been blackened by the smoke of church candles.
It had been common practice to repaint icons when the image grew dull. Only
when restorers removed the layers did they uncover the rich color and gold
leaf associated with icons of the Golden Age. That's when art collectors in
the West began to take notice.
So far, Temple says, Russia's new wealthy class is busy buying 19th- and
early-20th-century paintings. But he expects that to change once people
notice that a legitimate "medieval" icon painted in 1850 can be purchased
for a few thousand dollars.
Hill makes a persuasive case for appreciation, whatever the era or cost.
"Russian icons are the great Russian art," he says. "It's not as if they
were painting icons as well as other subjects. They were painting icons.
This was the engine, the medium of great Russian art."
Tradition in Transition: Russian Icons in the Age of the Romanovs
continues through Dec. 31 at Hillwood Museum & Gardens, 4155 Linnean Ave.
NW. Reservations required. For details visit www.hillwoodmuseum.org or
call 202-686-5807.