What canons existed for writing icons. Why does the iconographic canon exist? Genres of Russian icon painting

The church synthesizes in itself several kinds of arts: choral singing, architecture, theatrical action and painting.

Painting is represented by such directions as icon painting.

Iconography (from "icon" and "to write")- a kind of medieval painting, religious in themes and plots, cult in purpose. In the most general sense, the creation of sacred images intended to be an intermediary between the Divine and earthly worlds during individual prayer or in the course of Christian worship, one of the forms of manifestation of Divine truth.

Icon- this is not a free thought of the artist, embodied on canvas. Any icon must comply with certain canons, so there is a certain system that contains a certain set of rules and requirements for icons. This system is called iconography.

Iconography(from Greek eikō ́ n - image, image and gra ́ phō - writing), in the visual arts, a strictly established system of options for depicting a character, event, plot, usually associated with religious themes. Iconography also called the section of art history that studies the symbolism and canonical plots of art.

Iconography with its canons there is more than one century. Over these long years, the main directions of iconography have developed:

• Iconography Jesus Christ
• Iconography Mother of God
• Iconography"holidays" in Christian art
• Iconography Buddhas and deities in Buddhist art.

Canons of iconography.

Strict guidelines for creation icons already existed in ancient civilizations. The strictest rules iconography concerned Christ, the Mother of God, angels and saints. For example, Christ was depicted either alone or surrounded by saints. The appearance of Christ had to correspond to Christian traditions: he appeared majestic, middle-aged, with a small beard and long hair.

On the sides of the head of the Savior there should be letters - an abbreviation for the name Jesus Christ, as well as a halo lined with a cross, which should remind of the sacrifice made for people.

Images of Christ could be main (only the head), shoulder-length (up to the shoulders), half-length and full-length. The right hand of Jesus should be raised in a gesture of blessing.

Iconographic the canons in the creation of the icon with the face of the Mother of God were less strict, which allowed a wide variety of images of the Virgin to appear.

The mystery of the Trinity must be embodied in any image of the Trinity. It should be said that at different times the understanding of the plot of the Trinity was different.

Rublev's icon became canonical. When depicting the Holy Trinity, any indicating inscriptions (even in an abbreviated form) are prohibited, the image of a halo over Jesus is prohibited. God the Father also cannot be portrayed, since no one has seen him and no one knows what he looks like.

As for clothes, here iconography also puts forward a number of rules. It should be bright spots that repeat the curves of the body. As for the background, it was originally mountains or hills that aspired upwards. Later, buildings appear floating in the air in the images.

Iconography and other sciences.

Archaeologists under the term " iconography» understand the study of the meaning of the image, including the portrait.

Art historians have the concept of " iconography"even more broadly, it is an entire discipline that sets itself the task of identifying and classifying works of art. This discipline developed in Germany and France in 1840.

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Icon(from gr. - image, image) - accepted by the Church and consecrated image of Jesus Christ, the Mother of God, saints and various events from Sacred and Church history. According to strictly defined rules (canons), icons are painted with paints (usually tempera) on a wooden (linden or pine) board, covered with a special primer.

Asist- the composition used in icon painting for gluing sheets of gold and silver. It has the appearance of a thick, sticky mass of dark brown color, prepared from garlic or beer sludge by languishing in an oven to the desired state. When used, it is diluted with water so that they can draw the finest lines with a brush. On the asist, gold holds very well and does not lose its luster.

Icon board- a wood base for an icon, usually linden, less often pine, spruce, oak or cypress. Several boards are tightly connected with the sides into a single shield of the desired size, glued with animal glue (for example, casein glue) and additionally fastened with dowels from the back or from the ends (so as not to warp). On the front side, a flat recess is made - the ark.

Iconography(Greek - description of the image) - a description of the features and canons of the image of a certain person or plot on icons.

Kiot- a decorated frame for an icon or a glazed cabinet for several icons.

Levkas(Greek) - white primer for icon painting. Consists of crushed chalk (or plaster) and glue. It is applied gradually, multi-layered on the surface of the board intended for writing the icon. The surface of the gesso is carefully polished.

Nimbus- radiance around the head: a sign of God's grace in the form of a disk or light rays, depicted on icons as a symbol of spiritual glory.

Salary- an overlay decoration attached to the icon over the paint layer. It was made from non-ferrous metals, pearls, beads, gold embroidery, carved gilded wood. Sometimes it was decorated with precious stones. Salaries cover individual parts of the painting or the entire surface, except for the face, arms and legs.

Skladen- the likeness of a small iconostasis of several, connected by hinges, folding wings with icons. Designed for travelers.

"Tenderness" Serafimo-Diveevskaya- the icon of the Mother of God, which belonged to Seraphim of Sarov. In front of her, he died in prayer. Celebration on August 10th.

"Assuage my sorrows"- the miraculous icon of the Mother of God, brought to Moscow by the Cossacks in 1640. The Mother of God is depicted on the icon with her head slightly tilted to one side, to which she puts her left hand. Her general appearance, as it were, tells us that the Queen of Heaven listens to the tears and prayers of all believers who turn to Her with their sorrows, needs and sorrows. With her right hand, the Mother of God holds the feet of the Divine Infant. The Savior holds before Himself in His hands an unfolded scroll on which the words of the Divine exhortation are inscribed: "Judge righteous judgment, do mercy and bounty ..." Celebration on February 7.

- miraculous icon. According to legend, written by the Evangelist Luke. In Russia, it was originally located in the Feodorovsky Gorodetsky Monastery. During the invasion of Batu, both Gorodets and the monastery were devastated, the inhabitants fled, and they did not have time to take the icon with them. A few decades later, on August 16, 1239, she appeared to the younger brother of Alexander Nevsky, Prince Vasily Yaroslavich of Kostroma, in the forest, on a tree, while hunting. On the eve, many residents of Kostroma saw some kind of warrior walking through the streets of the city, and in his hands he held an icon. The face of this warrior reminded the inhabitants of the icon-painting image of the holy great martyr Theodore Stratilates. The found icon was placed in the church of St. Theodore Stratilates in Kostroma and was named Feodorovskaya. At the place where the icon was found, the prince founded a monastery in honor of the Image of the Savior Not Made by Hands. In 1260, a miraculous image saved Kostroma from the Tatar hordes. In 1613, the young Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov, the first sovereign of the Romanov dynasty, was blessed with the Feodorovskaya Icon to reign. Currently, the icon is in the Assumption Cathedral in Kostroma. Before this icon, according to tradition, they pray for a safe birth. The icon is celebrated on March 27 and August 29.

"Healer"- an icon on which the Queen of Heaven is depicted standing at the patient's bed, a milk is visible on the patient's lips. The history of this image is as follows. One pious cleric fell seriously ill and turned to the Mother of God with a prayer, at the same moment he saw the Guardian Angel at his bedside, asking the Mother of God for the healing of the sick, and the Mother of God appeared, who exuded a saving drop of milk from Her breasts on the lips of the sick man and became invisible. The patient felt completely healthy and told everyone about the miracle that had happened. Before this icon they pray for the healing of the sick. Celebration of the icon - October 1.

- a miraculous icon, revered by both Orthodox and Catholics. Written, according to legend, the Evangelist Luke. In 326, the holy Empress Helen, having received this icon as a gift, brought it to Constantinople, where she stayed for almost five centuries. Then she was transferred to Russia, where she became famous for many miracles. Taken away by the Poles, it fell into the hands of the Tatars, who began to shoot it with bows, but when blood flowed from the icon, they fled in fright. Currently located in Poland in a monastery near the city of Czestochowa. Celebration March 19th.

Everyone who begins to look at icons involuntarily wonders about the content of ancient images, about why for several centuries the same plot has remained almost unchanged and easily recognizable. The answer to these questions will help us find iconography, a strictly established system for depicting any characters and religious plots. As the ministers of the church say, iconography is "the alphabet of church art."

The iconography includes a large number of plots taken from the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, theological writings, hagiographic literature, religious poetry on the themes of the main Christian dogmas, that is, canons.

The iconographic canon is a criterion for the truth of an image, its correspondence to the text and meaning of the "Holy Scripture".

Centuries-old traditions, the repetition of compositions of religious subjects led to the development of such stable schemes. The iconographic canons, as they were called in Russia - "excerpts", reflected not only common Christian traditions, but also local features inherent in one or another art school.

Constancy in the depiction of religious subjects, in the immutability of ideas that can be expressed only in the appropriate form - this is the secret of the canon. With the help of it, the symbolism of the icon was fixed, which in turn facilitated the work on its pictorial and content side.

The canonical foundations covered all the expressive means of the icon. In the compositional scheme, the signs and attributes inherent in the icon of one kind or another were recorded. So, gold and white symbolized the divine, heavenly light. Usually they marked Christ, the powers of heaven, and sometimes the Mother of God. Green meant earthly flowering, blue meant the heavenly sphere, purple was used to depict the clothes of the Mother of God, and the red color of Christ's clothes meant his victory over.

The main characters of religious painting are the Mother of God, Christ, the Forerunner, the apostles, prophets, forefathers and others. Images are main, shoulder, waist and full-length.

The image of the Mother of God enjoyed special love among icon painters. There are more than two hundred types of iconographic images of the Mother of God, the so-called "exodus". They have names: Hodegetria, Eleusa, Oranta, Sign and others. The most common type of image is Hodegetria (Guide), (Fig. 1). This is a half-length image of the Mother of God with Christ in her arms. They are depicted in a frontal spread, gazing intently at the prayer. Christ rests on Mary's left hand, she holds her right hand in front of her chest, as if pointing it at her son. In turn, Christ blesses the worshiper with his right hand, and in his left hand he holds a paper scroll. Icons depicting the Mother of God are usually named after the place where they first appeared or where they were especially revered. For example, the icons of Vladimir, Smolensk, Iver, Kazan, Georgian and so on are widely known.

Another, no less famous, view is the image of the Mother of God called Eleusa (Tenderness). A typical example of an icon of the Eleus type is the Vladimir Mother of God, widely known and beloved by all believers. The icon is an image of Mary with a baby in her arms. In the whole guise of the Mother of God, maternal love and complete spiritual unity with Jesus are felt. This is expressed in the tilt of Mary's head and in the gentle touch of Jesus on the mother's cheek (Fig. 2).

Impressive is the image of the Mother of God, known as Oranta (Prayer). In this case, she is depicted without Jesus, with her hands uplifted, which means “standing before God” (Fig. 3). Sometimes a “circle of Glory” is placed on the chest of Oranta, in which Christ is depicted as an infant. In this case, the icon is called "Great Panagia" (All-holy). A similar icon, but in a half-length image, is usually called the Mother of God of the Sign (Incarnation). Here, the disk with the image of Christ denotes the earthly being of the God-man (Fig. 4).

The images of Christ are more conservative than the images of the Mother of God. Most often, Christ is depicted as Pantokrator (Almighty). He is depicted frontally, or half-length, or in full growth. At the same time, the fingers of his right, raised, hands are folded in a blessing two-fingered gesture. There is also the addition of fingers, which is called "nominal". It is formed by the crossed middle and thumb fingers, as well as the set aside little finger, symbolizes the initials of the name of Christ. In his left hand he holds an open or closed Gospel (Fig. 5).

Another, most common image is "The Savior on the Throne" and "The Savior in Power" (Fig. 6).

The icon called "The Savior Not Made by Hands" is one of the oldest, which depicts the iconographic image of Christ. The image is based on a belief about the imprint of the face of Christ on a towel - ubrus. The Savior Not Made by Hands in ancient times was depicted not only on icons, but also on the banners-banners that Russian soldiers took on military campaigns (Fig. 7).

Another encountered image of Christ is his full-length image with a blessing gesture of his right hand and the Gospel in his left - the Savior (Fig. 8). Often you can see the image of the Almighty in the clothes of the Byzantine emperor, which is usually called the "King of the King", meaning that he is the King of all kings (Fig. 9).

Interesting information about the nature of the clothes and vestments in which the characters of the icons are dressed. From an artistic point of view, the clothes of icon-painting characters are very expressive. As a rule, it is based on Byzantine motifs. Each image has clothes that are characteristic and inherent only to him. So, the clothes of the Mother of God are a maphorium, a tunic and a cap. Maforium - a veil that envelops the head, shoulders and goes down to the floor. It has a border decoration. The dark cherry color of maforia means a great and royal family. Maforius is put on a tunic - a long dress with sleeves and ornaments on cuffs ("armlets"). The tunic is dyed dark blue, which symbolizes chastity and heavenly purity. Sometimes the Mother of God appears in the clothes not of Byzantine empresses, but of Russian queens of the 17th century.

On the head of the Mother of God, under the maphorium, a green or blue cap is drawn, decorated with white stripes of ornament (Fig. 10).

The female images in the icon are mostly dressed in a tunic and a cloak, fastened with a fibula clasp. A dress is depicted on the head - boards.

A long dress is put on over the tunic, decorated with a hemline and an apron going from top to bottom. This clothing is called dolmatik.

Sometimes, instead of a dolmatic, a table can be depicted, which, although it looks like a dolmatic, does not have an apron (Fig. 11).

Christ's attire includes a chiton, a long shirt with wide sleeves. The chiton is dyed purple or red-brown. It is decorated with two parallel stripes running from the shoulder to the hem. This is Clavius, which in ancient times meant belonging to the patrician class. A himation is thrown at the chiton. It completely covers the right shoulder and partially the left. The color of the himation is blue (Fig. 12).

Folk clothes are decorated with a mantle embroidered with precious stones.

On the icons of a later period, one can also see civilian clothes: boyar fur coats, caftans and various robes of commoners.

The monks, that is, the monks, are dressed in cassocks, mantles, schemas, hoods, and so on. On the heads of the nuns, an apostle (cloak) was depicted, covering the head and shoulders (Fig. 13).

Warriors are written in armor, with a spear, sword, shield and other weapons (Fig. 14).

When writing kings, their heads were decorated with a crown or crown (Fig. 15).

Fragment of the icon "Our Lady of Tenderness". Linden, canvas, gesso, tempera. First half of the 15th century. Tretyakov Gallery.

"Why does the icon-painting canon exist and what is the icon-painting original"

The icon is painted according to special rules, which are obligatory for the icon painter. The totality of certain icon painting techniques, according to which an image is built on an icon board, is called icon-painting canon. "Canon" is a Greek word, it means: "rule", "measurement", in the narrow sense - this is a construction tool, a plumb line, by which the verticality of the walls is checked; in the broadest sense, an established pattern against which something newly created is checked.

Vision gives a person almost 80% of information about the world around him. And therefore, realizing the importance of painting for the holy cause of the gospel, already in the early Christian church attempts began to create their own language of sacred images, different from the surrounding pagan and Jewish world.

Icon-painting rules were created over a long period of time not only by icon painters, or, as they used to say, iconographers, but also by the Church Fathers. These rules, especially those that did not relate to the technique of execution, but to the theology of the image, were convincing arguments in the struggle of the Church against numerous heresies. Arguments, of course, in lines and colors.

In 691, the Fifth-Sixth, or Trullsky, Cathedral took place, so named because it was held in the hall of the imperial palace - Trullum. At this council, important additions were made to the decisions of the Fifth and Sixth Councils, as well as some decisions that were very significant for the formation of Orthodox icon painting.

In Canons 73, 82 and 100, the Church begins the development of canons, which become a kind of shield against the penetration of pictorial heresy into the Orthodox icon.

And the Seventh Ecumenical Council, held in 787, approved the dogma of icon veneration, designated the place and role of sacred images in liturgical church practice. Thus, it can be said that the entire Church of Christ, her entire conciliar mind, participated in the development of canonical icon-painting rules.

The canon for the icon painter was the same as the liturgical charter for the clergyman. Continuing the service charter for a clergyman. Continuing this comparison, we can say that the service for the isographer becomes icon-painting original.

An icon-painting original is a set of specific rules and recommendations that teaches how to paint an icon, and the main attention is paid not to theory, but to practice.

Obviously, the very first established role models existed already in the initial period of the formation of canonical icon painting. One of the earliest icon-painting originals that has come down to the present day, which is based, of course, on even earlier ones, is considered to be a passage written in Greek from the "Antiquities of Church History by Ulpius the Roman on the appearance of the God-bearing fathers", dating from 993. It contains verbal descriptions of the most famous Church Fathers. Here, for example, is a description of St. John Chrysostom: “John of Antioch was very small in stature, had a large head on his shoulders, and was extremely thin. open and large, pitted with many wrinkles, large ears, a small, very sparse, adorned with a gray beard.

There are originals, which, in addition to purely verbal descriptions, also contain picturesque images of saints. They are called facial. Here it is necessary to recall the Menologion of Emperor Basil II, compiled at the end of the 10th century. The book, in addition to the biographies of the saints, also contains 430 colored miniatures, which served as authoritative models for icon painters.

The front original, or as it is also called - sample, personal, spread among icon painters in various editions. You can call "Stroganov" and "Bolshakovsky originals", "Guryanovsky", "Siysky" and others. A book compiled in the 18th century by the hieromonk and painter Dionysius Fournoagrofiot, under the title "Erminia, or instruction in the art of painting", became widely known.

So, the isograph worked in a rather rigid canonical framework. But wasn't the canon something that fettered the icon painter, hindered him? This question is most typical for people familiar with the history of fine arts, because secular art history builds the problem in this way: the canon is a brake, liberation from it is the artist’s creative freedom of self-expression: from Raphael’s “Sistine Madonna” to Malevich’s “Black Square”.

One of the modern researchers of the icon, Academician Raushenbakh, very emotionally and figuratively expressed his opinion about the result of the rejection of any canonical framework in the visual arts: "... Medieval art is in many respects higher than the art of the Renaissance. I believe that The Renaissance was not only a movement forward, it was also connected with losses. Abstract art is a complete decline. The pinnacle for me is the icon of the 15th century ... From the point of view of psychology, I can explain it this way: medieval art appeals to reason, the art of the New Age and the Renaissance - to the senses, and the abstract to the subconscious. This is a clear movement from man to ape."

This is the path followed by the iconography of the Western Roman Church. Along the path of destroying the canon, along the path of admiring bodily, emotional beauty - the beauty against which the 100th canon of the already mentioned Trullo Cathedral was directed: Therefore, images on disks or on anything else that is imagined, charming the eye, corrupting the mind and inflaming impure pleasures, we do not allow from now on to be inscribed in any way.

According to Archimandrite Raphael (Karelin) - the author of an interesting essay "On the Language of Orthodox Icons", the canon is "a centuries-old precious experience of the entire Eastern Church, the experience of spiritual vision and its transformation into a visual image. The canon does not fetter the icon painter, but gives him freedom. From From doubts, from the danger of a gap between content and form, from what we would call "a lie against a saint. The Canon gives freedom to the form itself..."

Earlier it was mentioned that for previous generations, who were born and lived in an Orthodox environment, the language of the icon was quite accessible, because this language is understandable only for people who know the Holy Scriptures, the rites of worship and participate in the Sacraments. For a modern person, especially one who has recently come to the Church, this is much more difficult to achieve. The difficulty also lies in the fact that since the 18th century, the canonical icon has been supplanted by icons of the so-called "academic" writing - in fact, paintings on religious themes. This style of icon painting, which is characterized by frank admiration for the beauty of forms, emphasized decorativeness and pomp of the decoration of the icon board, came to Russia from the Catholic West and was especially developed in the post-Petrine period, during the synodal period in the history of the Russian Orthodox Church.

This period began with a special decree of Peter I, in which he abolished the Patriarchate in Rus', and appointed an official, the Chief Prosecutor, who headed the leadership of the Holy Synod, as the manager of all the affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church. The patriarchate was restored only at the Local Council of 1917-1918.

Of course, the political and economic reorientation of the entire life of the Russian state, actively initiated by Peter and supported by subsequent rulers, could not but affect the spiritual life of all strata of society. This also applies to iconography.

At the present time, despite the fact that modern icon painters are reviving the traditions of ancient Russian writing, in many churches, for the most part, you can see images in the "academic" style.

In any case, an icon is always a shrine, no matter how pictorially it is executed. The main thing is to always feel the degree of responsibility of the icon painter for his work to the one he depicts: the image must be worthy of the Prototype.

"Encyclopedia of the Orthodox Icon. Fundamentals of the Theology of the Icon".