Fifty Russian Artists

Fülszöveg

'A fainous sage, a wise philosopher, a master who excelled in decoration of manuscripts and the best of icon-painters', such were the words of the educated monk Epiphany the Wise about his contemporary Theophanes the Greek. Theophanes, one of the greatest medieval Russian painters, was born in Byzantium, and was therefore known in Russia as 'the Greek'. It is estimated that he was born in the thirties of the fourteenth century. When he came to Rus he was 35-40 and already decorated more than forty stone churches in Constantinople, Chalkidike and Galata. From Byzantium he travelled first to Kaffa (Feodosia), at that time a rich Genoese colony, and then to Novgorod. In Rus, which was developing as a result of the inchoate struggle for the liberation and unification of the lands around Moscow, Theophanes found a fruitful outiét for his enormous talent. His extremely distinctive art, based on Byzantine traditions, both influenced and came under the influence of Russian culture. The... Tovább

Fülszöveg

'A fainous sage, a wise philosopher, a master who excelled in decoration of manuscripts and the best of icon-painters', such were the words of the educated monk Epiphany the Wise about his contemporary Theophanes the Greek. Theophanes, one of the greatest medieval Russian painters, was born in Byzantium, and was therefore known in Russia as 'the Greek'. It is estimated that he was born in the thirties of the fourteenth century. When he came to Rus he was 35-40 and already decorated more than forty stone churches in Constantinople, Chalkidike and Galata. From Byzantium he travelled first to Kaffa (Feodosia), at that time a rich Genoese colony, and then to Novgorod. In Rus, which was developing as a result of the inchoate struggle for the liberation and unification of the lands around Moscow, Theophanes found a fruitful outiét for his enormous talent. His extremely distinctive art, based on Byzantine traditions, both influenced and came under the influence of Russian culture. The first paintings done by Theophanes in Russia were the frescos in one of the splendid cathedrals of Novgorod-the Church of Our Saviour (Transfiguration) in Ilyin Street, built in 1374. The frescos were commissioned by the boyar Vasily Danilovich and the citizens of Ilyin Street, and Theophanes worked on them during the summer of 1378. These frescos have been partly preserved. In the cupola there is a depiction of the Pantocrator (Christ the Almighty) and four seraphim. On the walls between the windows are the figures of Adam, Abel, Noah, Seir, Melchizedek, Enoch, the prophet Elijah and John the Baptist, and in the chapel, specially commissioned by the boyar, are five stylites, The Holy Trinity and in medallions are dcpicted the Saints John Climacos, Agathon, Akaky and Makary. All the saints painted by Theophanes the Greek are different, each with individual, complex features. But at the same time they all have something in common: the wrathful, mighty Vissza