By Panagiotis Drakopoulos
Along with Byzantine, Russian iconography is considered the greatest artistic expression of Orthodoxy.
In its first period, during the 11th and 12th centuries, it was directly influenced by Byzantine, and many of the iconographers were Greek. The most famous work of this period is the Mother of God of Vladimir, which is considered the protecting icon of Russia.
The Era
This was followed by the period of the "Tatar Yoke", when Russia, with Kiev as its capital at the time, was conquered by the Tatars of the so-called Golden Horde. The Tatars plundered and burned palaces, mansions, monasteries and churches. Portable icons, frescoes, embroideries, small artifacts, etc. were destroyed. A struggle for Russian freedom followed, a struggle that provoked new barbarian raids.
But the Tatars often found help from Russian princes who abhorred the restoration of a unified state. At that time, which Tarkovsky so correctly depicts in his film “Andrei Rublev”, art had declined, as had all of civilization. Be aware, however: what concerns Rublev himself in the film is fictional. Tarkovsky’s Rublev is not a biography, despite the title of the film.
During that turbulent and dark period, the star of Sergius of Radonezh, abbot of the Holy Trinity Monastery, shined. Sergius (c. 1314-1392) was the leader of hesychasm in Russia, fully following the teachings of Saint Gregory Palamas.
At the same time, defying the gloom and insecurity, the Greek monk and iconographer Theophanes came to Russia. Theophanes the Greek was a great iconographer. He painted churches in Constantinople itself, which was then flourishing. Ignoring the raids, he went to many cities in Russia, painting icons and educating a multitude of students for 30 years. Among them was Andrei Rublev.
Biographical
Information about the life and work of Andrei Rublev is preserved only in later chronicles, and we are not sure of the accuracy of the information they provide. However, they claim that at a very young age he embraced the monastic life, in the Holy Trinity Monastery, as a subordinate of the then abbot Sergius of Radonezh, later a Saint (he reposed in 1392). Sergius gave the name of the First-Called Apostle Andrew to the young monk – so Rublev's worldly name is not known to us.
Andrei Rublev is likely to have been born around 1360. It is said that he was a very shy and silent man, extremely humble. The first official mention of his name is found in a document from 1405, which states that the illustration of the Moscow Cathedral in the Kremlin was undertaken by Theophanes the Greek together with the master Prokhor and the monk Andrei Rublev.
Rublev's talent quickly became known and he was hired at the court of the Prince of Moscow or, more likely, he was not hired for a fee but was commissioned to do works. In the late 14th century, he painted part of the Zvenigorod Cathedral, near Moscow, and in 1400 he seems to have undertaken to illustrate the Annunciation Cathedral in the Kremlin. In 1408, together with his collaborator Daniel, he is said to have painted the iconography of the Church of the Dormition of the Mother of God in Vladimir.
Andrei Rublev does not appear to have ever left or abandoned the monastery of his penance, the Monastery of Saint Sergius. There he painted the katholikon. According to tradition, he painted the Holy Trinity in honor of the elder Saint Sergius, between 1411 and 1422.
It seems that while he was still painting the Andronikov Monastery, in 1430, Rublev died at the age of about 70. His body was placed in a crypt in the monastery. The Russian Church declared him a Saint in 1989 and his memory is commemorated on July 4/17.
During the October Revolution, the frescoes in the Andronikov Monastery and other monasteries were destroyed, with the argument that the new state did not want a Church. These destructions must be considered among the greatest disasters of civilization.
The Holy Trinity Lavra itself was made a People's Museum by Lenin's decree, and many works were destroyed, but many were saved thanks to the culture of the first Soviet Director of the Museum. The Andronikov Monastery had a worse fate: it became a concentration camp, and when these began to be limited, it became housing for workers of a nearby factory. Only in 1960 was the monastery somewhat restored and has been operating as a Museum of Christian Art ever since.
Aesthetic Evaluations
Andrei Rublev was a prominent Russian icon painter, one of the greatest in the world. The work for which he is recognized as one of the leading icon painters of Orthodoxy is the icon of the Holy Trinity, which is also the masterpiece of Russian iconographic art. The icon of the Holy Trinity is distinguished for its composition, rhythm, lighting, harmony, purity and simplicity.
It is, however, difficult to formulate aesthetic judgments with certainty, given that the surviving works attributed to him, except for the Holy Trinity, are doubtful. It should also be taken into account that his surviving works have been colored by later artists, because the illustration materials in Rublev's time, in Russia, did not withstand time.
The influence of Theophanes the Greek on Rublev should be considered self-evident, since all sources connect him with his teacher Theophanes. But from what has survived, even if altered, it is clear that Rublev went much further than his teacher. This is evident by comparing the works of the two: Theophanes has a strong expressionism, very close to a man of the 20th century, as we see in his icon of the Theotokos, while Rublev puts all his weight on the spirituality of the face, as we see in the icon of Christ or even of the Archangel Michael. Even more striking is the difference between Theophanes’ Holy Trinity and that of Rublev.
As Father Stamatis Skliris writes in one of his essays, “it is enough to compare the technique of Theophanes’s garments on the one hand and Rublev’s on the other to the technique of the frescoes of the Chora Monastery of Constantinople, to conclude that Rublev was more Byzantine than his teacher. However, it is not just about such a detail, but about all the elements that make up his monumental and unique work. Not only in portable icons, such as those of Christ and the Archangels of the Deisis, but also in the frescoes, Rublev illuminates the faces in the manner of Byzantine plasticity, in contrast to the intense expressionism of the frescoes of Theophanes.”
The history of art cannot fail to note, however, that in about the same years, in Greece, a turning point was marked in iconographic art, with the appearance of Sir Manuel Panselinos. Of course, Rublev did not know the work of Panselinos. But perhaps it is no coincidence that in those years, the years of the Palaeologans, visual mysticism sought new ways to express the divine.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
