Iconography in Russia developed from Byzantine artists who came and painted churches and icons between the 11th and 13thc. Many of them lived in Novgorod and they were influential on the churches there. Theophanes the Greek settled in Novgorod, northern Russia, in the 14th c. Local artistic traditions in major cities such as Novgorod, Pskov, Rostov-Yaroslavl, Tver and Moscow arose together with these spiritual and cultural centers of lands of the Rus’. Byzantium passed down the spiritual and technical traditions of iconography to the Russians. But Russian iconographers did not copy blindly what their Greek masters taught them in a lifeless form of rigid exactitude. They began painting in a style that is unique to their culture and spiritual gifts, but still within the canon of the Orthodox Church. The Church of the Holy Transfiguration on Il’yn Street and the Moscow Kremlin Cathedral of the Archangel were painted by Theophanes the Greek. It also depicts the Hospitality of Abraham of the Old Testament, a real event. The three angels symbolize the Holy Trinity, and Theophanes wrote an inscription over the angel seated at the middle of the table, who represents Christ, with omicron-omega-nu. These Greek letters represent the phrase “He Who Is” or The Being (Ho On). Over the whole scene is written the inscription “The Holy Trinity.” An important distinction to be made is that iconographers are not depicting the being or essence of the Holy Trinity, what they really are or looked like, but a symbolic icon of the Holy Trinity. Abraham and Sarah are also depicted while the Three Angels symbolize “the pre-eternal council” of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Byzantine iconographers tended to paint fierce ascetical figures and scenes. For example, Saint Macarius of Egypt is depicted naked with no eyes, lips, ears; his body is covered with white hair and his hands are outstretched in symbolic gesture of prayer and supplication. He represents a rejection of the illusions and the vanity of this world in boldness and sanctity. This kind of icon reminds us that our bodies are earthen vessels and that by practicing asceticism we are lifted by God’s grace toward the Light of the World. It also shows us that Christians should incorporate these symbolic and bodily gestures in worship, which have been much lost in modern Christianity. The icons of Theophanes the Greek connect us also to the hesychasts who taught about receiving the divine gift of experiencing the energy and light of the Holy Trinity through ascetical disciplines and the Jesus Prayer. Metropolitan Hilarion explains how Theophanes uses light in his iconography. It can be painted with many kinds of brush strokes and used to illuminate the face, body, and background of the image. Most importantly, Theophanes does not make light “a means” but “a power” that comes from the inner transfiguration of a person into a saint. Silver, gold and white paint is often used to depict what ascetics and mystics have seen and felt in the grace of prayer. The Transfiguration of the Lord (1403) in the Tretyakov Gallery symbolizes divine illumination as the purpose of the cosmos and creation.
The Venerable Andrei Rublev (c.1360-1427) lived at a time when large, multi-tiered iconostases were built in Russian Orthodox temples and wooden architecture was also common. Rublev painted the first “Russian Christ” icon. He does not use the ascetic intensity and boldness of the Greek style. Instead, Christ looks calm and harmonious in his facial expression. Rublev is also recognized for his famous icon of the Holy Trinity at the Trinity Lavra at St. Sergius Monastery. It is an ancient Orthodox scene that can also be found in the Roman catacombs of the 2nd – 4th c., at Santa Maria Maggiore in the 5th c., and San Viale in Ravenna in the 6th c. This icon draws out more symbolism from the Hospitality of Abraham than merely representing a story from the Bible. It contains the inscription, a canonical feature of iconography, “The Holy Trinity” and their “equal” natures are highlighted. The cross-in-halo of one of the central angels represents Christ. Together with Rublev’s Trinity and the cenobitic monastery of St. Sergius of Radonezh, Metropolitan Hilarion explains that the Holy Trinity became “the absolute spiritual-moral reference point of his community.” It is also a “eucharistic” icon that is related to every person in an Orthodox temple and the central place we find communion, community, and co-salvation.
After this high point of Russian iconography around the 15th c., the canons became lax and depictions of God the Father became prevalent and other unprecedented compositions were painted. Naturally, these relaxations led to the Church making pronouncements about iconographical standards. The Stoglav Council of 1557 reestablished the norms, boundaries, and expectations for iconographers. It seems to be a common thread running through Russian history that inspiration comes from the East and shortsightedness arrives from the West. Some of these influences on the departure of canonical iconography in Russia came from the western styles that also attempted to paint God the Father during the Italian Renaissance and later with the European Enlightenment. That classical rebirth of learning in Europe inspired emperor Peter of Russia to make changes in society that determined a course for the westernization of Russian culture and religion toward Roman Catholic forms and ideas as well as an emphasis on “academic” iconography. The “academicians” were groups of artists. Some painted icons like a copyist in a dead form by trying to reach for exactness as a goal like the Old Believers. Others painted icons academically by treating icons in a sentimental and purely conceptual way like the Renaissance artists of western Europe. Oils became more common than the traditional tempera technique for icon panels. This scholastic approach characterizes much of the post-Petrine period of icon painting in Orthodox churches in Russia. Icons are infused by the ascetic work of the iconographer. Metropolitan Hilarion explains that the academic style of the west tends to oppose the ascetic foundation of iconographers of the past. He also says that “a copy is a dead product.” But there have been iconographers who have always been inspired and attempted to follow the Old Russian traditions of iconography, sometimes in a fresh and unique style. Leonid Ouspensky criticized this western movement in art. He saw in westernized icons a “sublimated eroticism” and “vulgar triteness.” There was an overall sentimentality and romanticism that had lost hope on symbolism and transfiguration of the human soul and body. People’s feeling toward the universal and transcendent truths could no longer guide their reason and intellect on the path of transformation by divine illumination. Feeling without transcendent forms is empty and vane. Russian iconographers continued during the “Red Terror” of 1917 and after the Revolutionary period. “Two Russias” emerged. Some Russians stayed in the homeland and became prisoners of the Soviet Union. Other Russians fled abroad, mainly to Paris and founded schools and intellectual movements. When USSR was dismantled in the 1990s, these two Russian communities reunited through iconography. Sister Juliana, Gregory Kroug, Archmandrite Zinon and many more artists and intellectuals and clergy came together. They tried new forms and sought to keep the traditions. But they understood that “in the sphere of faith there are truths which are not subject to change.” Many creative works and writings arose out of the sufferings of the immigrant Russian communities in the west and their relatives under the Soviets. The experiences that they have left us in icons and books bore much fruit in rediscovering the meaning of icons not just in Russia but for the Universal Orthodox Church.