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Published
by The
Baltimore Sun,
November 20, 2005
Entering
the realm of the divine through icon
paintings
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By
Glenn McNatt
Sun
Art Critic
It's
a pity some people think the Middle Ages were a
great big bore, a time in history when nothing
much happened beyond the usual pillaging,
pestilence and slaughter. They may miss out on a
terrific new show.
Called Sacred Arts and City Life: The Glory of
Medieval Novgorod, this marvelous exhibition,
which opened this weekend at the Walters
Art Museum, centers around some of the
greatest Russian artworks of the Middle Ages, the
magnificent icon paintings created by anonymous
artist-craftsmen.
These
stunning works, with their vividly colored
depictions of saints and other sacred figures,
have a luminous presence that evokes an
otherworldly sense of the spiritual realm.
The show also includes more than 200 objects -
sculptures, textiles, metalwork and archaeological
finds - representing the material culture of
Novgorod. When you step into the gallery, it's
like walking through a doorway into one of
Novgorod's whitewashed Russian Orthodox churches:
The outside is plain and simple to the point of
austerity. The inside is a treasure trove of
sumptuous color, exotic textures and sacred
imagery.
Novgorod, a great trading and religious center on
the Volkhov River some 100 miles south of St.
Petersburg, flourished from the 1300s to the
1600s. Picture it as a storybook Medieval city,
with crenellated castle walls, a magnificent domed
cathedral, whitewashed churches and tidy wooden
houses, perched on a river bend and surrounded by
forest that stretches as far as the eye can see.
The city was famous for its icons, whose
miraculous powers protected its citizens in war
and peace. Eventually, the icons produced in
Novgorod, which were admired for the beauty of the
colors and the clarity of their designs, were
emulated by artists across Russia and became the
basis of a national style.
Church tradition strictly regulated the subject
matter of icons as well as the manner of their
treatment. Artists copied earlier works more or
less exactly, since the closer an icon resembled
its predecessor, the more likely it would be to
share its supernatural power. The modern concepts
of individual artistic originality and formal
invention were as yet unknown.
An icon was not simply a picture, something to be
admired for its beauty or the artist's skill in
execution. Rather, the image partook of the same
sacred power as the holy figure it depicted, thus
uniting the material world with the divine.
Icons served as thresholds to a higher realm
populated by spiritual beings - the saints and
members of the Holy Family - who watch over the
earth and guide those in need. An icon opens a
door to the realm of the divine.
Christianity took hold in Novgorod in the 10th
century under the auspices of the Eastern Orthodox
Church. At first, Novgorod's artists simply copied
the icons of the Eastern churches.
Gradually, however, they developed their own
distinctive style, which one can see near the
beginning of the show in the large painting of
three saints dating from the mid-13th century.
What immediately strikes one is the brilliant red
background against which the figures stand, so
different in mood from the gold-leaf backgrounds
of the Western tradition.
In both cases, the monochrome field represents
eternity rather than temporal reality. But the
Novgorod artist's eye-catching color presents a
dry, theological concept in vivid emotional terms
calculated to inspire reverence and awe.
The figures are also out of scale with each other.
St. John Climacus, in the center, towers over St.
George, on the left, and St. Blase on the right.
But it is not the saint's bodies that are being
depicted, but their spiritual essences - their
souls, as it were. Through the icon, these
non-material, spiritual presences become available
to assist those living on earth.
The belief in icons was so powerful that, when
foreign invaders besieged the city in 1170, the
bishop of the cathedral mounted its icon of the
Virgin Mary on the citadel walls. The sight sowed
such confusion among the enemy army that its
soldiers turned and fled.
So the city was saved, and Novgorod's miraculous
icon (which is only about 24 inches tall) became
one of the most famous images in Russian art. The
original Virgin of the Sign today is in the State
Russian Museum in St. Petersburg, but a fine
16th-century copy of the work constitutes one of
the highlights of the Walters show.
The exhibition also features objects excavated
from the area around present-day Novgorod,
including items of everyday use such as coins,
metalwork, jewelry, seals, letters, medals,
childrens' toys, even a pair of women's leather
slippers.
The show's organizers - the State Russian Museum
and the Novgorod State Museum - intend these
artifacts to convey the texture of ordinary life
during the Middle Ages, but it is tough going
trying to piece together a coherent picture of
period from these assorted odds and ends.
Skip the archaeological tchotchkes if you're in a
hurry, but don't miss the icons.
There's an uncanny beauty in these seemingly
simple images of saints and martyrs that is both
deeply strange and moving.
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