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Ukrainian Icon Painting from the 12th to the 19th cc.
The icon, as a major kind of medieval painting, made great advance in Ukraine. Like many Slavic countries, Ukraine belonged to the area of cultures that grew from the common Byzantine root. Maturing under the spiritual protection of Byzantium, assimilating its aesthetic and artistic ideals, the Ukrainian icon developed gradually its own style, its artistic peculiarities and grew into an independent national school that took its own niche among other European schools of art of the middle Ages.
The sources of the Ukrainian icon go back to the time of Kyivan Rus, which inherited high artistic achievements of Byzantium. In this young state that succeeded in the magnificent flourishing of all kinds of art, general artistic standards and forms were developed for all its lands. Kyiv became the main centre of icon painting where the majority of icons of the pre-Mongol period, known now, were created. Unfortunately, part of icons is now outside Ukraine. As chronicles testify, in olden times Kyivan icons were taken out by Grand Princes to their lands and patrimonial estates as relics or palladiа. By different ways the icons came to and "settled" in museums of Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novgorod, and Vladimir.
With the adoption of Christianity, first Greek icons came to Kyiv. Chronicles gave many facts of bringing icons from Byzantium, which began during the reign of Prince Volodymyr the Great and went on under his descendants. Famous icons The Mother of God Eleusa (of Vladimir) and The Mother of God Hodegetria (Pyrogoscha, now lost) were taken to Kyiv from Constantinople by Prince Mstyslav Yaroslavych. In 1155 Prince Andrei Bogoliubsky transferred The Mother of God of Vladimir to his capital city of Vladimir-on-Kliazma, later it was taken to Moscow where it has been kept to the present time. Mentioned are also other deeply venerated icons: The Dormition, from the Dormition Cathedral of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, the so-called Mother of God Ihorivska and The Mother of God of Kholm, some of them were reproduced in small metal icons and later copies.
Local artists studied brilliant examples of Byzantine painting and gained experience, adopting aesthetic and artistic canons new for them. Some of them achieved considerable success. Of that time we know only the name of Alimpy an artist from the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra. The Kyiv-Pechersk Paterikon glorified him as a great icon painter who excelled his Greek teachers in mastery.
Communicating with Byzantine culture, the Kyivan state simultaneously assimilated antique heritage. The association with Byzantine art, with its classical traditions can be traced in the relief icon Saint George with Scenes from His Life of the twelfth century. Its provenance is related with the medieval Crimea, namely with St. George's Monastery in Balaklava near ancient Chersoneses which played a major part in the cultural mediation between Constantinople and Kyiv. At that time, the iconography of Saint George as a Roman warrior in military garb with a spear and a shield was canonized in Byzantine art. Such representation of Saint George was introduced into art of Kyivan Rus and other Slavic states and became of the most widespread and venerated images. Kyivan princes also approved of the establishment of the cult of Saint George in whom they saw a patron in war affairs. This explains the wide penetration of this image into all spheres of art: in the eleventh-thirteenth centuries it was represented in cathedral frescoes, icons and figurines, signets-molibdulae, and princely utensils. The treatment of Saint George's image always corresponded to the established canon.
The relief with the representation of Saint George from the museum collection embodies classical Byzantine patterns which local masters followed. In the icon's perfect carving, in the Hellenistic character of Saint George's figure with its beautiful proportions and refined outlines you can feel the echo of antique sculpture. The vividness of the carving is emphasized, first of all, by the successful use of the potentialities of the medium itself—wood, as well as polychromy discovered during the restoration of the relief in the 1960s. Though polychromy has been preserved incompletely, it nevertheless gives an idea of the light pure colors with predominating gold, which lends the representation a noble and refined air. This relief is an example of an early hagiographic icon. Hagiographic cycles became widespread in Kyivan Rus art from the eleventh century (murals in St. George's Chapel in St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv). Samples of Byzantine relief wooden icons are very rare now. Therefore, the relief with the representation of Saint George is a unique monument of the Middle Ages.
The small icon The Intercession of the late twelfth — early thirteenth century from Eastern Halychyna draws attention with its unusual iconography and is, perhaps, one of the early versions of this subject. The Byzantine origin of the legend of the miracle at the Blachernae Church of Constantinople gives grounds to think that the first Intercession icons appeared there, though they have not come down to our time. It is considered that in Kyiv, along with the consolidation of the Intercession cult, the formation of the iconography of this subject was going on, the Halych icon is similar to it. By its iconography it differs from the generally known compositions of the Intercession which later became widespread in Ukraine. Saint Mary sits on the throne with the Child in Her bosom and angels hold the pall over Them. The rare iconography of the Halych icon whose old age is confirmed by its paleography as well, testifies to its proximity to the primary source. Its painterly solution, however, is devoid of the plastic refinement of Byzantine icons. Linear, simplified forms and expressive images mark the manner of a local master. The icon is a single monument of Halych painting of the pre-Mongol period. It could be regarded as a certain link in the process of the creation of the Intercession cult, which became very popular in Ukraine in later centuries.