Icon And Devotion

Icon and Devotion offers the first extensive presentation in English of the making and meaning of Russian icons. The craft of icon-making is set into the context of forms of worship that emerged in the Russian Orthodox Church in the mid-seventeenth century. Oleg Tarasov shows how icons have held a special place in Russian consciousness because they represented idealized images of Holy Russia. He also looks closely at how and why icons were made. Wonder-working saints and the leaders of such religious schisms as the Old Believers appear in these pages, which are illustrated with miniature paintings, lithographs and engravings never before published in the English-speaking world. By tracing the artistic vocabulary, techniques and working methods of icon painters, Tarasov shows how icons have been integral to the history of Russian art, influenced by folk and mainstream currents alike. As well as articulating the specifically Russian piety they invoke, he analyzes the significance of icons in the cultural life of modern Russia in the context of popular prints and poster design.

"Icons were among the first religious objects brought into Russia from Byzantium at a time when Christian art was already highly developed. Although the art of the icon (the sacred picture of the Greek Orthodox church) could be said to have reached perfection in the Byzantine world, the Russians, nevertheless, were able to give it a new, national complexion and produce some of the finest examples of the art. Icons were first produced for use in churches and processions. As their size became smaller, so demand fro them as religious household objects grew. They have remained an important feature in Russia's orthodox religious cultures to this day. The 65 plates in this book show work as beautiful as that of the greatest Italian primitives. The icons date from the 14th to 17th centuries, many belonging to the School of Novgorod, once the cultural centre of Russia. Other sources include the renowned school of Rublev and Dionysus"--

Titian, one of the most successful painters of the Italian Renaissance, was credited by his contemporaries with painting a miracle-working image, the San Rocco Christ Carrying the Cross. Taking this unusual circumstance as a point of departure, Christopher J. Nygren revisits the scope and impact of Titian's life's work. Nygren shows how, motivated by his status as the creator of a miracle-working object, Titian played an active and essential role in reorienting the long tradition of Christian icons over the course of the sixteenth century. Drawing attention to Titian's unique status as a painter whose work was viewed as a conduit of divine grace, Nygren shows clearly how the artist appropriated, deployed, and reconfigured Christian icon painting. Specifically, he tracks how Titian continually readjusted his art to fit the shifting contours of religious and political reformations, and how these changes shaped Titian's conception of what made a devotionally efficacious image. The strategies that were successful in, say, 1516 were discarded by the 1540s, when his approach to icon painting underwent a radical revision. Therefore, this book not only tracks the career of one of the most important artists in the tradition of Western painting but also brings to light new information about how divergent agendas of religious, political, and artistic reform interacted over the long arc of the sixteenth century. Original and erudite, this book represents an important reassessment of Titan's approach to devotional subject matter. It will appeal to students and specialists, as well as art aficionados interested in Titian and in religious painting.

This is the most comprehensive introduction available to the history and theology of the icon, and is the standard text upon which most modern studies of iconography are based. It includes more than the basic theory of the transfiguration of beauty and the sanctification of art. It is a fundamental element in the entire body of Orthodox Tradition. n this two-volume work, author Leonid Ouspensky provides the reader with a deep and serious approach to the mystery of the sacred image. He surveys the development of the sacred art of the Christian East from its beginnings in catacomb art through the iconoclastic controversy of the eighth and ninth century. Drawing especially on the Russian Orthodox tradition, the author studies a large number of texts with care and in great detail. He includes an analysis of the flowering of early Russian iconography, tracing its later development and the state of the art today. The 51 black and white photo illustrations, along with the four-panel foldout and six color plates, will enable the reader to appreciate the Orthodox icon with an informed mind and open heart. Volume I, originally published in 1978, has been updated by the author and contains large sections of new material [Publisher description]

"A collection of essays by eleven scholars of Russian history, art, literature, cinema, philosophy, and theology that track key shifts in the production, circulation, and consumption of the Russian icon from Peter the Great's Enlightenment to the post-Soviet revival of the Orthodox Church"--Provided by publisher.