B XVIII-XIX centuries. Nevyansk was the center of the iconography of the Urals. The Nevyansk icon is the pinnacle of the Ural Mining and Factory Old Believer icon painting.
But, before starting a conversation about the Nevyansk icon, we will briefly note the main points of the icon painting technology. Translated from the Greek "ey-kon" - an image, an image on a wooden board. At first, an icon was prepared: they cut it out of a block on a block on both sides of the core; they were dried for several years, and then the surfaces were treated. On the front side, an “ark” was cut out along the perimeter - a small depression, so that the fields rose above the middle (however, the ark was not always made). A canvas was glued onto the base - fabric, later paper. Several layers of gesso were applied to the pavoloka - a creamy mixture of chalk, glue (usually fish) with a small amount of hemp oil or drying oil. Each layer was thoroughly dried. Then the gesso was polished with a bone (a fang of a bear or a wolf). The drawing of the icon was translated from the copybook: the contours were cut with a needle and “powdered” - sprinkled with crushed charcoal from the bag.
On gesso, a “translation” of a drawing from black dots was obtained. Then polyment was applied to the gesso - paint, sheet gold was glued to it, which was polished, and after that they proceeded directly to writing the icon. The front surface of the finished icon was covered with a protective film of drying oil or glue.
The Nevyansk icon is an Old Believer icon and is associated primarily with chapels. Most of the population of the Urals and the Nevyansk Demidov factories are Old Believers who fled here from the persecution of the royal and church authorities. There were many talented icon painters among them.
The icons were noted among the state property in the inventory and return books of 1702 when the Nevyansk plant was transferred to Nikita Demidov. “At the sovereign’s court”, in the blast furnace and hammer shops, “and in other places” there were nine images on boards without a salary. These were the three Saviors: "Almighty", "On the Throne" and "Not Made by Hands"; "The Resurrection of Christ with the Twelfth Feasts", the Mother of God, the Annunciation, John the Baptist, Nicholas the Wonderworker, the Mother of God "The Burning Bush with the Twelfth Feasts." All of them passed to Demidov along with the plant. These icons were most likely of local origin.
In the census book of Verkhoturye and the county for 1710, at the Nevyansk plant, “an industrial man Grigory Yakovlev Ikonnik”, 50 years old, no wife, son Yeremey 22 years old, and three daughters: 13, nine and six years old, is recorded in his yard. Perhaps he was professionally engaged in icon painting, which is confirmed by the Landrat census of the Nevyansk factories in 1717. This is currently the earliest direct evidence of the existence and work of icon painters not only in Nevyansk, but also at the Ural factories in general. “In the yard, Grigory Yakovlev, the son of Sakharov, eighty years old, widows; he has a daughter, Paraskovya, fifteen, and a bride-to-be, the widow Tatyana Stepanova, a daughter, Eremeevskaya, Sakharovo's wife, thirty, and a son (Eremeya) Vasily, six years old. He, Grigorey, comes from the Ayatsky settlement, which is assigned to the Fetkovsky (Nevyansk) factories, and for eleven years he moved out to the Fetkovsky factories and the breadwinner from icon art.
In the census book of the Ayatskaya Sloboda of 1703, unplowed industrial people Grigory and Semyon Yakovlev, obviously brothers, are noted. Apparently, they were icon painters, since the sons of Semyon in the landrat census of the Nevyansk plant are called “Ikonnikov’s children”. But the father did not have time to pass on his icon-painting skills to them, probably because he died early (in 1705, the widow and children “moved out” to the Nevyansk factory).
In the census and return books of 1704 assigned to the Nevyansk plant of the Ayatskaya, Krasnopolskaya settlements and the possessions of the Epiphany Nevyansky monastery among the inhabitants of the Ayatskaya settlement, “which Nikita Demidov in the past 1703 was not given for work” (and were attributed in 1704) recorded industrial man Yakov Frolov with three sons aged nine to 21. “He pays ... to the treasury from the trade trade a quitrent: from the ykon trade for osmi altyn, two dengi per year.” He combined icon painting with agriculture.
According to calculations, this Yakov Frolov and G.Ya. Sakharov were almost the same age and could be cousins ​​to each other. It can also be assumed that the cousins ​​studied the icon craft in the Ayat settlement and could improve in it by participating in work on the side.
The grandson of Yakov Frolov Arapov, Akinfiy, 21, was noted by the 1732 census at the Nevyansk plant without indicating the profession, with the nickname "Ikonnikovs".
Yakov Frolov, who lived in the Ayat settlement, served as an icon painter, probably, the requests of the surrounding peasants and numerous antechambers and travelers. Grigory, who settled in the Nevyansk plant, according to him, since 1706, satisfied the more demanding tastes of its inhabitants.
By 1717, the Nevyansk plant consisted of over 300 households and turned into one of the largest settlements Urals, yielding only to Solikamsk and Kungur, and surpassing all other cities, including Verkhoturye.
It is reasonable to assume that both of these icon painters differed, obviously, in the level of skill, they worked in a traditional manner. It is unlikely that their work was differentiated by customers: the Old Believers and adherents of official Orthodoxy.
From 1732 and, at least, to the beginning of 1735, most likely, it was at the Nevyansk factory that Ivan Kozmin Kholuev, by origin, the son of a beaver of the Upper Sloboda of the village of Gorodets, Balakhonsky district, Nizhny Novgorod province, "feeded on icon art". He, in his own words, learned iconography somewhere in Nizhny Novgorod region, and before appearing in the Urals, "I went to different Russian cities."
From the documents of 1790, the name of the peasant of the Yalutorovsk district, Ivan Emelyanov, the son of Neryakhin, is known, 34 years old - the Old Believer monk Isaac, trained in icon painting at the Staro-Nevyansk Factory, where the peasant Fedot Semenov (son) Voronov lived for two years, learned to paint images (approximately in 1778-1780). Then he went to sketes, and then returned to the Nevyansk plant, where in 1784-1786. lived with "peasant Vasily Vasiliev (son) Krasnykh, he is also Barannikov ... at the painting of images."
The fragmentary nature of information about the first Old Believer icon painters in the mining Urals makes us pay attention to the masters who are considered the founders of icon painting at factories. The study of this issue in the early 1920s. Suchel Dulong, a Frenchman, a representative of the Red Cross mission, was engaged. In January 1923, he presented the results in a report at a meeting of the Ural Society of Natural Science Lovers. S. Dulong visited the chapels and private houses of the Old Believers-chapels (formerly the fugitives of the Sofontievsky persuasion) in Yekaterinburg and the neighboring village of Shartash, at the Nizhny Tagil and Nevyansk factories. Of particular value to S. Dulong’s data is the fact that G. S. Romanov, himself a third-generation icon painter (Dulong even called Romanov “the last Ural icon painter”) and the famous Ekaterinburg antiquary D. N. Pleshkov, who was familiar with the majority who worked in the Urals at the beginning of the 20th century. icon painters and related to the Romanovs.
S. Dulong was named four masters of this period. This is Father Grigory (in the world Gavriil Sergeev) Koskin (c. 1725 - late 18th century), from the eternally given Nevyansk plant; Grigory Andreevich Peretrutov, who settled at the Nizhny Tagil plant; Paisiy's father (Pyotr Fedorovich Zavertkin) and a certain Zavertkin, Paisiy's nephew, the second son of his younger merchant brother Timofei Borisovich Zavertkin (1727 - 1769). At the same time, the first and last names belong to representatives of the second generation of local Old Believer icon painters.
“The monk-schemer Paisei Zavertkin is ... a skilled izgrapher who left his disciples rather; the first (obviously, in the sense of "the best") of them is the monk-schemer Grigory Koskin. Timothy Zavertkin was apparently also a student of Paisius. G. S. Koskin Dulong called "the greatest, largest Ural icon painter." Dulong even described the icon of the Mother of God by Koskin, which he saw in a private house in Yekaterinburg, as “brilliant”.
Dulong did not see the works of Paisius Zavertkin, but his informant, Yekaterinburg icon painter G.S. Romanov spoke of them as follows: "The work of Father Paisius is much softer than that of Father Gregory." In the mouth of a professional, the concept of “softer” had a meaning close to the meaning of “a freer manner of writing” or “more skillful work”.
At present, only 43 miniatures (some, obviously, were created with the participation of students) of the obverse Apocalypse of the Explanatory of the 1730-1740s can more or less definitely be attributed as belonging to Paisius Zavertkin. Peter (monastic Paisius) Fedorovich Zavertkin (c. 1689 - 05/01/1768) - originally from Yaroslavl, from a family of serfs-entrepreneurs landowners Khomutovs, in his youth he worked at the Armory in Moscow and the Armory Office in St. Petersburg, rather of everything, as one of the "masters of various arts." He fled to Kerzhenets, from there, together with the local skete elders, he moved to the Ural Demidov factories. From here, a few years later, he went to the Vetka Old Believer settlements in Poland. In March 1735, he and his family, with passports received from the landowner, settled down to live at the Nizhny Tagil plant. From the beginning of the 1740s. P.F. Zavertkin, under the name of Paisia, was already in the forest "factory" sketes. There, Paisius, together with his student G. Koskin, was met by an eyewitness around 1742. In 1747, he was included in the revision tales for the Nizhny Tagil plant. In the early 1750s. Monk Paisios probably went to Poland again.
Grigory Andreevich Peretrutov "was a royal icon painter under Peter the Great and fled to the Urals", settled in Nizhny Tagil, then took the monastic name Gury. Moreover, in the Urals, the Peretrutovs were listed under the name of the Sedyshevs. Gregory's father, Andryushka Yuryev Peretrutov, a bean of the Annunciation Monastery Sloboda in Nizhny Novgorod, was probably also an icon painter.
Long-standing family ties between the Peretrutov-Sedyshev and Zavertkin families are also likely. Grigory Peretrutov and Peter Zavertkin could know each other well from their work in the Armory. And Zavertkin's brother Boris was engaged in entrepreneurship in Nizhny Novgorod. In the Urals, these families lived side by side for decades.
In 1752, churchmen, accompanied by a military team, raided Zavertkin's house. A whole iconostasis was found among the evidence. And among the especially important schismatics of the Tobolsk diocese, Timofey Zavertkin received a vivid description: “An evil schismatic who ... paints icons according to schismatic superstition ... and sends them to all schismatic places, where they are accepted ... as miraculous.” Icon painting developed throughout the Urals, but nowhere reached such perfection as in Nevyansk and the settlements associated with it.
The icons of the Nevyansk masters were distinguished by good writing and their work was highly valued, so their customers were not only "local and neighboring residents, but in general residents of the entire Trans-Urals and even European Russia."
The heyday of the Nevyansk icon - the second half of the 18th - the first half of the 19th centuries. At that time, ten icon-painting workshops worked in Nevyansk, and by the beginning of the 20th century. only three families were engaged in icon painting, painting icons to order, and they "sometimes sat without work."
The most famous dynasties that have been engaged in icon painting for more than 100 years were the Bogatyrevs, the Chernobrovins and others. Ivan Prokhorovich Chernobrovin painted the icons of the Sretensky iconostasis of the church in the name of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker. Byngi, the Nikolaevsky iconostasis was renovated (and the carver-gilder of the Sretensky iconostasis was his brother, Yegor Prokhorovich).
The dynasty of hereditary icon painters Chernobrovins from the ascribed peasants of the Nevyansk factory has been known since 1798. Ivan Prokhorovich Chernobrovin was born in 1805, studied icon painting with Ivan Anisimovich Malyganov. He was listed as a serf of the Nevyansk plant, "corrected coal duty", hiring free state peasants and was engaged in "writing holy icons."
An Old Believer of chapel consent, Ivan Prokhorovich in 1835 moved to the same faith with his brother; was a respected person in the community. The Chernobrovins enjoyed the full confidence of the church authorities and received large orders from them for icons and decoration of newly built Orthodox and fellow faith churches. The Chernobrovins lived in separate houses and worked separately (unlike the Bogatyrevs), uniting only to fulfill large orders. I.P. Chernobrovin painted icons for the Rezhevskaya, Shaitanskaya, Sylvenskaya co-religious churches in the Urals. The last signed icon of Chernobrovin dates back to 1872. The icons were painted by Andrey Chernobrovin, Fedor Chernobrovin. Other Nevyansk icon painters also gained fame: Fyodor Anisimovich Malyganov, Ivan Petrovich Burmashev, Stefan Petrovich Berdnikov, Efim Pavlovich Bolshakov, Ivan Ivanovich Vakhrushev, Afanasy Nikolaevich Gilchin, Yegor Markovich Lapshin, the Serebrennikov dynasty: Joseph, his sons Nazar and Ipat, grandson Kondraty Ipatievich and great-grandson Daniil Kondratievich, Vasily Gavrilovich Sukharev and others.
A significant role in the formation of the Nevyansk icon-painting school was played by the traditions laid down by the Moscow Armory in the middle of the 15th century and developed at the end of the 15th - the first half of the 18th centuries. in Yaroslavl, Rostov the Great, Kostroma. It is known that among the first visitors to the Nevyansk factory of craftsmen were immigrants from the Moscow, Tula, Olonets, Nizhny Novgorod provinces. By 1723, the first batch of settlers arrived from Kerzhenets. Consequently, icon painters could focus on a fairly wide range of traditions, taking iconography of the 16th-17th centuries as a model. But it took a considerable period of time to unify the stylistic features and technical and technological methods that determined the originality of the Ural mining and metallurgical Old Believer icon painting. An indirect, but very important indication of the time of the formation of the Nevyansk school can be the appearance from the 1770s. and an increase in the following years in the number of dated icons. Previous similar works are rare: “Our Lady of Egypt” of 1734 and icons of 1758 and 1762. It is significant that the same S. Dulong until the end of the 18th century. names only one dated local work he saw: Timofey Zavertkin "circa 1760".

"Our Lady of Egypt", 1734

Among the mining Old Believers during the XVIII century. Until the last decade, there were practically no signed icons. Among the Nevyansk icons, the first signature is dated 1791, the work of I.V. Bogatyrev ("Peter and Paul with scenes from their lives"), and even in the future samples of even the highest level were rarely signed. The customer in the Nevyansk icon began to be designated in the 19th century. when writing icons for chapels and later for churches of the same faith. Nevyansk masters painted icons in the traditions of the icon-painting schools of pre-reform Russia, but did not copy old icons, but creatively reworked traditions, expressing their feelings in icons, their vision of the world as God's creation. They took their best features from ancient Russian icons: from Moscow - elongated proportions of figures, rhythm, patterns, writing on gold; from Yaroslavl - a three-dimensional, rounded image of faces, the dynamism of the plot (bold turns of figures by three quarters), etc.
The Nevyansk icon has retained the extraordinary expressiveness and spirituality, zeal, festivity, brightness inherent in the ancient Russian icon. But the masters took into account both the trend of the new time and the experience of secular painting. Buildings, interiors depicted on the icon receive volume, “depth”, that is, the image is built according to the laws of direct perspective (the image is based on the features of the perception of space by the human eye). They tried to get closer to reality. This can be seen in the "depth" of the icons, in the volume of faces, in the depiction of the natural landscape, views of cities and buildings. The images carry a local flavor that reflects geographical features: the buildings are reminiscent of the buildings of the Ural mining complexes, domes and silhouettes of the Ural temples. An invariable detail of the landscape is a tower with an arched passage, the silhouette of the Nevyansk Tower is guessed in the depiction of cities (the Savior Not Made by Hands), and on the icon "The Holy Crucifixion of Our Lord Jesus Christ" ("Golgotha") of 1799, stored in the museum "Nevyansk Icon" Yekaterinburg, depicts a tower with chimes. Instead of conditional mountains with obliquely cut areas, there are typical Ural ridges softened by time with outcrops of rocks, overgrown with coniferous copses. Some peaks are white (snowy). Trees on the mountain slopes, grass, bushes, rounded pebbles, fir-trees and pines, steep banks of the river with hanging plant roots are an indispensable attribute of Nevyansk writing.

Calvary, 1799

Realistic tendencies were also manifested in the reflection in the faces of some saints of the local ethnic type (Vogul features in the guise of Nicholas the Wonderworker in the icons of the 18th - first half of the 19th centuries).

Nicholas the Wonderworker, second half of the 18th century.

To paint the icons, the masters used mineral paints - very resistant, not fading and not fading, so the icons leave an impression of freshness and novelty. In addition, mineral paints gave the icon a special flavor.
The drawing of the best Nevyansk icons strikes with elegance and plasticity. The Nevyansk icon is distinguished by the subtlety of writing, elegance, decorativeness, an abundance of gold: the entire icon was covered with plates of gold leaf. Sheet gold was applied to polyment (red-brown paint, which was previously covered with gesso). The golden background shone through a thin layer of colors, which gave the icon a special warmth. In addition, the masters mastered various methods of processing the golden background: engraving, flowering, black patterning. The resulting textured (uneven) surface refracted the rays of light in different ways, creating the impression that the icon itself glows with its own special light, for which it was called luminiferous. Shades of bright blue, green, red colors in combination with gold attract and stop the eye. Gold has always been in harmony with the basic color scheme of the icon. It symbolized Christ, the divine light, the sun, power, purity of thoughts, the victorious radiance of goodness.
In the drawing of the Nevyansk icon of the first half of the 18th - mid-19th centuries, the influence of the Baroque style unusual for icons is noticeable: magnificent multi-figure compositions with dynamic poses of saints, their robes flutter with patterned draperies - folds; an abundance of decorative elements - the centerpiece and fields are often decorated with elaborate golden curls; the inscriptions along the edges of the icons are framed by lush golden cartouches - frames, ornate thrones are “composed” of curved-concave curls; clouds and horizons are indicated by curly lines. The robes of the saints are distinguished by their many colors, patterns and floral ornaments, reminiscent of roses and other flowers of the Tagil trays (this is typical for the icons painted by the Chernobrovins).
Since the beginning of the XIX century. features of classicism appear in the icon, reflected in the already mentioned real images of the Ural landscape and views of mining buildings. Architectural buildings and details are depicted in three-dimensional space, i.e. get volume and depth. Images of saints are distinguished by miniaturization, subtlety of writing, psychology and physiognomy. The most expressive thing in the icons of the Nevyansk masters is their beautiful faces: pretty, full-cheeked, with large eyes, forehead wrinkles, a short, straight nose, a rounded chin, and slightly smiling lips. They radiate kindness, empathy and compassion. Shades of feelings are reflected in some faces: in the faces of angels there is a childlike innocence and a touching purity of thoughts.
Most of the late icons are characterized by a golden background with floral or geometric ornaments chased on gesso. The saints are depicted against a landscape with a low horizon line. The composition of the icon is simplified, it becomes like a painting, linear perspective plays an important role in it.
In the Nevyansk icon, images of saints in the margins in both the 18th and 19th centuries. growth only. In the XVIII century. kiots, in which the saints are located, mostly with a keeled end. As a rule, the background is colored, more often densely pink or red, sometimes with golden fire-like clouds. In the 19th century the saints located below are in rectangular cases with earth, and the upper ones are also in cases with figured tops. In the 19th century finials are often marked with black cartouches. In the Nevyansk icon there are no saints in the margins in round windows or half-height, crossing one another. Also, there are no images of saints in the lower and upper margins. Saints in the margins take place mainly on house icons; on format icons intended for chapels and churches of the same faith, saints in the margins are rare.
So, it can be assumed that the Old Believer icon-painting school in the mining Urals (Nevyansk school) was formed quite late, approximately by the middle - last quarter of the 18th century, when the third or fourth generation of local masters were already working. Having taken shape as an independent phenomenon, it acquired the stability that external influences could only enrich, but not destroy.
In the icon, the people sought and expressed their ideals, their ideas about truth, goodness and beauty. The Nevyansk icon embodied this ideal to the fullest extent. Looking into the faces of the saints, we comprehend the soul of the people, their faith, hope and love - what the “zealots of ancient piety” who experienced the persecution of the authorities managed to preserve.
Copyright Korotkov N. G., Medovshchikova N. I., Meshkova V. M., Plishkina R. I., 2011. All rights reserved

Literature:

• Dulong S. Notes on the Ural Iconography. Yekaterinburg, 1923.
• Golynets G.V. On the history of the Ural icon painting of the XVIII-XIX centuries: Nevyansk school // Art, 1987. No. 12;
• Golynets G.V. Ural icon // Seasons: Chronicle of Russian artistic life. M., 1995;
• Nevyansk icon. Yekaterinburg: Publishing House of the Ural University, 1997. - 248 p.: ill. ISBN 5-7525-0569-0. Res.: English. - Parallel catalog text: Russian, English. Format 31x24 cm.
• Runeva T.A., Kolosnitsyn V.I. Nevyansk icon // Region-Ural, 1997. No. 6;
• Ural icon. Picturesque, carved and cast icon of the 18th - early 20th centuries. Ekaterinburg: Publishing House of the Ural University, 1998. - 352 p.: ill. ISBN 5-7525-0572-0. auth.-stat. Yu. A. Goncharov, N. A. Goncharova, O. P. Gubkin, N. V. Kazarinova, T. A. Runeva. Format 31x24 cm.
• Nevyansk letter good news. Nevyansk icon in church and private collections / Ed. intro. Art. and scientific ed. I. L. Buseva-Davydova. - Yekaterinburg: OMTA LLC, 2009. - 312 p.: ill.; 35x25 cm. Edition of 1000 copies. ISBN 978-5-904566-04-3.
• Bulletin of the museum "Nevyansk Icon". Issue 2. Yekaterinburg: Columbus Publishing Group, 2006. - 200 p. : ill. : ISBN 5-7525-1559-9. Circulation 500 copies.
• Bulletin of the museum "Nevyansk Icon". Issue 3. Yekaterinburg: Publishing House "Autograph", 2010. - 420 p. : ill. : ISBN 978-5-98955-066-1 Circulation 1000 copies.

Nevyansk icons:

1. St. Nicholas the Wonderworker with selected saints in the margins (in embroidered frame), last quarter of the 18th century.
2. Savior Not Made by Hands with two holding angels, Nevyansk 1826 Wood, board duplicated, end dowels. Pavoloka, gesso, tempera, gilding. 33.2 x 29 x 3 cm. Private collection, Yekaterinburg, Russia. Restoration: 1996–1997 - O. I. Byzov
3. Transfiguration of the Lord with selected saints in the margins, 1760s.
4. Nevyansk icon. John the Baptist Angel of the Desert with lives.
5. Icon "St. Nicholas the Wonderworker". 1840s Museum "Nevyansk icon".
6. Savior Not Made by Hands, with saints in the fields. Malyganov Ivan Anisimovich (c. 1760 - after 1840). Nevyansk 80–90s of the 18th century Wood, ark, dowels. Pavoloka, gesso, tempera, gilding. 44.5 x 38.5 x 2.8 cm. Private collection, Yekaterinburg, Russia. Restoration: 1997 - O. I. Byzov

Links:
Museum "House of the Nevyansk Icon", Nevyansk
Museum "Nevyansk Icon", Yekaterinburg

Introduction

Chapter 1. The art of ancient Russian icon painting

1 Icon as a phenomenon of religious culture

2 Iconographic and plot features

3 Icon painting schools and art centers

Chapter 2

1 Development of icon painting in Nevyansk

2 Characteristic features of the Nevyansk school of icon painting

3 Notable dynasties of icon painters

Conclusion

List of used literature

Nevyansk icon painting

Introduction

Relevance of the research topic. In the Russian society of the 21st century, in connection with the intensification of globalization processes and the integration of universal cultural experience in the world, the erasure of the boundaries of territorial and cultural identity, the most acute issue is the revival of interest in such important problems as the preservation of cultural heritage. An array of spiritual heritage, formed within a certain cultural and territorial space, is an integral part of global culture, directly affects the development of both an individual, who, thanks to the traditions transmitted to him, is the bearer and translator of this culture, and society as a whole.

At this stage, Orthodox spiritual and moral traditions are of great importance in the cultural life of the country, among which Russian Old Orthodoxy, represented by modern Old Believers, occupies a special place in the spiritual life of society.

The Old Believers is a phenomenon of Russian culture, is a rich, vibrant, original culture, endowed with its own individual and unique features based on the creative understanding of ancient Russian traditions.

The history of the Old Believers begins its countdown from the second half of the 17th century, is associated with the reforms carried out by Patriarch Nikon. In an effort to turn the Russian Church into the center of world Orthodoxy, he began a reform to unify the rites and establish uniformity in church services. Adherents of the old order did not accept the church innovations of Patriarch Nikon. Therefore, it is the Old Believers who are the keepers of the spiritual traditions that existed before the division of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1666: baptism with two fingers, reading uncorrected Cyrillic liturgical texts with accents on each syllable with a "glamor" (chant), characteristic of reading and colloquial speech in the Russian Middle Ages. Currently, Orthodox clergy are turning to the Old Believers for help in restoring the texts of liturgical books and Znamenny singing.

The phenomenon of supporters of the Orthodox Old Belief lies in the preservation of the full-blooded life of the ancient Russian heritage of Russia. It was from the Old Believer environment that such a large number of entrepreneurs and prominent figures came out who made an undeniable contribution to the development of Russian society in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Old Believers is a phenomenon whose significance in Russian history hard to overestimate.

It is impossible to consider the Old Believer culture itself without such a bright, original phenomenon as the Old Believer icon painting. The icon is an integral part of this culture, it is a combination of material and spiritual values ​​and is the subject of cult significance. The very term "Old Believer icon", most often used in scientific literature, applies to icons painted before the 17th century, which existed in the Old Believer environment, as well as icons painted by icon painters at a later time for the Old Believers, taking into account their dogmatic rules and teachings. Being part of a nationwide phenomenon, the Old Believer icon, however, is extremely original, and, depending on the territorial boundaries and artistic features of various icon painting schools, has its own characteristic features.

Artistic comprehension of domestic icon painting of the 18th-19th centuries began in our country in the 1960s, in the Urals - a decade later. This was due to the complex changes that took place in the spiritual and aesthetic consciousness of society.

At the present stage of development of the cultural and historical space on the territory of Russia, various art exhibitions are being created in many regions of Russia to popularize this type of religious painting, works of religious art that are shown to the public are represented both by private collections and collections of state museum funds.

In this regard, the problem of studying the Old Believer icon as a phenomenon of religious culture, as well as identifying the characteristic artistic features of the Old Believer icon painting, using the example of the Nevyansk school of icon painting, is particularly relevant.

The degree of knowledge of the problem. At present, interest in the study of the Old Believer icon has greatly increased. There is a large amount of scientific literature devoted to this problem. Many well-known art historians and historians are engaged in the study of the Old Believer icon and the identification of its artistic features. A large number of books, publications, albums are devoted to Old Believer icon painting, in particular, to the Nevyansk school of icon painting.

The authors who cover this problem and study this area of ​​knowledge are such well-known researchers as E.V. Roizman, V.I. Baidin, Ya.R. Rusanov. In his scientific article "The Nevyansk icon: a message through the centuries" G.V. Golynets devotes a large amount of publication material to the problem of the Nevyansk school of icon painting, Galina Vladimirovna Golynets, the author of the proposed publication, introduced the concept of “Nevyansk icon painting school” into scientific circulation, behind which a powerful layer of historical and cultural phenomena opens up, enriching our ideas about the past of the Urals.

In the scientific article "Nevyansk Icon: Traditions Ancient Russia and the context of modern times” G.V. Golynets explores in detail both the history of the Ural icon painting itself and reveals an art history analysis of the artistic features of the Nevyansk icon painting school.

In a scientific article by V.I. Baidin's "Notes on icon painters-Old Believers at the mining factories of the Urals in the first half of the 17th century: new names and new things about famous masters" presents a significant array of documentary information about the dynasties of Ural icon painters in the middle of the 18th century.

The object of the study is the Old Believer icon as a phenomenon of religious culture. Subject of study: iconography, artistic, stylistic and technological features of the Nevyansk icon painting school.

The research method is source study.

The purpose of the study of this course work is to identify the artistic, stylistic and plot features characteristic of the Nevyansk school of icon painting.

To achieve this goal, the following research tasks are solved in the course work:

Define the term icon and understand what mission it performs in the Orthodox consciousness of people.

To reveal the degree of importance of the icon as a cult object in the religious Old Believer culture.

Consider plot and iconographic features.

Tell about the most famous icon-painting schools and art centers.

To study the history of the formation and characteristic features of the Nevyansk school of icon painting.

Chapter 1. The art of ancient Russian icon painting

1 Icon as a phenomenon of religious culture

The word icon comes from the Greek eikon - image, image. The art of icon painting has deep roots. The veneration of icons is based on the decision of the VII Ecumenical Council of 787, where a strict theological justification for the icon was given, which boils down to the fact that as a result of the Incarnation, people were able to contemplate God himself in the person of Jesus Christ.

Icon painting came to Russia from Byzantium with the adoption of Christianity in 988 and reached its peak in the 15th-16th centuries. in the works of Theophan the Greek, Andrei Rublev, Dionysius.

An icon for the Orthodox consciousness is, first of all, a story about the events of Sacred history or the life of a saint in pictures. According to the expression of Basil the Great (IV century), which has become a kind of theological formula - "a book for the illiterate", that is, practically - a realistic image, illustration.

Here, its expressive-psychological function comes to the fore - not just to tell about the events of ancient times, but also to arouse in the viewer a whole range of feelings - empathy, pity, compassion, tenderness, admiration, etc., and, accordingly, the desire to imitate the depicted characters. Hence the moral function of the icon - the formation in the contemplative of her feelings of love and compassion; softening of human souls, mired in everyday fuss and hardened. Therefore, the icon is the spokesman and bearer of the main moral principle of Christianity - humanity, all-encompassing love for people, as a result of God's love for them and people for God.

An icon is a visual story about unique, miraculous, in one sense or another significant events for all mankind. Therefore, there is no place in it for anything accidental, petty, transient; this is a generalized, concise image. Moreover, it is the timeless eidos of an event that has taken place in history or a specific historical person - its enduring face - that visual appearance in which it was conceived by the Creator, and which it lost as a result of the fall and which must be regained after the resurrection from the dead.

The icon is the imprint of the Divine seal on the destinies of mankind. And this Seal in the limit, in the most important Icon, was the incarnated God-Word; therefore, an icon is His imprint, a materialized copy of His face. Hence the fairly regular demand by the Byzantine Fathers of the Church for a special illusionism and even, we would now say, for photographicity from the icon (primarily the icons of Christ), for in it, in their opinion, is a guarantee and evidence of the reality and truth of the divine incarnation.

In the definition of the VII Ecumenical Council, it is written that he affirms the ancient tradition of making picturesque images of Jesus Christ, for this "serves as confirmation that God the Word is true, and not ghostly incarnated." The icon acts here as a mirror or a documentary photograph, capturing only material objects: if there is a reflection in the mirror or some other imprint, then, therefore, the material object itself really exists or existed - in this case The man in the flesh is Jesus Christ. The iconodules refer to the first practically mechanical imprint - the “Image Not Made by Hands” of Jesus, made by him by applying a cloth board to his face.

The icon is not just an image of the earthly face of the historical Jesus subjected to momentary changes, but an imprint of the ideal, eternal face of Pantocrator and the Savior. In it, according to Theodore the Studite (VIII century), this face, or the original “visible image”, appears to us even more clearly than in the face of the historical Jesus Christ himself. Hence the icon - a symbol. She not only depicts, but also symbolically expresses what is practically impossible to depict. In the iconic image of Jesus, who lived and acted almost 2000 years ago, the spiritual vision of a believer really reveals the Personality of the God-Man, who has two “inseparably connected” and “inseparably separated” natures - divine and human, which is fundamentally inaccessible to the human mind, but is symbolically represented to our spirit through the medium of an icon .

Pointing to the spiritual and indescribable phenomena of the heavenly world, the icon elevates the mind and spirit of the person contemplating it to this world, unites it with it, joins it to the endless enjoyment of spiritual beings surrounding the throne of the Lord. Hence the contemplative-anagogic (contemplative-erecting) function of the icon. She is the subject of long and deep contemplation, the initiator of the spiritual concentration of the contemplator, the path to meditation and spiritual ascent.

The icon depicts the past, present and future of the world. It is fundamentally timeless and extraspatial. The believer finds in it an eternal spiritual cosmos, communion with which is the goal of the life of an Orthodox person. In the icon, the unity of the earthly and heavenly, people and heavenly ranks, the assembly of all creatures before the face of the Lord is really realized. The icon is a symbol and embodiment of catholicity. Hence the fundamental anonymity of the icon in the sense of the unknown names of specific icon painters and their biographies. The icon expressed the conciliar consciousness of the entire Church, as some kind of complex timeless combination of heavenly and earthly cities. Icon painters were well aware of this and did not consider themselves (or only themselves) to be the true creators of icons.

An icon is a special symbol. Elevating the spirit of the believer into spiritual spheres, it not only designates and expresses them, but also really reveals what is depicted in our transient world. This is a sacred, or liturgical, symbol, endowed with the power, energy, holiness of the character or sacred event depicted on the icon. The fertile power of the icon, according to icon worshipers, is due to the very similarity, the similarity of the image with the archetype (hence again the trend of icon painting towards illusionism) and the naming, the name of the icon (hence, on the contrary, the convention and symbolism of the image).

The icon in its essence, like its main divine Archetype, is antinomic: it is an expression of the inexpressible and an image of the indescribable. The ancient antithetical archetypes of the mirror, as a real prototype (Hellenic tradition), and the name, as the bearer of the essence of the named (Near Eastern tradition), have found antinomic unity in the icon.

The icon really shows its prototype. Hence the worship and miraculous functions of the icon. The believer loves the icon like the archetype itself, kisses it, worships it like the depicted person himself (“the honor given to the image passes to the prototype” - the Church Fathers were convinced), and receives spiritual help from the icon, as from the archetype itself. Therefore, the icon is a prayer image. The believer prays before her, as before the archetype itself, opens his soul to her in a confidential confession, in petition or in thanksgiving.

Church Tradition lives in the icon in artistic form, the main bearer of which is the icon-painting canon. In it, as in a specific internal norm of the creative process, the basic principles, techniques and features of the artistic language of icon painting acquired as a result of the centuries-old spiritual and artistic practice of Orthodoxy are stored in it. The canon does not fetter, but disciplines the creative will of the icon painter, contributes to the breakthrough of artistic thinking into the spheres of the absolutely spiritual and the expression of the acquired spiritual experience in the pictorial language of icon painting. Hence - the ultimate concentration in the icon of artistic and aesthetic means. Therefore, an icon is an outstanding work of pictorial art, in which the deepest spiritual content is conveyed exclusively by artistic means - composition, color, line, form.

The icon is written on a board, which is covered with cloth - canvas and then with gesso (primer). Tempera is used for painting icons - mineral paints ground on egg yolk. The painted icon is covered with drying oil, which shows color well and perfectly protects the icon from damage. For icons, well-chosen, dried boards of linden, spruce, alder and cypress were most often used. Transverse bars (dowels) were cut into the reverse side of the icon to prevent deformation of the icon. A recess (ark) was made on the front side, thus, a natural frame was obtained on the board - a field protruding above the ark. Borderless icons appeared only in the 14th century. On polished gesso, a pattern was applied from samples (drawings), marking the contours with black paint or a tool. The next stage in the manufacture of the icon is gilding, applying gold or silver to the background of the icon and the halo. After that, the image was written.

In the icon there is no desire for individual self-expression, the master icon painter remained most often anonymous. The most important thing in the writing of icons is the exact adherence to the canon, which is recorded in the collection of icon-painting samples - facial originals.

The Russian icon in its traditional form was preserved, first of all, among the Old Believers. In Russia itself, the icon appeared as a result of the missionary activity of the Byzantine Church. Russia adopted Christianity precisely in the era of the revival of spiritual life in Byzantium itself, the era of its heyday. During this period, nowhere in Europe was church art as developed as in Byzantium.

At this time, the newly converted Russia received, among other icons, as an example of Orthodox art, an unsurpassed masterpiece - the icon of the Mother of God, which later received the name of Vladimir. Together with Christianity, Russia received from Byzantium at the end of the 10th century an already established church image, a doctrine formulated about it, and a mature technique developed over the centuries. Her first teachers were visiting Greeks, masters of the classical era of Byzantine art, who, from the very beginning, used the help of Russian artists in the murals of the first churches, such as Kievskaya.

Through the fine arts, ancient harmony and a sense of proportion become the property of Russian church art, enter into its living fabric. Ancient Russian painting - the painting of Christian Russia - played a very important and completely different role in the life of society than modern painting, and its character was determined by this role. Russia was baptized by Byzantium and together with it inherited the idea that the task of painting is “to embody the word”, to embody the Christian dogma in images. Therefore, the basis of ancient Russian painting is the great Christian “word”. First of all, this Holy Bible, Bible - books created, according to Christian doctrine, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

The Old Believers cherished the ancient icon, free from innovations, highly honored and retained a peculiar understanding of its beauty. The best examples of the Old Believer icon are painted in the ancient Byzantine tradition.

Old Believer icon painting originates from the church reforms of Patriarch Nikon, carried out in the middle of the 17th century. The Old Believers were divided into priests and bespopovtsy. The latter preferred to remain without the priesthood and were most zealous about innovations in the icon.

The Old Believer icon as a whole continues the traditions of the Old Russian icon, since the Old Believers believe that they did not break away from Orthodoxy, but that the official church fell away from the original Old Orthodox faith, of which they are the defenders. However, only those icons that diverged in their tradition from official Orthodoxy can be classified as strictly Old Believer icons.

Even before the church schism, there were changes in Russian icon painting caused by the influence of Western European painting. The Old Believers actively opposed innovations, defending the tradition of Russian and Byzantine icons. In the polemical writings of Archpriest Avvakum on icon painting, the Western (Catholic) origin of the “new” icons was pointed out and the “living likeness” in the works of contemporary icon painters was harshly criticized.

The Old Believers collected "pre-schism" icons, considering the "new" ones to be "graceless". The icons of Andrei Rublev were especially valued, since it was his works that Stoglav called as a model.

Icons, standing in a certain order in several rows (ranks) on the eastern side of the temple, form an iconostasis - an image of the mountain world. The most important is the deesis rite, the prayer of the Church to Christ. The central icon of this rank is the Savior in strength or the Lord Almighty. The second - festive - rank is dedicated to the events of the New Testament from the Nativity of the Virgin to the Exaltation of the Cross. Above the deesis and feast ranks is placed the prophetic rank - the image of the Church, through the prophets proclaiming about Christ. Above it may be the patriarchal rank (from Adam to Moses) - the image of the Old Testament Church. In addition to the iconostasis, icons are placed throughout the space of the temple.

In every Old Believer house there is always a place for home prayer, in which a small iconostasis is arranged. It may consist of several or even one icon. Lampadas and wax candles burn in front of the icons. The purpose of the icon is to show the reality of the spiritual world. The icon is perceived at several levels: literally, when a specific image is perceived; symbolic, conveying the theological content of this iconography; didactic, showing an example of holiness; prayerful communion with the Prototype.

So, for example, at the first level of perception of one of the most common icons - the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God, it is noted that this is an image of the Virgin and Child. For the second level, you need to know the symbolism of the individual elements of the icon: for example, a halo is a symbol of holiness and fullness with the reflection of Divine glory; the contact of the faces of the Mother of God and the Child is the union of the heavenly and the earthly, the Mother of God herself is a symbol of the Church of Christ. At the third level of comprehension of the icon, the knowledge is transmitted that for a person walking along the ways of the Lord, the achievement of boundless spiritual heights is open. The fourth level is not open to everyone, it depends on the spiritual level of the person standing in front of the icon.

The spiritual tradition in the past was not interrupted, and every believer standing in front of the icon understood its symbolism. The holy words of the Psalter and prayers were combined in his mind with visual images and gave that fusion, which is called prayer.

2 Iconographic and plot features

The most common plots in the Old Believer icon painting are the Good Silence of the Savior. The icon depicts an angel with crossed arms on his chest, dressed in a royal tunic and in the eight-pointed crown of the glory of God the Father. On both sides, next to the crown, the inscriptions "IC" below "Good" and "XC" below "silence". The iconographic plots of the Savior the Fiery Eye were also depicted - the image of the Savior with an elongated head, a dark face without a halo in blue-blue clothes and the Savior of the Wet Brad. The plot of the icon was an image of the Savior with a wedge-shaped beard and with a left eye larger than the right.

On numerous Old Believer icons of the Lord Almighty, the Heavenly King seemed to “replace in the graceless world” the Orthodox Tsar. The prevalence among the people of the iconography of the Almighty is similar to the prevalence in spiritual verses of the name of Christ "King of Heaven". Since the real world was perceived as the kingdom of Satan, it was also perceived as a place of torment that required a speedy investigation. Basically, in the Old Believer environment, there are icons of the Lord Almighty, made "in the manner of Rublev." The Savior was depicted in the traditional three-quarter turn, with a two-fingered blessing, holding the opened Gospel with his left hand. In every house you can find several icons of the Savior.

The second most important are the icons, the plots of which are associated with the image of the Virgin. An example is the copper icon of Our Lady of the Sign with the symbols of the evangelists of the 19th century from the collection of the Andrei Rublev Central Museum. The icon is small, almost square in shape, with a pattern around the perimeter, characteristic of the northern Novgorod tradition - a “pearl”. A rhombus with the image of the Mother of God of the Sign is inscribed in the square, and in the four formed corners - triangles - the symbols of the evangelists. At the top left is the inscription "Matthew" above the image of an angel, on the right is an eagle with the inscription "Marco", at the bottom left is a winged lion and the inscription "John" and on the right is a winged bull with the inscription "Luke", the last two characters with human faces. The baby in the womb of the Mother of God blesses with two fingers. Of the Mother of God icons, Hodegetria of Smolenskaya, Znamenie, Pokrov, Three-Handed, Kazanskaya, Fire-like, Don’t Cry for Me, Mati, Burning Bush remain to this day especially revered by local Old Believers.

Appearance in the second half of the XVII century. in the new iconography of the "Burning Bush", which began to be painted with symbolic and allegorical details, forced the Old Believers to explain this plot more often than others. The “Alphabet of the Burning Bush” gave a popular interpretation of the symbols of the icon, which contained minor variations in different collections. The image of the inner baby in the explanation of the author-compiler symbolized the birth of Christ “From the Father”, “before all the ages of the Mother of God”, while the baby in the arms of the Mother of God “will lead Christmas from the virgin of God the Father”. The three-year age of Christ symbolized the "three-faced deity." In all Old Believer interpretations, one can feel the traditional reliance on Stoglav and the traditions of Moscow antiquity, which they especially revere.

Akathists and cathedrals of miraculous icons of the Theotokos are widely found in homes. On the margins of brownies, as a rule, icons of the Mother of God, images are given in the growth of selected saints. Particularly noted is the patronal nature of the selection of saints named after family members, with the obligatory inclusion of the Guardian Angel in their number.

In the houses of the Old Believers there is a large number of icons of the Mother of God of the XIX-XX centuries. Prayer texts were also dedicated to the Mother of God - canons, akathists, troparia and services for the Mother of God feasts, which were supplemented by apocryphal tales colored with folklore fiction, legendary fiction, tales of visions. The extremely popular apocrypha "The Virgin's Passage through the Torments" and "The Dream of the Virgin" were found in handwritten Prologues and Triods, kept in the Old Believers' environment.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, among the Old Believers, the icon “Our Lady of Tikhvin” was also especially revered as painted by the Apostle Luke and being an assistant in building monasteries, the guardian of true Orthodoxy. Often the image of the Mother of God is accompanied by an ornament of climbing stems, flowers - symbols of the Gardens of Eden, which indicates the traditional perception of the Mother of God as the Queen of Heaven of the heavenly abodes of God the Most High. "The Legend of the Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God", being one of the most famous stories about the movement of Christian shrines to Russia, could not but be in the sphere of attention of the Old Believers.

Stories of this kind, created in Russia, received the value of historical evidence in favor of the fact that only Russian Orthodoxy preserved the ancient Christian traditions, and evidence of very important, since the very transfer of shrines in such legends, as a rule, took place miraculously, therefore, by God's providence.

In prayer houses and private houses of the "zealots of ancient piety" you can find icons of the Vladimir, Kazan, Iberian, Shuiskaya Mother of God, as well as the "Grieving Mother of God". The Old Believers, honoring the “Grieving Mother of God”, performed irmos to her, calling her in sorrow and as a savior from slander. In the popular mind, the cult of the Mother of God was assigned the first place among the “saving” and “healing” miracles that were expected from the icons of the saints. But the nature of the expected "miracles" in each village could be different. However, the desire to see not the heavenly, but precisely the earthly sojourn of the Mother of God, the inclusion of the icons of the Mother of God in the rhythm of one’s life and everyday worries unites the views of different communities and sects among the “zealots of ancient piety”.

Also in the Old Believer environment, icons dedicated to the Last Judgment and icons with images of local saints were honored: Zosima and Savvaty of Solovetsky, Varlaam Khutynsky, Alexander Oshevensky, Sergius of Radonezh. Often there are images of the most revered saints - St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, the martyr John the Warrior, the great martyr Paraskeva, the martyr Catherine and Barbara, as well as mena icons and the Twelve Feasts. The Fedoseyevites especially revere Saint Paisios and pray to him for those who died without repentance, but the name of the deceased is not mentioned; they also turn to the holy martyr Uar, they also pray to him when a person died without repentance. In similar cases, they pray to Saint Thekla, but only for the repose of women. Among the Pomeranian Old Believers there is an image of John the Theologian with a finger to his mouth (the icon "John the Theologian in silence"). This plot is interpreted by them as evidence of the impossibility of knowing in advance the time of the “end of the world”.

Among the Old Believers, the first Moscow Metropolitan Peter, the mediator between the Mother of God and the Russian people, was especially revered. The Mother of God and Metropolitan Peter were revered as defenders and guardians of true Christian piety. Their images can be found on images with selected saints, in other compositions.

Among the chosen saints, Nicholas the Wonderworker, John the Theologian "in silence", John the Baptist, the prophet Elijah in the "fiery ascent", Archangel Michael, represented as the "Terrible Forces Voivode" (a fiery horseman flying on a winged horse) were universally revered. In iconographic terms, there are also a number of special predilections, which include, first of all, group compositions. But, undoubtedly, images of saints of “practical purpose” predominate. On the icons in the next row or next to the image of the saint, you can meet a guardian angel. The theme of the Last Judgment and the end of the world is often raised on the pages of apocryphal legends in handwritten Old Believer books.

In general, Old Believer religious painting is characterized by an abundance of marginal inscriptions. It is also typical for the Old Believers to make copper and tin icons (cast icons). Copper-cast icons of small size, easily reproduced according to the model, were convenient both in production and in use by the Old Believers persecuted by secular and ecclesiastical authorities. The Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church in the 18th century banned the use of cast icons in the "official" church.

Common features for all Old Believer icons, which make it possible to separate them from works of official church art, are: 1) One of the most important differences between the official Orthodox Church and the Old Believers was the issue of sign composition. After the reform carried out by Patriarch Nikon, the official church forbade images on icons with two-fingered addition. For the Old Believer fine arts, on the contrary, the image of two-fingered is characteristic.

The second, no less important feature is the spelling of the abbreviation of the name of Jesus Christ. Representatives of the Old Believer environment reject the Nikon spelling of the name of Christ as Jesus and, consequently, the inscription on the icons “IC. XS." The correct spelling for the Old Believers is the name of Christ as Isushi, the abbreviation “IC. XS."

The third feature is the difference between the symbols of the evangelists. In 1722, the Orthodox Church forbade depicting evangelists in the images of animals; they could only be preserved next to their images in human form. In the pre-Nikonian iconography in Russia, two variants of reading the symbols of the four evangelists were common. The Orthodox Church consecrated as an attribute Mark the lion, Matthew the angel, Luke the calf and John the eagle. The Old Believers remained faithful to another version of the symbolism of the Evangelists. In the Old Believer iconography, Matthew is symbolized by an angel, Mark by an eagle, Luke by a calf, and John by a lion. Such a reading of the symbols of the Evangelists is a specific feature of the Old Believer iconography, both in icon painting and in casting.

Along with double-fingering, one of the significant disagreements between the Old Believers and the official church was the question of the shape of the cross. On all Old Believer icons in the hands of saints, on the domes of churches, only eight-pointed crosses are always depicted.

Old Believer icons cannot contain images of saints canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church after the schism, new images of the Mother of God and new versions of traditional plots, the Resurrection of Christ in Old Believer icon painting is depicted only in the form of the Descent into Hell.

In the icon-painting workshops, the canons and traditions of Old Russian icon-painting, professed by the Old Believers, were sacredly observed, which, in turn, were determined by the circle of Orthodox samples that had developed by the middle of the 17th century. It was in the Old Believer environment that there was a strong focus on ancient samples, most of which have come down to us in later repetitions. To some extent, folk icons also reflect a certain iconographic repertoire. Old Believers of different persuasions treated the icon in different ways. In one sense, different communities (pochinki, villages and villages) had their own ideas about which icons to worship and how.

Considering popular piety, it should be remembered that in reality the religiosity of the Old Believers was very integral, merged with their way of life. Icons were an indispensable accessory of any hut of the Old Believers, for example, in the Nizhny Novgorod and Vyatka provinces, as evidenced by expeditionary and archival materials. There were from 5 to 20 images in the house at the same time. It is difficult to determine which icons were more common. It depended on taste and on the circumstances of life at home and, of course, on belonging to a certain sense.

Since the second half of the 19th century, 6-8 figures of saints have often been depicted in the margins. Such icons serve as house iconostases for their owners, in everyday life they are often called that. The name "house iconostasis" was also assigned to icons with cast insets. In such icons, there is always a cross (altarpiece or kiot) in the center, around which cast icons and multi-leaf folds are placed. Casting in combination with painting was preferred by the Old Believers of the chapel.

The theme of the continuity of ancient Christianity with Russian Orthodoxy was one of the central ones for the Old Believers, since the idea of ​​such continuity, which distinguished the Russian Church from others Christian churches, and the understanding in this regard of the need to preserve the "Russian faith" ultimately led to a sharp clash between the Old Believers and the official church authorities, who made many changes to the established church forms, which were perceived by the Old Believers as "damage". The identification of the Tikhvin icon with the icon painted by the Evangelist Luke made it possible to consider the signification of the infant Jesus depicted on it as the primary argument in favor of antiquity and, consequently, the truth of two-fingeredness. The special role of this evidence was also due to the fact that the icon image could serve as evidence in support of the Old Believer opinion about sign formation for illiterate people. The official church interpreted the signification of Jesus on the Tikhvin icon as a nominative one.

One of the main problems for the Old Believer religious painting of the 18th century is the ban established by the official Orthodox Church on the image of the Lord of Hosts “in the form of an old man”, as well as the evangelists in the likeness of animals with the inscription of the names of the apostles themselves. Under the ban falls a number of icons, "contrary to nature, history and truth itself." Their list is rather chaotic: along with icons that include fantastic elements: the martyr Christopher with a dog's head, Our Lady of Three Hands, the image of the Burning Bush, "the image of the Wisdom of God in the face of a certain girl", "the image of the six-day world creation of God, in which God the Father is written on lying on pillows”, “the image of Hosts in the face of the husband of the elderly and only-begotten Son in His womb and between Them the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove”, the icon of the Fatherland, “The Annunciation with God the Father, breathing from the mouth” the image of Florus and Laurus with horses and grooms.

3 Icon painting schools and art centers

It is very difficult to determine the exact boundaries of the distribution of Old Believer icon painting, due to the lack of clear boundaries between the Old Believers and the local Russian, and sometimes foreign Orthodox population. Among the established icon-painting centers, several of the largest stand out.

The largest center of the Bespopov Old Believers in the second half of the 17th century was the Vygovskaya Hermitage, founded on the Vyga River, near the village of Povenets in 1695 by Danil Vikulov. The Danilovsky Monastery was also founded there, which is why the icons of the desert are also called the Danilovsky School. For the Old Believer Vyg, the need for an icon was as obvious as the need for a book. Not only the needs of the dormitory itself, but also the tasks of propagating the old faith required a broad organization of icon painting in Vygu. A number of icon painters are known among the first Vygov residents.

At the beginning of the 18th century, Daniil and Ivan Matveev from Kargopol, Alexei Gavrilov from Vyazniki came to the desert. Soon, the Old Believers and ordinary peasants began to come here, dissatisfied with the reforms of Nikon, and then Peter I. In 1706, the women's section was transferred to the Leksa River. Due to the increase in the size of the community, schools for adults and children began to open, including icon painting. The icons of the Danilov school are characterized by an appeal to traditional iconography, where images of the Virgin prevailed, as well as eschatological content, for example, the Last Judgment, John the Theologian, Zosima and Savvatiy of Solovetsky, Varlaam Khutynsky, Alexander Oshevensky, Sergius of Radonezh, and many others were depicted from Russian saints. At the first stages of the development of the school, the masters imitated the Solovetsky images, later the icons of the Stroganov school.

The icons of the second quarter of the 18th century are dominated by white faces, by the end of the 18th century they are red-brown, the ground is depicted with low fir trees, similar to a tundra covered with moss. In the 19th century, the decoration of clothes with gold and patterns, the lengthening of proportions and the ocher color of faces are noted. Along with the pictorial icon, cast metal icons were widely distributed, which were not in Orthodoxy. At the same time, it is worth noting that the works of the masters of the Vygovskaya monastery were an object of imitation for icon painters from the nearby lands of Kargopol, Pudozh and Medvezhyegorsk regions.

Among the products of the Vygov masters, a special place is occupied by carved wooden icons and crosses, belonging to a little-known and almost unexplored layer of folk religious culture. On all products of the masters there is an image of an eight-pointed cross - a symbol of the atoning sacrifice of Christ, which carries the ideas of resurrection and redemption of sin through suffering. The iconography of the plot also includes images of instruments of passion - spears and canes with a sponge, Mount Golgotha ​​with the skull of Adam in the depths and the Jerusalem wall. Around the head of the Savior, as well as on copper-cast crosses and icons, there is an inscription, or “title”: “The King of Glory Jesus Christ, Nika.” On the sides of the cross are traditionally placed letters denoting the names of the depicted objects: the cross, the instruments of passion, Golgotha, the upcoming cross of Our Lady, Mary Magdalene and others.

The next center was Guslitsy, located along the Guslitsa River, a tributary of the Nerskaya River, which in turn flows into the Moscow River. Old Believers - priests began to settle here at the end of the 17th - beginning of the 18th centuries. In the 19th century, Guslitsy became a major spiritual center, and by this time the Guslitsy iconography flourished, which is closely associated with handwritten books and popular prints. Guslitsky icon painting was formed under the influence of the Old Believer workshops, primarily in Moscow and Vladimir icon-painting villages (Palekh, Mstera). The style of the Guslitsky icons predominantly reproduces the style of Moscow icon painting in the first half of the 17th century. Along with facial calendars and icon-painting originals, Guslitsky icon painters used ready-made drawings, which were brought, as a rule, from Moscow and passed on by inheritance. Guslitsky icons have peculiar features that distinguish them from the works of other art centers.

A characteristic feature of local icons is the coloristic solution of the image: the predominance of olive and ocher-brown colors of the background and darker fields, creating the impression of antiquity, along with cold vermilion in the details of the image, the contours of halos, the frames of the husk and trim. Complementing the image of the figures of selected saints on the margins of the icons, as a rule, are placed in hallmarks against a bright cinnabar background. The cuts of the robes are made in gold or whitewashed basic tone. The faces are rounded, with small features, written in soft ocher with whitewash. Dark color is used in drawings, descriptions, texts. Some Guslitsky icons are characterized by a "pockmarked" ("aged") background, resulting from the application of notches on a board already covered with gold. Guslitsky icons are also recognizable thanks to the proven methods of paleography of inscriptions.

Vetka is a traditional spiritual and cultural center of the Old Believers. From the end of the XVII - the middle of the XVIII centuries. he played a leading role, being an authoritative Old Believer center of priestly consent. The isolation of the region, the presence of a spiritual center and an authoritative leader, the originality of the environment who lived abroad, and then on the outskirts of the Russian state, continuity in the transfer from generation to generation of icon-painting skills up to the 20th century, the presence of favorite iconographic renditions, characteristic stylistic features and techniques in technology tempera painting characterize Vetka as a major icon-painting center, where the traditions of Orthodox icon-painting have been preserved.

From written sources it is known about the existence of both monastic and suburban masters and workshops, and local rural icon painters working in folk traditions. Iconography in Vetka was well established and supplied the entire Old Believer world with priestly consent with icons. The icon painters of other centers of priestly consent on the Don and Volga, in Moldavia and Bukovina, in the Urals were guided by the Vetka icons. Dogmatic and ritual disagreements, the authority of mentors influenced not only the directions of spiritual life, but also the directions and features in the icon painting of concords.

In response to the secularization of religious consciousness, a deep spiritual crisis, the penetration of the principles of Western religious (secularized) art alien to Orthodoxy, the Old Believers "closed" to the "world" and chose the decisions of the Stoglavy Cathedral of 1551 and monuments of spiritual culture of the 16th-17th centuries as a guideline for further development in art ., emphasizing the continuity of the Orthodox tradition of icon painting.

In the Old Believer icon, the main components of the theology of the ancient icon have been preserved in their main features: the ontological unity of the Word and the image, the dogmatic meaning that determines the spiritual essence of the image and the system of artistic means expressing this essence. The semantic meaning of the main components of the icon among the leading masters reflects the connection of the earthly and heavenly with the eternal. The edge, as a border separating the earthly firmament from the heavenly, was written in red or red-brown paint and blue or blue-green. The inner frame separating the ark as a region of eternity from the fields as the heavenly firmament was painted with red paint and a thin white line (the colors of the mountain world). The fields and the "background" were covered with gold or a double with tinted drying oil, often with polyment.

In the Old Believer icon, the main components of the theology of the ancient icon have been preserved in their main features: the ontological unity of the Word and the image, the dogmatic meaning that determines the spiritual essence of the image and the system of artistic means expressing this essence. The semantic meaning of the main components of the icon among the leading masters reflects the connection between the earthly and heavenly with the eternal. The edge, as a border separating the earthly firmament from the heavenly, was written in red or red-brown paint and blue or blue-green. The inner frame separating the ark as a region of eternity from the fields as the heavenly firmament was painted with red paint and a thin white line (the colors of the mountain world). The fields and the “background” were covered with gold or a double with tinted drying oil, often with polyment.

The technical and technological originality of the Vetka icons is expressed in all the materials from which the icon is made. The main tree species on Vetka are poplar. This wood is especially susceptible to the action of the grinder bug, so the icon painted on Vetka is almost always eaten away by the bug. The thickness of the boards is large: 2–2.5–3 cm. Pavoloka linen, later cotton industrial production (own manufactories), sometimes with a pattern. Both canvas and industrial fabrics are thin, fine-grained, plain weave, less often twill with a pattern and | without him. Paper was not used. Levkas glue-chalk, medium thickness. The Count was always present. The drawing was scratched, minted on gesso, and then the surface of the gesso was gilded. The abundance of marginal inscriptions is a characteristic feature of Old Believer icons. Nimbas were made in the form of a dotted ornament, as well as in the “circling” method, sometimes according to the Western type: using a combination of straight and zigzag rays, or in color - a red line and a thin white one.

The floral ornament of leaves and flowers, as well as cartouches with inscriptions, by the best masters using the techniques of "circling" and "gold blooming", is also characteristic of the Vetka masters, it showed the image of the Garden of Eden. In the same technique, the light of haloes and mandorla was performed. The light in the clothes was made differently: “herringbone”, “feather”, “zigzag”, “matting”, “piglet”, a rather free-form drawing in gold using the technique of gold-white writing is also possible. The “inakopi” technique (graphical expression of highlights (gaps) with thin lines, leaves of gold leaf placed on an asist) does not occur. Some craftsmen used gold and silver at the same time in writing ornaments on clothes over folds, even in “shadow” places. The best Vetka masters have a combination of polished and unpolished sheet gold when gilding halos. In the West, this technique is called "glazing".

Vetka is characterized by a simultaneous combination of most of the techniques and techniques common in the 17th century: niello ornamental painting on sheet gilding, “blooming of gold”, “in a scraper”, when they wrote on sheet gold with bright glazing colors, the so-called. varnishes (verdigris, cormorant, etc.), rubbed in boiled oil with turpentine or turpentine, and then the drawing was scraped with a bone needle to gold. Rich brocade and axamite fabrics were imitated with similar techniques. Less common is the reception of writing with whitewash or ocher on gold.

Old Believer icon-painting workshops in the Samara region. On the Middle Volga, you can often find icons of the so-called "provincial" letters. Their appearance is most likely associated with the Old Believer priestly monasteries located on the Irgiz River. Icon painters of the Pomeranian accord formed a bright, original, different style in icon painting. Many visiting icon painters worked in the Samara Territory. In 1875-1879, Gavriil Efimovich Frolov (1854-1930), an icon painter from the village of Rayushi (Estonia), worked as part of the Samara artel on the creation of iconostases for Pomeranian churches under construction. It is known that the construction of the Lyubimov prayer house dates back to this time. Seven icons from its iconostasis have been preserved, possibly by Frolov. This issue requires more detailed study. The Samara community also keeps a wooden crucifix bearing the mark of a master, which was previously kept in the church in the village of Koshki.

In the XVIII - early XX centuries. Syzran icon painters, who belonged to the Pomeranian accord, achieved great fame not only in the Volga region, but throughout Russia. However, the Syzran icons differ from the traditional Pomeranian writing. It is possible to distinguish the characteristic features inherent in the icons of Syzran writing: the icon board is carefully crafted, in most cases made of cypress, has an ark; the back side of the board is often covered with gesso and painted; the dowels placed on the back side of the board are profiled in the form of a “dovetail”, the husk is wide and flat, it has an ornamental painting in the form of alternating images of a chamomile flower, a petal and a trefoil, made using the melt on gold or silver technique. A similar ornament corresponds to the common embossed ornament on the bindings of early printed books. On some icons, the husk ornament has been replaced with a gold border.

The features of the Old Believer Syzran icon are also a double edge on the margins, an elegant pattern; elongation and plasticity of figures, creating a feeling of frozen movement, the finest, calligraphic development of clothes, conciseness of the composition.

On the margins of the vast majority of icons there are hallmarks with selected patronal saints and a very common image of the Guardian Angel, which indicates the predominance of custom-made icon painting. Basically, Syzran icons were made to order for the Old Believers from the cities of Samara, Khvalynsk, Saratov, Kuznetsk, Nizhny Novgorod and Orenburg. One of the evidence of the high skill of the Syzran icon painters is the excellent preservation of the works.

The Ural Nevyansk icon-painting school covers the period from the second half of the 18th to the beginning of the 20th centuries. It got its name from Nevyansk, the cultural capital of the mining and metallurgical Urals and the spiritual center of the Ural Old Believers. Nevyansk icon painters also worked in many other cities. The images that came out of the Armory, Yaroslavl and, possibly, foreign Old Believer schools influenced the local icon during its formation, which was reflected in the drawing of the background, but here it is rather not the conditional hills of old icons that are detailed, but the landscape views of the Urals. In a personal letter, the masters, on the contrary, tried to avoid realism, generalizing and stylizing the images. It is worth noting that the Nevyansk icon is sometimes called the “white-faced” one. In general, the colors of the icons are decorative, shades of red, green and blue are combined into a single whole with ocher, gold, and brown. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, craftsmen began to add industrially produced pigments.

The Nevyansk icon, according to researchers, is the highest manifestation of the Old Believer art of the Ural region of the 18th-19th centuries. It got its name from Nevyansk, the cultural capital of the mining and metallurgical Urals and the spiritual center of the Ural Old Believers. Icon painters who worked in the "Nevyansk" manner also worked in other mining settlements - in Nizhny Tagil, Staraya Utka, Krasnoufimsk. The masters of this school never painted icons for sale, only on order. The customers, as a rule, were literate and sophisticated representatives of the merchant class, which determined the highest level of writing. The Nevyansk icon is a bright, original and unique phenomenon in the history of the culture of the Urals, which is marked not only by adherence to the ancient canon, but also demonstrates its further development, enriched by centuries-old tradition. It is an integral part of the entire Old Believer culture, as well as the spiritual heritage of Russia as a whole. The Nevyansk icon has no direct analogues in Russian icon painting and is a highly artistic phenomenon of Old Believer painting.

Chapter 2. Nevyansk school of icon painting: history, formation and characteristic features

1 Development of icon painting in Nevyansk

For a long time, the Old Believer culture of Russia was studied incompletely. Attention was paid, first of all, to written monuments, early printed editions, singing culture, copper casting, and features of life. The iconography of the Old Believers was associated with dark wrinkled faces and emaciated figures of saints, as well as the pettiness of writing. Carefully cleared by restorers from under the later records and almost blackened drying oil, the Nevyansk icons blazed with shining gold, lit up with joyful colors. So the history of Russian art was returned to the unique phenomenon of icon painting of a later time.

At an early stage in the development of the Nevyansk school, a connection was found with the old Russian icon-painting centers - Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Vologda. By the last quarter of the 18th century, the Nevyansk school acquired that stability that external influences could only enrich, but not destroy. The presented icons - from very small, miniature to large-sized images are distinguished by their unusual decorative effect, color saturation. Monuments of that time, unique in their spiritual depth and picturesque language, are now called “high Nevyansk”. Nevyansk painters resorted to continuous gilding. The "enamel" openness of the color with bright orange and cinnabar flashes is especially emphasized by dark emerald, deep purple and blue tones, reminiscent of the Ural malachite, lapis lazuli. From Nevyansk icons there is a feeling of freshness, novelty, joy.

The very formation of Nevyansk icon painting is connected with the large-scale industrial development of the Urals at the beginning of the 18th century. The richest natural resources: ore, timber, abundance of rivers - led to the emergence of numerous ironworks and, as a result, more active colonization of the region.

The firstborn of large-scale industrial metallurgy was the Nevyansk plant, the leading role in the construction of which belonged to the state. In 1702, production was transferred to Nikita Demidov, who also received the right to build new factories. Subsequently, Nevyansk became the capital of Demidov's industrial "empire" for several decades. Around the factories, settlements of a fundamentally new type began to appear - mining settlements, uniting people from various classes and social strata. The formation of settlements took place on the site of villages and settlements that existed in the Urals since the middle of the 17th century, as well as at the expense of "alien" people from the Moscow region, the Volga region and Pomorie.

Old Believers predominated among the arrived population. The distribution of the two main currents of the Old Believers in the mining Urals - priests and bespopovtsy - went almost simultaneously. In the first decade of the 18th century, a local center of Pomortsy (bespopovtsy) took shape on Lake Tavatui. At the same time, one of the "bushes" of the Ural Old Believers-priests formed in the Visimsky forests.

The population of industrial settlements initially consisted of representatives of heterogeneous social groups. They had differences in confessional, cultural, production traditions, but were united by new economic realities. In fact, we can talk about the formation in the 18th century in the mining Urals of the so-called middle class and its culture, of which the Nevyansk icon became a part. The iconographers-Old Believers played the main role in the creation of the Ural mining icon-painting tradition.

Icon craft in the Ural lands apparently originated as early as the 17th century, but the works of this time are not known here. A small number of identified monuments date back to the very end of the 17th century and represent simplified variations of the so-called "northern letters". The formation of stylistic features of the Nevyansk icon painting began, probably, in the tenth years of the 18th century. In the artistic manner of the masters who worked at that time in the Urals, they could reflect both the traditions of the largest icon-painting centers - the cities of the Volga region, the Russian North, and the newly formed Old Believers - Vetka and Vyga. The earliest evidence of the work of icon painters in the Ural factories dates back to 1717.

One can speak about the existence of the Old Believer icon-painting school (Nevyansk) in the mining Urals, starting from the last quarter of the 18th century, when the third or fourth generation of masters worked here. The final stage of the formation of the Nevyansk school coincided in time with changes in the socio-economic and religious policy of the state, as well as with the ongoing cultural self-identification of the Ural Old Believers-Fugitives.

With the accession of Catherine II, there is a liberalization of relations between the authorities and the Old Believers. Together with general economic and social innovations, this contributes to the growth and strengthening of the influence of the commercial, industrial and craft circles of the Old Believers. The strengthening of the position of the Ural merchants - the Old Believers - further emphasized the financial autonomy of the local Beglopopovshchina and was one of the reasons for its final isolation from the co-religionists of the European part of Russia. This was reflected in the first place, both in the level of production of their own cult objects, and their subsequent distribution in the east of Russia. Icon painters-Old Believers found a permanent and very wealthy customer in the person of the entire Ural Beglopopovshchina.

2.2 Characteristic features of the Nevyansk school of icon painting

The Nevyansk school of icon painting includes not only icons created in Nevyansk itself, local icon painters carried out various orders - from small home icons to monumental multi-tiered iconostases.

Masters involved in icon painting also had workshops in other cities, and thus their influence spread throughout the Ural Range, right up to the Southern Urals.

The Nevyansk icon is the pinnacle of the Ural Mining and Factory Old Believer icon painting. The earliest dated icon was the Egyptian Mother of God, dates back to 1734, the latest known icon is considered to be the Almighty Savior (1919), it has a very rare plot.

The icon for the Old Believers throughout the 17th-19th centuries was a moment of self-identification. Representatives of the Old Believer environment did not accept or order other people's icons. The chapels, as they called the Old Believer concord, which initially stood out as a separate Beglopopovskaya group, and in the first half of the 19th century, as a result of the intensified persecution of Tsar Nicholas I, who were left without the priesthood, divided their own and others precisely by icons. And, if the official Orthodox Church normally accepted Old Believer icons, then representatives of the Old Believer environment, icons that underwent innovations, after the reform carried out by Patriarch Nikon, did not accept.

A characteristic feature that is unique to the Nevyansk icon is the synthesis of the traditions of pre-Petrine Russia, the focus on the iconography of the late 16th - early 17th centuries, and at the same time the tangible influence of the styles of the New Age: baroque and classicism. The Nevyansk icon has retained its extraordinary expressiveness and spirituality, festivity, brightness, features inherent in the ancient Russian icon. But the masters took into account both the trend of the new time and the experience of secular painting. Buildings, interiors depicted on the icon receive volume, “depth”, the image is built according to the laws of direct perspective.

A distinctive feature is what experts call "the earnestness of writing." This should be understood as a special attitude of the Nevyansk masters to the icon - from the manufacture of a board for writing to the very last stage of the manufacture of the icon itself. Everything was done very carefully and efficiently, at a high artistic level.

Thus, the icon painters demonstrated their capabilities and sought to show that the icons were made in the factory. Nevyansk masters painted a small number of icons. And therefore, each such work is unique in its own way and perfect in execution. The Nevyansk icon was made with the love and care that are so characteristic of the Nevyansk school of icon painting, and which were an integral feature of the Russian icon painting school in the 16th-17th centuries.

All Old Believer icons were painted in tempera, oil paints were not used. The Old Believers did not put dates on the icons in numbers, only in letters from the Creation of the world. Images tried to bring closer to reality. This can be seen in the "depth" of the icons, in the volume of faces, in the depiction of the natural landscape, views of cities and buildings. The images carry a local flavor that reflects geographical features: the buildings are reminiscent of the buildings of the Ural mining complexes, domes and silhouettes of the Ural temples. An invariable detail of the landscape is a tower with an arched passage, the silhouette of the Nevyansk tower is guessed in the image of cities (Savior Not Made by Hands), and on the icon “The Holy Crucifixion of Our Lord Jesus Christ” (“Golgotha”) of 1799, a tower with chimes is depicted. Instead of conditional mountains with obliquely cut areas, there are typical Ural ridges softened by time with outcrops of rocks, overgrown with coniferous copses. Some peaks are white (snowy). Trees on the slopes of the mountains, grass, round stones, firs, pines, steep banks of the river with hanging roots of plants - an indispensable attribute of Nevyansk writing.

The list of paints used by the Ural icon painters, given in one of the local history publications of the end of the last century, includes carmine and cinnabar, and in the markings made by the masters on drawings - kraplak and cormorant. Their complex combinations explain the Nevyansk gamma. The above list also includes mineral pigments that are absent in medieval manuals for icon painters (“intelligent originals”), the industrial production of which was mastered already in the 18th - early 19th centuries: Scheinfurt greenery, crowns - green and yellow, Prussian blue, bought at the Irbit and Nizhny Novgorod fairs . Therefore, the impression of freshness and novelty remains from the Nevyansk icons. The Nevyansk icon sensitively reflected the attitude of the Old Believers: the desire to maintain collective integrity in opposition to the "secular" church and the surrounding reality, manifested itself in the predominance of the common principle over the individual and in multi-figure compositions, and in scenes of anticipation.

The Nevyansk icon is characterized by the stereotype of faces, which was compensated by the dynamism of the angles, the pathos of gestures, the rhythm of swirling draperies that envelop the figures diagonally, twist in a helical fashion and crumble in the form of small crests of waves or fall, multiplying by rhythmic repetitions of oscillating golden gaps. The impersonal, aloof type of face, especially characteristic of the leading Bogatyrev workshop, can be defined as a pretty, full-cheeked, with wide-set large, slightly protruding eyes, with swollen eyelids and a short, straight, with a barely noticeable hump nose, with a rounded chin, a wavy line slightly smiling lips, with facial features close together vertically.

Nevyansk masters showed a tendency to preserve and revive ancient traditions, up to reminiscences of the red-backed Novgorod icon. But still, it was in the backgrounds, landscape and interior, that the trends of the New Age were more acute: the compromise between a three-dimensional face and a flat one, typical for the icon painting of the transitional period, turned into a combination of stylized figures and faces with the depth of space among Nevyansk icon painters.

Whitewashing, almost without tonal transitions, dense swirls over the sankir, which has a gray tint, in essence, stylized the “mud”, gave only the illusion of “liveness”, remaining flat. The stylization of chiaroscuro in a personal letter was reduced to graphic lines and spots, most characteristic on the chin, above the upper lip, in the drawing of the eyes, where the brow shadow connected the teardrop and bridge of the nose with a sharp line. Such writing was characteristic of generalized, monumental images.

Nevyansk icons covered with darkened linseed oil were often taken for Stroganov's (linseed oil contributes to the long-term preservation of the icon). The Nevyansk and Stroganov icons really have a lot in common: the subtlety of writing, the elegance of forms, the abundance of golden spaces. The differences between these icons are also very noticeable, the Stroganov icons were painted on olive-green or ocher backgrounds, they used gold more moderately, the Nevyansk icon painters resorted to solid gilding. Nevyansk icon painters used only gold, there was no imitation.

The drawing of the best Nevyansk icons strikes with elegance and plasticity. The Nevyansk icon is distinguished by the subtlety of writing, elegance, decorativeness, an abundance of gold: the entire icon was covered with plates of gold leaf. Sheet gold was applied to polyment (red-brown paint, which was previously covered with gesso). The golden background shone through a thin layer of colors, which gave the icon a special warmth. In addition, the masters mastered various methods of processing the golden background: engraving, flowering, black patterning. The resulting textured (uneven) surface refracted the rays of light in different ways, creating the impression that the icon itself glows with its own special light, for which it was called luminiferous. Shades of bright blue, green, red colors in combination with gold attract and stop the eye. Gold has always been in harmony with the basic color scheme of the icon. It symbolized Christ, the divine light, the sun, power, purity of thoughts, the victorious radiance of goodness.

Revealed monuments of this time can be divided into two directions. The first is more “northern”, with dense white oval-shaped relief faces, a contrasting predominance of cold shades of blue and red, a picturesque background, made by stretching in color from dark blue to light, and fields of light ocher. The second is softer in writing faces, muffled and warm in colors. To fill the backgrounds, either a double or imitation gilding was used. Margins are dark, with double translucent fuzz, with simpler ornamental inscriptions.

The 1770s were a turning point in the history of icon painting in the Urals. We can talk about the appearance of a single style by this time, as evidenced by numerous dated monuments. There is an expansion of the iconographic range, complex multi-figure compositions are created. In all the works of this period, the influence of the pictorial traditions of the Russian North is traced.

In addition to high-quality reliquary boards with end dowels, personal bleaching (the use of white in writing faces) and thin golden dressings became characteristic features of the icons of this time. The color is based on a combination of different shades of red, orange-brown and blue. The manure is depicted as sloping mounds with flowers in combination with traditional breeches. The color of the fields is ocher, from milky white to yellow-brown, the background is gilded.

The paleographic row (inscriptions) is impeccable, often ornamented. Basically, these are icons of small sizes; there are also two- and three-leaf folds set in metal and wooden frames. In the drawing of the Nevyansk icon of the first half of the 18th - mid-19th centuries, the influence of the Baroque style unusual for icons is noticeable: magnificent multi-figure compositions with dynamic poses of saints, their robes flutter with patterned draperies - folds; an abundance of decorative elements - the centerpiece and fields are often decorated with elaborate golden curls; the inscriptions along the edges of the icons are framed by lush golden cartouches - frames, ornate thrones are “composed” of curved-concave curls; clouds and horizons are indicated by curly lines. The robes of the saints are distinguished by their many colors, patterns and floral ornaments, reminiscent of roses and other flowers of the Tagil trays (this is typical for the icons painted by the Chernobrovins).

Since the beginning of the XIX century. features of classicism appear in the icon, reflected in the already mentioned real images of the Ural landscape and views of mining buildings. Architectural buildings and details are depicted in three-dimensional space, i.e. get volume and depth. The images of saints are distinguished by their miniaturization and subtlety of writing. The most expressive in the icons of the Nevyansk masters are beautiful faces: pretty, full-cheeked, with large eyes, wrinkles on the forehead, a short straight nose, with a rounded chin, slightly smiling lips. They radiate kindness, empathy and compassion. Shades of feelings are reflected in some faces: in the faces of angels there is a childlike innocence and a touching purity of thoughts.

They seized the Nevyansk icon and the trends of romanticism. They found ground in the dramatic worldview, "religious pessimism" of the Old Believers, who felt themselves to be exiles of the church and state. Vivid evidence of this is the icon of the Bogatyrevs "The Nativity of Christ", in which the main event is accompanied by scenes that accentuate the feeling of anxiety, fear on the verge of life and death, the expectation of a chase, cruel reprisals. Romantically exalted is the image of Leo of Katansky in the Bogatyrev icon, named after one of the leaders and propagators of the schism, Lev Rastorguev. The saint seems to be hovering above the ground in the magnificent attire mentioned in the text of the two hallmarks.

Although romanticism had no clear formal signs in the icon and was lost in the Baroque style, it contributed to the development that began as early as the 17th century. rethinking the iconic space, divided into a centerpiece and hallmarks, into a grandiose panorama seen from different points of view unfolded on a plane. The golden skies also speak of the romantic worldview of the Nevyansk icon painters, under the luminous “divine sfumato” of which a symbolized image of nature arises; and scenes of the adoration of the Magi, the temptation of Joseph, the struggle of the Angel, taking place in a garden of tuff ruins overgrown with climbing greenery, reminiscent of the frailty of earthly life; and taking place in a cozy cave, similar to an artificial grotto in the rock, the washing of a baby. The views of natural nature are romantic - valleys with herds grazing near the rivers, cliffs with hanging roots and grasses, man-made parks, fenced with slender lattices and flowerpots on poles.

Many motifs that came to Russian iconography from Western obverse Bibles and prints as early as the 17th century turned out to be in tune with local Ural realities. The icon "Nativity of the Mother of God" became like a horizontal painting, the plot of which develops in the enfilades of an Empire palace. Angels appeared to Abraham in a picturesque "English" park in front of a rich mansion, hinting at the habitat of breeders and mine managers. A characteristic Ural landscape appears with bream slides as outcrops of rocks, “stone tents” overgrown with coniferous trees. The banks of the Jordan resemble the hilly banks of the Neiva, as if seen from the tiers of the inclined Nevyansk tower, whose silhouette is guessed in the images of small towns in the background. Thus, romantic tendencies turn into realistic ones. However, neither one nor the other still make the icon a picture, obeying the dogmatic meaning. Thus, the cave symbolizes a sacred refuge, a model of the universe; Bethlehem cave - "a world stricken with sin through the fault of man, in which the sun of truth shone", as well as the image of "the Mother of God giving birth and giving birth to the earth"; ancient ruins - the pagan world; mountainous landscape - a spiritual beginning; vaults and arches of interiors - vaults of heaven. The Old Believers, with all the freedom to interpret theological sources, certainly knew and honored them.

The Ural icon painters, no doubt, got acquainted with publications such as obverse Bibles (for example, the Nuremberg German Bible) or the six-volume Augsburg Golden Carving with samples for jewelers, sculptors and carpenters. The conductors of European tastes were immigrants from Ukraine who lived near the Kerzhaks, captured Poles, Ishveds, foreign specialists, mainly from Germany and Sweden, who worked in mining and metallurgical enterprises. The European influences on the Nevyansk icon painting in the process of its evolution were also facilitated by the relationship between the centers of "ancient piety", some of which were located on Catholic lands in Poland, the Baltic States, Romania, as well as foreign contacts of the Demidovs and other industrialists. Formed in the depths of Russia, on the border of Europe and Asia, the Nevyansk school, like no other, synthesized various Western influences on the basis of the Byzantine tradition.

But the phenomenon of artistic influence cannot be explained only by origins and influences. The phenomenon of the Nevyansk school is largely determined by the "genius of the place." It is difficult to calculate it in each individual icon, made according to drawings, and in some way imitating other samples, but in general, this genius undoubtedly lives in the Nevyansk icon. Wherever the icon painters came from, wherever they had previously studied, the Ural Stone, as it was called in the Novgorod chronicles, united them. They, like the masters of stone-cutting art, Kasli casting, Zlatoust engraving on steel, were aware of their involvement in a common cause. The feeling of stone, metal, richness of the bowels is inherent in the masters of Nevyansk icon painting. It is in the amethyst tones of their “mineralogical landscape”, in the abundance of gold and “gems” that adorn the clothes of the holy ascetics. All Uralic mythology is of an "underground" nature, permeated with the mystery of hidden treasures, which for the Old Believers correlated primarily with the precious stone of true faith: "This was at the head of the corner."

Also, the Nevyansk icon bears signs of the Baroque style both in the pre-Petrine (close to Mannerism) and post-Petrine versions: lush golden cartouches framing golden inscriptions on dark red backgrounds, elaborate thrones “composed” of concave-curved scrolls, heavy patterned draperies that open perspective abbreviations of architecture and long-range figures, restless, winding lines of clouds and horizons. Characteristic are also combinations of piping and gliding, complex polychrome ornamentation of clothes with frequent bell-shaped flowers and cornucopias.

The Nevyansk icons of a later period are characterized by a golden background with a floral or geometric ornament embossed on gesso. The saints are depicted against a landscape with a low horizon line. The composition of the icon is simplified, it becomes like a painting, linear perspective plays an important role in it.

In the Nevyansk icon, images of saints in the margins both in the 18th and XIX centuries growth only. In the XVIII century. icon cases in which the saints are located, mostly with a keeled end. As a rule, the background is colored, more often densely pink or red, sometimes with golden fire-like clouds. In the 19th century the saints located below are in rectangular icon cases with earth, and the upper ones are also in icon cases with figured tops. In the 19th century, finials were often marked with black cartouches. In the Nevyansk icon there are no saints in the margins in round windows or half a height, going one on top of the other. Also, there are no images of saints in the lower and upper margins. Saints in the margins take place mainly on house icons; on format icons intended for chapels and churches of the same faith, saints in the margins are rare.

In the icon, the people sought and expressed their ideals, their ideas about truth, goodness and beauty. The Nevyansk icon embodied this ideal to the fullest extent. Looking into the faces of the saints, we comprehend the soul of the people, their faith, hope and love - what the “zealots of ancient piety” who experienced the persecution of the authorities managed to preserve.

However, the attitude of the Old Believers did not remain unchanged. The influence of the official church begins to grow, and public life becomes more secular. Outbreaks of religious fanaticism among the Old Believers begin to manifest themselves less clearly. All this could not but affect the Nevyansk icon, which, in turn, begins to evolve towards decorative art, a luxurious thing.

Since the 1830s, gold has been used in the Nevyansk icon so abundantly that it begins to make it difficult to perceive the painting, which becomes dry and fractional over time, while at the turn of the 18th - 19th centuries. the golden background played the role of a frame for the precious, iridescent painting, harmoniously complementing it.

Nevyansk masters create significant works in the second half of the 19th century. Many of them, after the decree issued on January 5, 1845, which forbade the Old Believers to engage in icon painting, passed into the same faith. This applies, in particular, to the Chernobrovin dynasty, who, after the ban on Old Believer icon painting, worked for the Orthodox Church, demonstrating unsurpassed skill and stylistic features of the school.

The gradual change in the policy of the tsarist government towards the Old Believers contributed to the further development of the Nevyansk icon painting. The imperial decree, issued in 1883, again allowed the Old Believers to officially engage in their craft.

The fate of the Nevyansk school was also influenced by some artistic trends that captured in the second half of the 19th century. cult art of Russia as a whole. Icons of the master of the Staro-Utkinsky factory T.V. Filatov, who were awarded a bronze medal at the Siberian-Ural Scientific and Industrial Exhibition held in Yekaterinburg in 1887, were designated as "products of their icon-painting workshop in the Byzantine style." This is not about the Byzantine tradition, which was organically developed by the art of Ancient Russia, and which the Old Believer icon painting never parted with, but about the passion for the late Byzantine, so-called Italo-Greek icon. Some signs of the Nevyansk school disappeared under the influence of this hobby. The warm glazing ocher of the Byzantine icon of the 19th century replaced the Nevyansk whiteness.

On the other hand, a new appeal to the Byzantine testaments corresponded to the desire of the Old Believers to preserve the rigor of iconography and style, to prevent the penetration of naturalism into cult painting. After all, it is no coincidence that the “Byzantine style” was noted by the artist, known for his huge collection of obverse Nevyansk originals. The Nevyansk icon painting tried to preserve the signs fixed in them until the beginning of our century. However, these signs were replicated each time more mechanically and could not help but weaken. Integrity was replaced by eclecticism, the ascetic ideal - by sentimental prettiness. The number of orders was reduced: “In the past, the craft was in a relatively flourishing state, there were up to a dozen icon-painting workshops, but now the orders have decreased so much that even three workshops sometimes sit without work,” one of the local history publications reported.

The Old Believers did a lot to preserve the Orthodox, Old Russian tradition in Russian art. At a time when the Orthodox Church preferred academic painting, the communities of "ancient piety", relying on their own capital, provided their icon painters with a variety of work and supported their creativity. But at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries, when, due to various ideological and aesthetic reasons, the traditions of Ancient Russia were widely in demand, the Old Believer masters remained in the shadow of the icon painters of Palekh, Kholuy and Mstera, who were always loyal to the state, its church and became executors of their orders. The Nevyansk school was a thing of the past. She didn't leave without a trace. Throughout its development, it had a noticeable impact on the folklore icon, which did not waste its creative potential, on the local book miniature, on painting on wood and metal, on the entire artistic culture of the Urals.

The study of the Nevyansk school convinces us that this is a major phenomenon in the history of Russian art, expanding the understanding of the icon painting of the New Age. During its heyday, it reached true artistic heights. The harsh reality of the mining region, by no means ideal customs that prevailed among merchants and gold miners, filled the Old Believer icon painting with the pathos of a passionate sermon. But behind the concrete historical situation, behind the church strife, the Ural painters saw the sight of timeless artistic values. Researcher of ancient Russian art G.K. Wagner said about Archpriest Avvakum that he “went down in history not as an Old Believer, but as an exponent of the eternity of heavenly ideals” and that this is precisely why “his dramatic life and dramatic work look so modern.” These words can also be attributed to the best masters of Nevyansk icon painting.

3 Notable dynasties of icon painters

The first masters - the elder Grigory (G. Koskin), the monk Gury (G.A. Peretrutov), ​​father Paisy (P.F. Zavertkin) - worked in sketes and around Nevyansk. The patronage of miners made it possible to create workshops in the city. The skills of icon painting were passed down from generation to generation.

The heyday of the Ural icon painting finally came in the 18th - early 19th centuries. The recognized center of icon painting, as mentioned earlier, in the Urals was the city of Nevyansk. Well-known dynasties of icon painters worked here - the Bogatyrevs, Chernobrovins, Zavertkins, Romanovs, Filatovs, who played an important role in the creation of the Nevyansk school of icon painting, as well as the Anisimovs, Fedot and Gavriil Ermakovs, Platon Silgin and others. People came here to study icon painting from Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Tagil, Staroutkinsk, Chernoistochinsk and other places in the mining Urals.

The most fruitful and lasting influence on the Nevyansk icon was the dynasty of icon painters Bogatyrevs. Activities that took place in the period from 1770 to 1860. Ivan Vasilievich, Mikhail Ivanovich, Afanasy Ivanovich, Artemy Mikhailovich, Iakinf Afanasyevich and Gerasim Afanasyevich Bogatyrev were the leading workshop of the Nevyansk icon-painting industry, focused on the commercial and industrial part of the Old Believer merchants, elders of the Old Believer communities, owners of factories, gold miners who held the entire economy in their hands Ural.

The icons of the Bogatyrevs from the heyday of their workshop (the first third of the 19th century) in terms of color, drawing, composition are closest to the Yaroslavl icon painting of the last third of the 18th century, oriented, in turn, to the late period of creativity of one of the prominent masters of the Moscow Armory Fyodor Zubov (1610- 1689). And, although at the beginning of the 19th century there were up to a dozen icon-painting workshops in Nevyansk, almost all of them copied the Bogatyrevs. Their work was considered very valuable.

The ancestors of the Bogatyrevs appeared in Nevyansk in the early 1740s, having arrived with a trade caravan from Yaroslavl. According to the revision tale of 1816, three Bogatyrev families lived at the Nevyansk plant. The icon painters themselves taught the children the icon-painting craft, as complete as possible, i.e. personal or private letter.

The most indicative icons characterizing the style in which they worked are the icons: Archdeacon Lawrence, St. Leo of Catania with his life, the Nativity of Christ, the Old Testament Trinity, the Savior Not Made by Hands.

In January 1845, a law was passed forbidding schismatics to engage in icon painting, but despite this, the Bogatyrevs, like other icon painters, continued to engage in icon painting. The main reason for the constant harassment by the authorities was the active schismatic activity of the Bogatyrevs, and not icon painting. In 1850, the icon painters Bogatyrevs were exiled to the theological factories of the Urals for evading joining the common faith. Only later, with the transition to common faith, they were allowed to return to Nevyansk. The first printed materials about the Bogatyrevs-icon painters appeared in 1893. The diary of court counselor S.D. was published in the journal "Brotherly Word". Nechaev, who, on behalf of Nicholas I, carried out a “research on the split” in the Perm province. Nechaev personally met the Bogatyrevs and, impressed by this meeting, made the following diary entry on November 22, 1826: “In Nevyansk, the best icon painters carefully preserve the ancient Greek manner in drawing and shade. For this they use egg yolk. Bogatyrevs are more skillful and richer than all. They are painting icons for the new Old Believer church in Yekaterinburg.”

In the middle of the 18th century, in archival documents, next to the surname of the Bogatyrevs, the surname Chernobrovins is often found. They lived in Nevyansk from the end of the 17th century. According to documents, families lived in Nevyansk in 1746: Fyodor Andreevich Chernobrovin with his wife and three sons Dmitry, Afanasy, Ilya, and Matthew Afanasyevich with his wife, son and two daughters.

At the beginning of the 19th century, they became the founders of six clans assigned to the Nevyansk factory of the Chernobrovins' peasants. All of them were Old Believers, but in 1830 they switched to the same faith. The icon painters of Chernobrovina did not have a single family workshop, like the Bogatyrevs, they lived in separate houses and worked separately. United only to fulfill large orders.

The creativity of the Chernobrovins during its heyday (1835-1863) is characterized by an excellent command of the art of composition and the ability to combine plots, a combination of traditional Old Believer icon painting techniques with elements of secular painting (drawing gaps with created gold). The use of gold blooming and drawing techniques, as well as quotation and chasing when decorating a dolitic background. The use of herbs and flowers in the decoration of the Tagil pictorial craft when depicting fabrics in clothes and draperies. In the coloristic solution of the icons, red and green colors were decisive, tending to a cold tone in combination with dark emerald green and blue-green of medium density.

The Chernobrovins received contracts from the managers of the Nevyansk factories to paint icons for the newly built churches of the same faith. So in the spring of 1838 cousins Ivan and Matthew Chernobrovin signed an agreement on painting icons for the iconostasis for 2,520 rubles in the Assumption Church of the same faith, which is being built at the Rezhevsky factory. In November 1839 they undertook to paint additional holy icons for Easter 1840.

In 1887, they participated in the opening of the Siberian-Ural scientific and industrial exhibition in Yekaterinburg. For the presented icons, they were awarded an honorary review by the Ural Society of Natural Science Lovers. The most expressive icons, reflecting their icon-painting style, are: Archdeacon Stefan, Mother of God "What shall we call Thee, Overjoyed", John the Baptist. In the middle of the 19th century, the Chernoborovins managed to establish themselves as one of the leading dynasties of Ural icon painters.

The last Ural icon painters were the brothers Andrey and Gavriil Romanov, whose ancestors came to Nevyansk from Guslitsy in the early 1830s, before the end of the local icon painting school. In the works of the Romanovs, of course, there is a formal adherence to the Nevyansk style, but it is difficult to talk about its further development. The revolution of 1917 completed the history of Nevyansk icon painting, this unique artistic phenomenon of the later times, which left a bright mark not only in the Old Believer culture of the mining Urals, but also in Russian art. Many researchers who have been studying Nevyansk icon painting for a long time, among which are such well-known historians as Baidin V.I., Roizman E.V. It is believed that icon painting in Nevyansk existed until 1936, and the last master of Nevyansk icon painting was E.O. Kalashnikov.

Conclusion

The phenomenon of the Old Believer culture, an integral part of which is Old Russian icon painting, is of undoubted interest on the part of historians and art historians.

The icon as an object of cult significance is an important and integral part of the religious culture of the Old Believers and an important moment of self-identification in this culture.

The attributes of "ancient piety" in the Old Believer environment played a very important role in the self-organization of the life of communities that arose in the second half of the 17th century. Iconography for the Old Believers was just as necessary a part of life support as the production of household utensils or the delivery of food, and maybe even more. Thanks to icon painting, the Old Believers not only preserved their faith bequeathed to them by their ancestors, but also passed on their spiritual culture and traditions to the next generations.

Therefore, the icon among the Old Believers is the most important object of veneration. This is not just a portrait of a saint or an illustration of a sacred story. The icon is a sacred image, a mediator between the upper and lower limits, the revelation of God, expressed in lines and colors, theology in visual images, embodied prayer.

Old Believer religious painting is studied by researchers in all its diversity, which is characterized by the artistic, stylistic and technological features of various icon painting schools.

The study in this term paper of such a cultural phenomenon as the Nevyansk school of icon painting convinces us that this is a large-scale, original phenomenon in the history of Russian art, expanding our understanding of the cultural and spiritual history of the Urals.

During its heyday, the Old Believer icon-painting school in Nevyansk reached its true artistic heights. The instability of the historical situation and frequent church strife were reflected in the peculiarities of writing the Nevyansk icon. During the process of painting and spiritual comprehension of the icon, icon painters tried to get away from everyday life and inevitable reality. Therefore, the Nevyansk icon embodied the spiritual ideal of society that the Old Believers needed for the full development and existence in this region, as well as the transfer of those values ​​and traditions that rested deep in the centuries, and without the Nevyansk icon it would be much more difficult to preserve them.

As a result of studying this topic, it was possible to establish the most striking features of the Nevyansk icon, these include: icons were painted exclusively in tempera, they never used oil paints; a fusion of ancient Russian icon-painting traditions with realistic combinations, the icons often depicted landscapes typical of the Ural mining area. Nevyansk icons are characterized by a multi-figured composition. The icons are polychrome. Abundant use of all shades of red.

The Nevyansk icon is characterized by the use of abundant gilding: sheet gold, blackening, for this only real gold was used, no signs of imitation of the noble metal by the researchers of the Nevyansk icon were found. The Nevyansk icon-painting school is characterized by an abundance of craftsmen and many details, their careful drawing. The evolution of the icon from a sacral and ritual phenomenon towards decorative art and luxury items. The use of elements of the Ural folk brush painting in the depiction of clothes and draperies.

The Nevyansk icon reflects various styles in art: baroque, classicism, romanticism, realism.

From the Baroque style, the Nevyansk icon learned such characteristic features for this style as:

magnificent golden cartouches framing golden inscriptions on dark red backgrounds;

artsy thrones “composed” of curved-concave curls;

heavy patterned draperies revealing perspective cuts in architecture and distant figures;

restless winding lines of clouds and horizons;

complex polychrome ornamentation of clothes with frequent bell-shaped flower and cornucopia.

Since the beginning of the XIX century. features of classicism appear in the icon, reflected in the already mentioned real images of the Ural landscape and views of mining buildings.

The Nevyansk icon also embodied some trends of romanticism, although romanticism in the icon did not have clear formal signs and was lost in the Baroque style, but the features of romanticism are reflected in the dramatic worldview, “religious pessimism” of the Old Believers, who felt themselves outcasts of the church and the state.

Studying this problem, we can conclude that the Ural masters of the Nevyansk school of icon painting created their own unique style, which was based on the traditions of the folk culture of the Urals.

The Nevyansk school of icon painting is a cultural phenomenon of religious painting and is an integral part of the cultural and spiritual heritage of Russia. The Nevyansk icon is an amazingly beautiful work of Russian painting of the 17th - early 20th centuries.

List of used literature

Baidin, V.I. Nevyansk icon [Text] / I.V. Baidin // Nevyansk icon. Yekaterinburg, 1997.- p. 248

Baidin, V.I. Old Believers of the Urals and autocracy. Late 18th - mid 19th centuries [Electronic resource].- Access mode: #"justify"> Baidin, V.I. Notes on icon painters-Old Believers at the mining factories of the Urals in the first half of the middle of the XVIII century: new names and new about famous masters [Text] / I.V. Baidin // Bulletin of the Nevyansk Icon Museum. Yekaterinburg, 2002. Issue. one.

Baidin, V.I. Narrative and documentary sources on the history of Old Believer icon painting at the mining plants of the Urals in the 17th - early 20th centuries [Text] / I.V. Baidin //Nevyansk icon. Yekaterinburg, 1997.- p. 248

Orlov, A.S. History of Russia [Text]: textbook / A.S. Orlov.- M.: Prospect, 2009.-p.528

Roizman, E.V. Icon-painting plots most often found in the Nevyansk icon, as well as saints in the margins and the comparative frequency of their mentions (based on the collection of the Nevyansk Icon Museum) [Text] / E.V. Roizman // Bulletin of the Nevyansk Icon Museum. Yekaterinburg, 2010. - p. eight

Golynets, G.V. Nevyansk Icon: Traditions of Ancient Russia and the Context of Modern Times [Text] / G.V. Golynets//Nevyansk Icon. Yekaterinburg, 1997.- p. 248

Gubin, O.P. Dynasties of the Nevyansk icon painters Bogatyrevs and Chernobrovins [Text] / O.P. Gubin // Nevyansk icon. Yekaterinburg, 1997.- p. 248

Golynets, G.V. Nevyansk school: a message through the centuries [Text] / G. V. Golynets / / Bulletin of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. 2010. No. 1(31)

Grebenyuk, T.E. Vetka icon [Electronic resource].- Access mode: #"justify">Kirikov, A.A. On icon painting in Syzran at the end of the 18th-19th centuries [Electronic resource].- Access mode: # "justify"> Bykova, E.A. Old Believer icon of the 19th-20th centuries in the Volga-Vyatka region [Electronic resource].- Access mode: # "justify"> Zakharova, S.O. Formation and development of the Old Believer centers of copper casting [Electronic resource].- Access mode: # "justify"> Taktashova, L.E. Unknown Old Believer icon [Text] / L.E. Taktashova // Our heritage. IV (16) 1990.-p. 132-133

Eremeev, F.A. Nevyansk icon [Text] / F.A. Eremeev // Nevyansk icon. Yekaterinburg, 1997.- c.249

Kolpakova, G. S. Art of Byzantium. Early and middle periods [Electronic resource].- Access mode: #"justify">Borovik, M.P., Roizman E.V. Signed and dated icons in the collection of the Nevyansk Icon Museum. XIX - early XX centuries [Text] / M.P. Borovik, E. V. Roizman// Bulletin of the museum "Nevyansk Icon". Yekaterinburg, 2006.- p. 8-40

The first album "Nevyansk Icon", released in 1997, not only marked the phenomenon, but also became the first among such private publications in post-Soviet Russia. In addition, he served as an example for many researchers, collectors, following him for several years, albums of both private collections and those dedicated to regional icon painting were released and continue to be released.

Evgeny Roizman:
The album "Nevyansk Icon" in 1997 was the first experience. It was a very daring project, ahead of its time. We opened the way, drew attention to the study of regional schools, showed the algorithm. A year later, the album "Ural Icon" appeared, and then "Siberian Icon". After that there was another push - our "Krasnoufimskaya Icon". Through a long study of the Nevyansk icon, we have identified a bright and very characteristic direction. And after a few years began to appear " Syzran icon"," Guslitskaya icon "...

But the Nevyansk icon is a phenomenon of a completely different order than just a regional direction. What's the Difference? Why, when we talk about the Nevyansk icon, we are talking about the school, what kind of concept is this and how does it compare with other regional trends?

Evgeny Roizman: A significant number of high-quality monuments, created over the course of about 200 years, united stylistically, originating from the same territory, and influenced neighboring regions. In addition to common techniques and technological features, these icons reveal a common ideology. In Nevyansk icon painting, all stages of development are traced: the emergence, formation, flourishing and decline. And of course, it is necessary to note the impact that the school has had on many regional destinations.

Our Lady of Egypt. The earliest Nevyansk icon in the Museum. On the icon is the date of writing - 1734.

The phrase “Nevyansk Icon is the pinnacle of the Mining and Factory Old Believer icon painting” is often used. Why "Old Believer"?

Evgeny Roizman:
It must be understood that the real Old Russian iconography, which existed before the reforms of Peter the Great (under Peter the Great, icons were ordered to be painted in oil and “life-like”) was valued precisely by the Old Believers and was preserved only by them. It was the Old Believers who preserved the ancient Russian icon-painting tradition for us.

Then why is “mining iconography” added?

Evgeny Roizman:

Any serious art starts from the customer. If there is a rich and sophisticated customer who knows what he wants to get for his money, then all the craftsmen will compete and fight for this order. And go to higher and higher levels. We see this even now, for example, in painting, in jewelry. But in icon painting, in addition to purely technical skill, there is another component: it is high spirituality. All customers of the icons were ardent zealots of ancient piety. Here, at the mining plants, a large stratum of very rich, sincerely believing and sophisticated customers has formed. They, factory workers, separated themselves from the rest of the population, besides (important!!!), the icon for them was not only a precious thing and a symbol of faith, but also a way of self-identification. By the icons they saw - one's own or someone else's. Here the old people still have this: this icon is ours, this one is not ours.

Is it possible in a few words, easily, for an inexperienced reader to indicate what is the “trick” of the Nevyansk icon? What puts this phenomenon on a par with outstanding examples of Russian icon painting?

Evgeny Roizman:

Old Russian iconography ceased to exist by the 18th century. The Armory Chamber, which gathered craftsmen from all over Russia, was dispersed. The influence of Western European painting on Russian icon painting grew, and not directly, but through Ukraine. And the real Old Russian icon painting was preserved only among the Old Believers. In the ancient manner, individual masters worked in Palekh, Mstera, in Moscow, Yaroslavl and served the interests of the Old Believers. And suddenly, at the end of the 90s of the 20th century, it turns out that from the first half of the 18th century until the revolution itself, a powerful original icon-painting school existed in the mining Urals, working at such a high level that would do honor to both Moscow and Yaroslavl. This school created a number of recognized masterpieces that enriched and adorned Russian iconography. This fact is recognized by all major Russian scientists, and I am very glad that I played an important role in this discovery.

Icon "Resurrection - Descent into Hell with the Twelfth Feasts". Pay attention to the stamp on the right, second from the top.

And here is an enlarged fragment of this very stigma. See how high the skill of the Nevyansk icon painters is: carefully painted faces, the size of which is smaller than a match head!

What is the background of the album? How was the circle of research literature on the Nevyansk Icon formed? After all, no one dealt with this topic with such thoroughness before the Museum?

Evgeny Roizman:
The first publication was in 1986 - Lidia Ryazanova published an article in the Ural magazine. And the very term "Nevyansk Icon" was mentioned in the report of Oleg Gubkin at a conference in Perm in September 1985. And in 1997 our first album was released, which contained a number of scientific articles on the Nevyansk icon.

What is his fate?

Evgeny Roizman:
The album was published in a circulation of 5,000 copies, costing $140,000. Dispersed in all major libraries.

What does "break up" mean?

Evgeny Roizman:
I distributed it among libraries and all interested persons.

Did you try to sell?

Evgeny Roizman:
Something went on sale, but due to inexperience, no money was seen. This story puzzled me ... Moreover, I was the only one who was not given the governor's award for this album. But that didn't stop me. Because, first of all, I am a historian and a researcher.

Probably, such inattention of society, the absence of some kind of reciprocal result, cuts off any desire to continue working in the bud?

Evgeny Roizman:
In fact, many of my friends noticed the injustice, but it didn’t hurt me at all, for me the fact itself was much more important, and all this prompted me to create a museum. Really, Ryazanov ( Yuri Ryazanov - researcher - approx. ed.) stirred up, he dreamed all his life, and I did it. He pushed me, he did it through me, he made my dream come true. I still believe that he and Lida ( Ryazanov) are one of the best specialists in the Nevyansk Icon. He did not have time to understand some things, I have gone much further now. Thanks to the expeditionary work as well.

Evgeny Roizman:
Album "Ural Icon" - I participated in this project. The album was published with the money of the government of the Sverdlovsk region. Oleg Gubkin supervised it. The album significantly supplemented the Nevyansk Icon. Most importantly, he came out with a dictionary of icon painters. I was one of the authors of the catalogue. These are two fundamental albums, but today the study of the Mining and Factory Old Believer icon painting has advanced much further.

In addition to such publishing projects, was there other work? Articles, publications, exhibitions?

Evgeny Roizman:
In 2002, the first Bulletin of the Nevyansk Icon Museum was published. I myself then was not up to the articles. I created a museum and was involved in acquisitions. There was an accumulation of material and scientific information, processing. Five newsletters have already been published. Four and an application.

And how is the Vestnik formed?

Evgeny Roizman:
All scholars and researchers working on the topic of Old Believer iconography, and iconography in general, are notified. Or in some related disciplines - handwritten books, etc. All this is done mainly on the basis of the archaeographic laboratory of the Ural University. This is a very high scientific level. He is valued in the scientific community.

The first album was also the first experience, probably, over time, with the advent of new scientific research, with the expansion of the collection, a new album was also required?

Evgeny Roizman:
In 2005 they made a new album "Museum of the Nevyansk Icon". It is interesting because for the first time such a volume of Nevyansk icons of the 18th century was given, which is not found in all local state museums. Most of the icons were published for the first time. All attributions in time were argued and verified. Showcase your book collections. The album demonstrated the scientific and artistic level of the museum. And in 2008 we published the album Krasnoufimskaya Icon. This was the first experience of a scientifically reasoned substantiation of a separate direction of Nevyansk icon painting. In fact, a serious scientific discovery was made. It took twenty years of work to fix this phenomenon.

Three albums. In the center - the very first, on the left - the next, late - "Krasnoufimskaya Icon". All editions are long gone.

It's been 6 years since that time until this album. What publications were during this time?

Evgeny Roizman:
A number of serious scientific articles have been published, including the article "Folding in Russian Icon Painting" in the third bulletin - this is the first article about folding in general. There was a serious article in the fourth bulletin - I summed up the extent of the destruction and disappearance of icons in the Urals - "The Nevyansk icon that we lost." And finally, in the Bulletin of the Tretyakov Gallery, a long article was published on the creation and acquisition of the NI museum: "The icon will find a home for itself."

Did the amount of scientific work done prompt you to create a new album?

Evgeny Roizman:
The idea of ​​a new album has been around for a long time. The superficial view of some Moscow art critics gave me the idea that it is necessary to show the origins of the Nevyansk icon. In fact, about twenty years ago I already began to identify the early Nevyansk icon.
I was always alarmed by the fact that I did not meet direct analogues of the Nevyansk icon anywhere at all. That is, I see in it echoes of Stroganov's letters, Moscow letters of the first half of the 17th century, Yaroslavl's letters of the 17th century, but I have never met direct analogues anywhere. And I understood that the Nevyansk icon painting developed here, at the mining plants, but at the same time it did not rely on any local tradition, since there was none. And I had to show this to the entire scientific community.
For more than 20 years, I purposefully selected all the early Nevyansk icons. The most famous of them is Our Lady of Egypt of 1734. I bought it for $10,000 in 1999 at the height of the crisis. It was the price of a good two-room apartment in the center. In total, 34 early Nevyansk icons are known. One of them is in a private collection, another one is in the Chelyabinsk art gallery, the next one is in the Perm Regional Museum, traces of another one are lost. All the rest are from the collection of the Museum of the Nevyansk Icon.

Icon "Archangel Michael the Terrible Governor" with the holy Apostle Andrew and the holy martyr Stephanida in the margins.

That is, the album should demonstrate the uniqueness and independence of Nevyansk icon painting in its very origins? Did you manage to show this to scientists and art historians?

Evgeny Roizman:
Yes. On April 30, the album was presented to our Ural scientific community. For a wide range of fans, the album will be presented later. There was also a presentation at the Dionysius Frescoes Museum in Ferapontovo. For the Russian scientific community, the presentation will take place at the Russian Academy of Arts on Prechistenka.

At the presentation of the album with Oleg Petrovich Gubkin.

What is the contents of the album?

Evgeny Roizman:
34 icons, their detailed description. All these icons existed in Nevyansk, Nizhny Tagil, Chernoistochinsk. And most importantly, they already carry the features that will be preserved in the Nevyansk icon throughout its history.

Evgeny Roizman:
In fact, this is just the beginning of the journey. The next album will trace the history of the Nevyansk icon from the middle to the end of the 18th century. It will be much larger in volume, since there are more than three hundred monuments of this period in the museum's collection. The next edition will cover the period from 1800 to 1861. And this series will end with an album on the Nevyansk icon from 1861 until the revolution. The story ends in 1917. This will be the most comprehensive and high-quality study of the Nevyansk icon.

It's nice that in addition to images, instead of the obligatory boring introductory article, the album contains a lot of lively interesting scientific material.

Evgeny Roizman:
Indeed, there is a specificity here. I don’t go into art history aspects, my task is to show a clear visual range and maximum texture. This will enable art critics to rely on verified facts and accurate attributions.

To curb the flight of their imagination?

He said nothing, but laughed.

Evgeny Roizman:
We worked on this album together with my supervisor, the largest specialist in the history of the mining Urals, Viktor Ivanovich Baidin. For this album, Viktor Ivanovich made a dictionary of icon painters, that is, he gave a scientifically supported reference for each Old Believer icon painter documented in the Urals in the first half of the 8th century. A small and very high-quality article was written by the head of the restoration department Maxim Ratkovsky. This is a very valuable view of the restorer, who worked with all the monuments included in the album and professionally sees all the stylistic features.

At the presentation of the album with Viktor Ivanovich Baidin and restorers Mikhail (left) and Maxim (right) Ratkovsky.

How to earn the right to participate in the creation of the album? What is the criterion for competence?

Evgeny Roizman:
I always involve the most serious professionals in my work. For example, Oleg Petrovich Gubkin, the best specialist in the icon painters Bogatyrevs and Chernobrovins, agreed to participate in the next album.

What is the most important thing for you personally in all this difficult process?

Evgeny Roizman:
The Nevyansk icon is a discovery. And I took part in it by founding the first private museum of icons in Russia. And "Krasnoufimsk icon" and "Early Nevyansk icon" are my independent research directions, on which I spent more than 20 years of my life.

Fragment of the icon "Holy Great Martyr Demetrius of Thessalonica".

Could government institutions do this? I mean - not to publish an album, but in this way, purposefully and quickly enough to restore the phenomenon in such completeness, to assemble a museum from scratch?

Evgeny Roizman:
No. Nobody is in a hurry there. It's not even a negative. All the same, they will have everything at some point.

If you hadn’t been “swollen” then, would the concept of “Ural icon” have appeared?

Evgeny Roizman:
Most probably not. Nothing of the sort was done back then. There were researchers, the work was going on, but no one had the audacity to show up and make an album. Of course, the private sector is much more dynamic than the public one.

More biased because he risks his own money?

Evgeny Roizman:
Certainly. But as a rule, such researchers lack academic knowledge. And public institutions have much more complicated funding paths and low mobility.

Is it possible to join forces? It seems to me that the problem is that "official" scientists see only sponsors in collectors, those who are ready to invest in research and collection, but not like-minded people and associates?

Evgeny Roizman:
Representatives of state scientific structures are jealous of the collectors. Ryazanov understood more in icons, they could not stand him, because he understood more. He ran and said: “We must save the icons, we must save!” And they did not understand this as sharply as he did, and then, they did not have a team to save. The state museums have such funds that the hands of restorers do not reach and will not reach for a long time to work with many objects. But in general, it all depends on the personal qualities of all participants in the process. All major real scientists involved in ancient Russian art always treat collectors with respect. They share information, build on their knowledge and know how to work side by side.
The most effective research and publishing work is a public-private partnership.

What do you say in the end?

Evgeny Roizman:
We work further.

Yevgeny Roizman at work in the Nevyansk Icon Museum.

PHOTO: Alla Vayzner, Yulia Kruteeva, Andrey Tkach (shooting icons)

PHOTO GALLERY:

Exhibition "Nevyansk icon" opened in Yelabuga

On September 15, the exhibition "Nevyansk Icon" from the funds of the Sverdlovsk Regional Museum of Local Lore opened in the exhibition hall of the Yelabuga State Museum-Reserve. The exhibition features 65 items of church antiquity, including 20 unique icons of the original Nevyansk icon-painting school of the 18th-19th centuries, as well as copper utensils and household items. A special place is occupied 16th century gospel and traditional clothing of the Old Believers.

The Nevyansk icon-painting school was recently singled out by art historians as a separate direction. Meanwhile, the works of the Ural masters really have a peculiar distinctive features, first of all - abundant gilding. In addition, they are festively bright and elegant. But most striking is the skill of the authors, who often create multi-figured and multi-subject compositions with the finest detail on one icon.

According to researchers, the Nevyansk icon is one of the highest manifestations of Old Believer icon painting. Among the works of Nevyansk icon painting presented at the exhibition are icons Lord Almighty, Mother of God of Kazan, Archangel Michael, Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker, prophet Elijah and many other saints.

Nevyansk masters constantly sought to expand the content of the icon. In this respect, the images "Protection of the Most Holy Theotokos" and "Nativity". On the icon of the Intercession, the scene of the appearance of the Most Holy Theotokos in the Blachernae Church is supplemented by countless hosts of saints surrounding her, and the icon of the Nativity of Christ includes 16 scenes reflecting the events of the first years of the earthly life of Jesus Christ.

The persecution that the Old Believers were subjected to made the images of martyrs for the faith especially beloved and widespread. Ulita and her young son Kirik and "The fiery ascent of Elijah the prophet". The last image can be seen on an unusual two-sided icon, which includes a rare in its distribution "The image of the origin of the Honest Life-Giving Cross of our Lord at the source". Equally rare, and perhaps the only one of its kind, is the multi-plot tondo icon. "Only Begotten Son", which was once above the royal gates of the Old Believer house church.

Many icons in the exposition are accompanied by small but capacious texts telling about the events connected with the appearance of this or that image. For example, Nikola Mozhaisky, who holds a sword in one hand, and in the palm of the other - a symbolic image of the city of Mozhaisk, saved from enemies by his heavenly intercession.

The exposition presents several copper-cast icons. Among them is a four-leaf fold with the twelfth holidays, image of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, Cross with crucifix and forthcoming.

Copper icons and crosses appeared in Russia since the adoption of Christianity. In the second half of the 17th century, after the split of the Russian Church, the copper icon received a special development. Copper-cast images revere " as those who have been cleansed by fire", i.e. " not made by hand», « not created by new believers". The development of the copper foundry business took place in very special conditions, contrary to the law and the will of the authorities. By decree of Peter I, not only the production, sale, but also the existence of copper icons and crosses was prohibited. Only crosses-vests and chest panagias were allowed. Despite the existence of this law, which was in force in Russia for 160 years, copper work in the Old Believer environment, among forests, in hidden sketes, reached an extraordinary height of artistic embodiment.

Cast crosses are also included in the composition of two painted icons, which, despite their relatively small size, are extremely rich in content. So, on one of them, a loose kiot cross is surrounded Holy Metropolitans Alexy, Peter and And she, as well as Martyrs John the Warrior, Ulita, Kirik and Salome. The icon is shown on the top right side. Intercession of the Virgin, and on the left Annunciation.

Even more plots include the Cross itself with the crucifixion and the upcoming ones. It is crowned with six-winged seraphim, below which are icons Descents into hell, Lord of hosts, Holy Trinity, Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem, Protection of the Mother of God, Meeting of the Lord and selected saints.

There are large icons in the exhibition with skillful salaries: cast, decorated with carvings, embossing and gilding. There are icons in frames embroidered with beads and mother-of-pearl with inserts of colored glass.

Family icons were often ordered, where, along with the central image of the Virgin or a particularly revered saint, the heavenly patrons of parents and their children were depicted in the margins. So, on one of these icons called "Our Lady of the Troubles of the Suffering" you can see the saints nauma and Daniel, Catherine and Barbarian, Marina and Thomais.

From the 18th century to the 19th century, the city of Nevyansk was the center of icon painting in the Urals. The Nevyansk icon is the pinnacle of the Ural Mining and Factory Old Believer icon painting.

To write the Nevyansk icon, sheet gold was applied to the prepared tree.

But first, it should be said about the main points of the technology of writing icons. The history of the creation of icons is very interesting. There is a website of the Ural publishing house, where you can find out any interesting information about the Nevyansk icon.

At the very beginning, the icon was prepared. They took a block of wood, and cut it down on the chopping block on both sides of the core. The core is the very middle of the block. After that, they were dried for several years, and then the surfaces were treated.

Then, from the front side, the so-called “ark” was cut along the perimeter, so that the fields would rise above the middle. The ark is a small depression, but it was not always made.

Then a canvas was glued onto the base - fabric, and a little later paper. A gesso was applied to the pavoloka in several layers - this is a creamy mixture. It was made from soap or fish glue. A small amount of hemp oil or drying oil was added to this mixture.

Each layer was dried for a long time. Then the gesso was polished with a bone or a fang of a bear. The drawing of the icon was already translated from the copy-book. The contours were pricked with a needle and powdered from a bag with crushed charcoal.

On gesso, a translation of the pattern from black dots was obtained. Polyment was then applied to the gesso. Polyment is a paint on which sheet gold was then glued, which was subsequently polished.

And only after that the artists began to paint the icon. The front side was covered with a protective film of drying oil.

Most of the population of the Urals are Old Believers, among whom were talented artists

The Nevyansk icon is an Old Believer icon and therefore evokes associations with chapels. Most of the population of the Urals are Old Believers who fled to these places due to the persecution of the royal and church authorities. It was among these people that there were many talented artists and icon painters.

In the inventory books of 1702, the icons are noted as state property after the transfer of the Nevyansk factory to Nikita Demidov.

The entry in the book read:

“At the sovereign’s court”, in the blast furnace and hammer shops, “and in other places” there were nine images on boards without a salary. These were the three Saviors: "Almighty", "On the Throne" and "Not Made by Hands"; "The Resurrection of Christ with the Twelfth Feasts", the Mother of God, the Annunciation, John the Baptist, Nicholas the Wonderworker, the Mother of God "The Burning Bush with the Twelfth Feasts."

All icons were transferred to Demidov along with the factory. It can be assumed that these icons were of local origin.

The census book indicated the name of an industrial man Grigory Yakovlev Ikonnik, 50 years old. Perhaps it was this person who was engaged in icon painting, which is confirmed by the data of the Landrat census of the Nevyansk factories.

At that time, this was the only moment that speaks of the earliest evidence of the existence and work of icon painters. At the same time, evidence is not only about Nevyansk, but also at the Ural factories in general.

Also in the census book is a testimony about Grigory and Semyon Yakovlev, who may have been brothers. Apparently, they were icon painters, because the sons of Semyon in the landrat census of the plant are named as the children of Ikonnikov.

By this year, Nevyansk had become one of the largest settlements in the Urals

But most likely, the father did not have time to transfer the icon-painting skill to them, because he died quite early.

By 1717, the Nevyansk factory had 300 households. And after that it turned into one of the largest settlements in the Urals. Since 1731, Ivan Kozmin Kholuev was engaged in icon-making at the Nevyansk factory. In his own words, he studied icon painting somewhere in the Nizhny Novgorod regions.

The documents also inform about other icon painters of that time. Information about the first icon painters of the mining Urals makes us turn our attention to the masters who were considered the founders of icon painting at factories.

In the study of this issue, one Frenchman began to study in the 1920s. He presented his results at a meeting of the Ural Society of Natural Science Lovers.

The Frenchman visited many chapels and private houses in the city of Yekaterinburg, at the Nizhny Tagil and Nevyansk factories. He attaches particular value to the fact that he was able to find an icon painter in the third generation of G.S. Romanov, who helped him in this matter.

The Frenchman was named four masters of the specified period of time. Among them were father Grigory Koskin, Grigory Peretrutov, father Paisiy and Timofey Zavertkin.

In the second half of the 18th century, the dawn of the Nevyansk icon begins

The period of the dawn of the Nevyansk icon is the second half of the 18th century and the first half of the 19th century. At that time, 10 icon painters worked in Nevyansk. But by the beginning of the 20th century, only three families were engaged in icon painting, who painted icons to order.

by the beginning of this century, only three families in Nevyansk were engaged in icon painting

The most famous dynasties that have been engaged in icon painting for over 100 years were the Bogatyrevs, the Chernobrovins and others.

A remarkable role in the formation of the Nevyansk icon-painting school was played by the traditions that were established by the Moscow Armory in the middle of the 15th century. It is known that among the first visitors to the Nevyansk plant were craftsmen from the Moscow, Olonetsk and even Tula regions.

Therefore, icon painters could focus on a wide range of traditions. They took the iconography of the 16th-17th centuries as a model. But it took quite a long time to unify the stylistic features and technical and technological methods.

Nevyansk school - school of icon painting. Its appearance dates back to around 1770. One of the famous icons is the Egyptian Mother of God, painted in the icon-painting school.

During the 18th century, the Old Believers of Gornozavodsk had no icons at all. Among the Nevyansk icons, the first was dated 1791. It was the work of I. V. Bogatyrev "Peter and Paul with scenes from their lives." Unfortunately, the image has not survived to this day.

Nevyansk masters painted icons in the tradition of the icon-painting schools of pre-reform Russia. But then they did not copy the old icons, but creatively reworked the traditions in which they expressed their feelings and their vision of the world.

Icons then were written in a different way, this could be seen in the depths of the icons, in the volume of faces, in the image of the landscape. For example, the icon "The Holy Crucifixion of Our Lord Jesus Christ" of 1799 depicts a tower with chimes, instead of conditional mountains.

Trees, grass, bushes, pebbles - these are all an indispensable attribute of the Nevyansk letter. In the photo of the icon you can see this.

Mineral paints were used to paint icons, because they were considered quite durable, while not fading or fading in the sun.

Drawings of the best Nevyansk icons are graceful and plastic. Distinguishes such an icon and the subtlety of writing, and elegance, decorativeness. The icon-painting school became the most popular at that time.

Masters mastered various ways of processing the background. In the drawings of the Nevyansk icon of the 18th century, the influence of the Baroque style, unusual for icons, is noticeable. But from the beginning of the 19th century, features of classicism appeared on the icons.

In 1999, Evgeny Roizman created a private museum of the Nevyansk Icon

Currently, there is a museum of the Nevyansk icon. This place is considered a frequent museum of icons in Russia. It presents icons from the 18th and 19th centuries.

The museum was created by Evgeny Roizman. According to the chief curator Maxim Borovik, in the first five years of the existence of this place, about 200,000 people visited it. The main goal of Evgeny is to present the exposition of the museum with the first Nevyansk icons preserved in it.

There are about 300 or more icons in the museum. There are also icons painted by secret icon painters who worked in 1950.

Since 1997, Eugene has been looking for a room for a long time, in which he wanted to locate the museum. He kept the icons at home. Here is what Evgeny Roizman himself said about this:

"... Icons occupied half of my apartment, they were in the office, with numerous friends, in several restoration workshops ...".

"... Fate smiled at me - Anatoly Ivanovich Pavlov gave me the first floor of his mansion and two more rooms in addition ...".

on this day the museum was opened, it became the first private museum of the icon in Russia

In 1999, one entrepreneur provided the first floor of his building in the center of Yekaterinburg.

In 2009, the icons were transported to an exhibition in Moscow for two months, and after returning the museum has already opened in a new, spacious building. The museum is located on two floors.

It should also be noted that Evgeny Roizman is engaged in the restoration of icons. Some of the icons, especially the 18th century, are almost impossible to restore. But some works can be restored, but this is a very long and painstaking work.

Eugene also talks about the fact that they even had to open their own restoration workshop. And then they opened a restoration department in Yekaterinburg at the Art School.

Who wants to visit the Museum of the Nevyansk icon, can come to the address: Yekaterinburg, Engels street, house 15.