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0CULTUROLOGY
THE UKRAINIAN ICON AS A RELIGION AND ARTICTIS PHENOMENA OF UKRAINIAN CULTURE
(FROM IX TILL XVIII CENTURIES)
Moysey A.A.
Doctor of Historical Science, Professor High State Educational Establishment of Ukraine "Bukovinian State Medical University", Chernovtsi, Ukraine
Roman L.A. PhD in Philology, Candidate High State Educational Establishment of Ukraine "Bukovinian State Medical University", Chernovtsi, Ukraine
Abstract
The article reveals some historical stages of development of Ukrainian icon painting and Ukrainian icon as a religion and artictis phenomena. Particularly illuminated the special role and the deep symbolism of all that was depicte on the icon - the image of Christ, saints, clothes, colors, letters, halos etc. Highlighted interesting moments of the Eastern Orthodox view about the origin of icons, that is quite different from that of secular scholars and some in contemporary Roman Catholic circles.
Keywords: an icon, religion image, culture phenomen, Ukrainian icon.
During the early Christian period, after the 4th century, the term "icon" was applied to all religious art, including mosaics, reliefs and paintings. This term is derived from Greek and refers to an image believed to be sacred, which can aid in contacting the represented figure [1]. Now we know an icon as a painted image of a religious figure or event, especially a painted panel. Few early painted icons survive, but a small group of 6th and 7th century encaustic (wax) paintings on wooden panels, from the Monastery of Saint Catherine on Mount Sinai, show realistic, lifelike faces animated by large eyes and intense expressions.
Icons came to rather to Kyivan Rus from Byzantium with the adoption of Christianity in 988, and though originally the icon and its models and canons were borrowed, with the passage of time it became to acquire national features and we can speak of the icons of later centuries as a Ukrainian religious and artistic phenomenon.
Christianity teaches that the immaterial God became flesh in the form of Jesus Christ, making it possible to depict the Son of God in human form. It is on this basis that Old Testament prescriptions against creating images were overturned for early Christians through their belief in the Incarnation. The concept of the archetype was redefined by the early Church fathers to explain that when a person shows veneration toward an image, the intention is to honor the person depicted rather than the substance of the icon. As St. Basil the Great said, "The honor shown to the image passes to the archetype." That is why Orthodox Christians usually say their prayers in front of an Eastern-facing wall covered with icons, or an icon corner. For many centuries, no Ukrainian household was without icons.
In the icons of Eastern Orthodoxy, and of the Early Medieval West, almost everything has a symbolic aspect. Christ, the saints and angels all have halos. Angels (and often John the Baptist) have wings because they are messengers. Figures have consistent facial appearances, hold attributes personal to them, and use a few conventional poses [2].
Color too plays an important role. Gold represents the radiance of Heaven; red, divine life. Blue is the color of human life, while white is the uncreated es-
sence of God, only used for the resurrection and transfiguration of Christ. If you look at icons of Jesus and Mary, you'll discover that Jesus usually wears a red undergarment with a blue outer garment (God became human) and Mary wears a blue undergarment with a red over-garment (human became Godlike); thus, the doctrine of deification is conveyed by icons.
Most icons incorporate letters and they are symbols too. Usually it is some calligraphic text naming the person or event depicted. Even this is often presented in a stylized manner (in later Western depictions, much of the symbolism survives, though there is far less consistency).
The Eastern Orthodox view of the origin of icons is quite different from that of secular scholars and some in contemporary Roman Catholic circles. Eastern Orthodox believers find the first instance of an image or icon in the Bible when God made man in His own image (eikona in Greek) in Genesis 1:26-27. Eastern Orthodoxy further also teaches that a clear understanding of the importance of icons was part of the Church from its very beginning, and has never changed, although explanations of their importance may have developed over time. This is because iconography is rooted in the theology of the Incarnation (Christ being the eikon of God), which didn't change, though its subsequent clarification within the Church occurred over the period of the first seven Ecumenical Councils.
The Eastern Church formulated the doctrinal basis for the veneration of icons. Since God had assumed material form in the person of Jesus Christ, he could also be represented in pictures. Icons are considered an essential part of the church and given special liturgical veneration [3]. They also serve as mediums of instruction for the uneducated faithful through the iconostasis. An iconostasis is a large screen that separates the altar from the rest of the church. It is on the iconostasis that painted images of Christ, the Virgin and various saints are grouped. Icons were created with a formalized, deliberately stylized aspect that emphasized otherworldli-ness rather than human feeling or sentimentality. Gold-leaf backgrounds were common with strongly geometric designs, emphasizing either angularity or long, sinuous curves, being favored. Long time icons served as
tools of edification for the illiterate faithful during most of the history of Christendom.
During the Mongol Invasion of the 13 th century, many churches, and consequently the icons in them, were destroyed, explaining, in part, why there are so few icons left from pre-Mongol times. The political and cultural center of Kyivan Rus moved to the Halytsko-Volyn Principality, and it is the regions of Halychyna and Volyn, in the 14-16th centuries, that Ukrainian icons acquired their "Ukrainian" features.
There was very little pressure on icon painters from Church authorities and they were free to follow their own artistic intuition rather than rigid canons in creating icons. Instead of the gold background, they often introduced red or green backgrounds. Some icon painters could have been exposed to, and influenced by, the new late Gothic and Renaissance trends that were observed in Western Europe. The changes became particularly noticeable in the 16th century, when icon imagery shifted from Byzantine patterns to new principles of painting. New types of iconostases were developed. Centers of icon painting in Lviv, Zhovkva and Kyiv flourished.
Most of the icons preserved from the 16th century were painted in western Ukraine, but starting from the 17th century, the number of preserved icons from eastern Ukraine grew. It is estimated that there are about 1,500 icons of the 16-17th centuries to be found in museums in Lviv, Kyiv, Lutsk, Rivne, Drohobych, Poland and Slovakia. Surprisingly, neither the religious tensions of the end of the 16th century (connected with the Lublin Union after which Poland and Lithuania united into one state, and a considerable part of Orthodox Ukraine found itself under Polish Catholic domination), nor the War of Independence of the 17th century, led by Bohdan Khmelnytsky, affected icon painting to any great extent. Churches continued to be built, iconostases were erected, and icons were painted.
In the 17th century, Kyiv gradually developed into a major cultural center, with old churches restored, new ones built, and schools founded. At the end of the 17th century, Ukraine found itself split in two, with the western lands under Poland and the eastern lands in the Russian sphere. Despite these divisions, the Ukrainian spirit and mentality remained undivided, and the icons of that time bear witness to that.
At the end of the 17th century, icon painters in the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra Monastery created what later came to be called icons in the "Ukrainian Baroque style," in which typical features of Ukrainian national painting were amply reflected. Portraits of donors and clergymen began to appear in some icons (similarly, such personages appeared in religious paintings in the Western tradition). The images of saints in the icons also began acquiring features of individual portraits.
Ivan Mazepa, Hetman of Ukraine from 1687 to 1709, initiated the construction of many churches that needed a lot of icons. Iconostases in the churches of Kyiv, Chernihiv and Novhorod-Siversky deserve separate mention. Some of their iconostases were 17 meters high. Unfortunately, most of churches, as well as the icons, were destroyed by the Soviet regime.
Despite the growing pressure Russia exercised in all spheres of Ukrainians' lives, Ukrainian icon painting continued its unchecked development through the
18th century, acquiring new features. In the regions of Livoberezhzhya (Left Bank) and Slobozhanshchyna new wooden churches were built with large iconostases that played a special role during liturgy.
In the course of centuries a curious phenomenon developed — icons began to be painted not only by professional icon artists but also by peasants. There were several reasons for this development to occur, the main reason probably being the difficulty of obtaining icons in the rural areas with no big urban centres or monasteries in close vicinity. Such "home-painted" icons differed in style and execution from region to region, and some of the best icons represent the supreme achievement in icon painting, and their work combines spiritual grace and technical excellence in a synthesis that was never again equaled.
At the end of the 18th century, icon painting centers emerged in Poltava, Myrhorod, Novhorod-Siv-ersky and Nizhyn. Volodymyr Borovykovsky (17571825), an icon painter from Myrhorod, was particularly well known, not only for his icons but for his portraits as well. In fact, he opened a new stage in the development of Ukrainian icon painting.
Present-day art historians and specialists, when assessing the age of icons with the help of advanced scientific methods and equipment, believe the icon in question was painted in the 11th or 12th centuries in Constantinople. The ruler of the Halytsko-Volynsky Principality (Galicia-Volynia, one of the principalities into which the state of Kyivan Rus broke up in the course of the 11th and 12th centuries) Danylo (12021264), brought the icon to his capital of Kholm, but it is not known from where. Many rulers vied for possession of the icon, and for stretches of time it had to be kept hidden in unfavorable conditions. The icon was also moved from place to place and suffered considerable damage. In 1917, the year of revolutions, the icon made its way to Kyiv, first to the Florovsky Monastery, and later, when the militantly atheistic Bolsheviks came to power, it was in safekeeping with successive families of the faithful. In 1943, Metropolitan Ivan Ohienko had the icon brought back to Kholm. At the end of the Second World War, Ukrainians from Kholm were "resettled" in Lutsk and took the icon with them. It then turned up in a museum in Ivano-Frankivsk, and later was given to the Local History and Lore Museum in Lutsk.
In the Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition the icon has played a much more important and conspicuous role than it did in Western Christianity. The reasons for this explained by the different mentalities and the different artistic and spiritual backgrounds of the people who made and worshiped them.
Thus, when speaking of icons, it should be borne in mind that icon painting has always primarily been an object of worship, while its artistic merits have always been of secondary importance, though the more beautiful the icon is, the greater impact it has.
References
1. Encyclopedia of Ukrainian Studies. T. 3. -Lviv "Young Life", 1994. - P. 835.
2. History of Ukrainian culture: In the 5th t. - T. 1. - K .: "Scientific thought", 2001 - P. 179.
3. Ukrainian Culture: History and Modernity: Textbook. - Lviv: World, 1994. - P. 93.
