Icons. Nikodim Kondakov

canvas mounted on wood, 146 × 106 cm. The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

      46. The Archangel Gabriel, (panel from a Deisis), beginning of the 15th century.

      National Museum, Lviv, Ukraine.

      47. Leonardo da Vinci, Saint Jerome, 1482.

      Tempera and oil on wood, 103 × 75 cm.

      Pinacoteca Vaticana, Vatican.

      Finally, all through the icon-painters are therefore right from an historical point of view in basing the distinctions they draw between various styles and manners (póshib, a smaller class than pis’mó) in Russian icon-painting upon colours, for the colouring really is the criterion of independence and creativeness. As a matter of fact it is most important to realize that I, for instance, know of only one single Russian icon which is an absolute copy of a Greek original. This is the icon of the Nativity of Our Lord in the church at Pskov; it is exactly like a Greek icon in the State Russian Museum; the only difference is in the inscriptions. Naturally such copies if they did exist were only single examples, all other icons were executed in various painting-shops by means of tracings. Besides, we see nowadays that icon-painters learn the drawing and the colouring of one particular manner and are bound to paint just in that manner and no other; only craftsmen trained to paint in other techniques (called podstarínshchiki because they paint pod starinu ‘in an archaic manner’) can copy old icons. For an exact copy of an ancient icon you must go to a podstarinshchik or, better, not to an icon-painter at all but to an ordinary artist. Between the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries we find no such adoption of Greek or rather Byzantine colouring as we do in the twelfth and thirteenth; nor do they quite adopt the colouring of the Italo-Cretan icons Russian icon are easily distinguished. The master or pupil makes up his colours himself. First he mixes raw yolk of egg with thin kvas (rye beer) or water, and drops a little of this mixture which starts rather yellow, into ten or fifteen gallipots, and in these he dissolves his colours, as he has need. The craftsmen of Mstëra or Palëkh, the icon-painting villages of Vladimir, can distinguish in which of their painting shops an icon was produced. When he puts before a customer samples of his colours a painter now offers twenty-four or more: ochre, sankir, light sankir, sankir with white lead, black, bágor, bágor with white, sky colour, prázelen’, white lead with chrome, white lead, reff, golubéts, green, dich’, azure.

      To define these colours, which have in the West passed into history, would be difficult and it is not worth while, it would be easier to give a coloured plate with a reproduction of them all. None the less, some general account of them may be given. The names of the colours and the general scale answer to the Pódlinniki and these go back to originals fixed about the beginning of the sixteenth century. In the Podlinniki we have enumerated bágor and bakán, two dark reds, the latter maroon, the other more purplish; they are called Venetian colours. The Virgin’s cloak is of this colour in Italo-Cretan icons: Venetian golubéts is both dark and light blue (said to be a copper blue, verditer); Venetian yellow, a bright chrome yellow; Venetian cinnabar, bright red vermilion; lavra, indigo; azure, ultramarine or its substitutes, coarse indigo (kub) or later Prussian blue; mummy, dark red; umber; reft’, dark grey with a blackish tinge; sankir, ochre and black (see above); soot; red lead; chérvlen’, crimson; Venetian yar’, verdigris (acetate of copper), light green; prázelen’, green with a bluish tinge. We can see clearly the dependence of Russian icon-painting upon the Venetian colours, which were exported all over the east.

      Very noticeable is the predominance of red in various tones, also important it is which of the different reds is used and how it is applied. Bright red is the distinguishing feature of the Nóvgorod, Pskov, and in general northern school; this is the colour of Russian folk dress (of the peasant’s shirt, in kumách, what we call Turkey twill). It is from the north that the Moscow school derived its pink hills and buildings and the custom of brightening an icon with red patches of raiment[56]. When we remember that the words miniator, miniatura come from minium (a red colour,) we must believe that in this popular passion for red, we see the action of popular as against sophisticated culture. It is well known that the precious cinnabar was brought from Persia and was long the privilege of royalty and its general use only spread with the close of the Middle Ages. Before then had come in various sorts of brownish red, chérvlen’, bágor and bakán, crimson or dark purplish red. By the shades of red one can judge of the age of an icon; significant in early icon-painting is the appearance of dark maroon or dark lilac purple. We no longer find pure dark blue in ancient Russian icons after the fourteenth century at Nóvgorod; both in icons and wall-paintings we only see lavra (indigo) and blue with a greenish tinge. In Greek icons, dark blue is used before the end of the fourteenth century; in Russia it only appears in the sixteenth. Both light and dark blue are called azure (Iázor’): vissón and is the name for a dark lilac shot with blue: golubéts, a pale blue colour like modern cobalt, only appears during the sixteenth century, and in backgrounds is a sign of western influence.

      48. Saint John the Baptist, middle of the 14th century.

      Egg tempera on plaster on wood, 87.5 × 66 cm.

      The State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.

      49. Photius Kontoglou, Saint John the Baptist, 1963. Private Collection.

      A very interesting colour is prázelen’,[57] which includes not only green but various dark blue tones and indigo. It is the chief mark of Nóvgorod painting in the fifteenth century, being used freely in place of light blue in Greek draperies. It is noticeable that the very word is a corruption of the Greek term used by the Byzantines for the green of grass and the juice obtained from leeks, which has a green colour with a soft brown shade. This green colour has no body in it; it is liquid and transparent and combines very well with brown (it corresponds to terra verde). It is this colour which has most part in the highlights of draperies and in reflexes complementary to brick and chestnut browns.