Image

Title: Iconostasis (egg tempera; panel 12 1/4" x 1 7/8"). Date: early XV. Material: Painting (detail). 

Description

Transfiguration; above, bearded Christ with cross-nimbus, body surrounded by inverted dark five-pointed star within circular green with darker green border, wearing white garments, standing on mountain top, flanked by nimbed bearded Elijah and Moses who holds open scroll, each standing on adjacent mountain top, both turned toward Christ, inclining bodies; below, three disciples struck with awe: John lying on back, right hand covering face; James fallen forward, right hand on top of head; white-haired bearded Peter kneeling, turning head toward Christ; all against radiant golden background. Dacenko (in Alpatov) notes that the disciples have fallen to the ground in fear inspired by the miracle of the transfiguration. Alpatov points out that the profiles of the bowing prophets coincide with the glory surrounding Christ and that the three figures form a rosette. The icon is flooded with light and seems to radiate it.Some details are used repeatedly in representing the transfiguration scene, for example the three mountain tops with Christ standing on the one at center, Elijah on the one at left and Moses on the one at right. Christ wears shining white garments. Behind him is an aureole which is darker at the center. [In this case the aureole has a dark border and a darker five-pointed star occupies the center behind Christ.] The apostles fall to the ground at Christ's transfigured splendor. Peter is the only one who raises his head to look toward Christ. The figure of John, fallen on his back and covering his face, is a feature not to be found in icon painting before the 15th century. It stems from an ascetic movement which flourished at Mt. Athos at the end of the 14th and beginning of the 15th century in which monks achieved a visionary state by means of a physiopsychic technique. They believed this permitted them to see the light energies of God in the Transfiguration of Christ and that they were transfigured themselves. In this state the monk was thought to be not only transfigured but wrapped in a garment of glory, depicted on some icons as a transparent garment. These theories were based on the earlier 'writings of Pseudo Dionysius the Areopagite (6th century) who taught that man cannot see the light-glory of God. This is beyond the sight of man and therefore appears as complete darkness to him, what Dionysius calls "overlight darkness." The reproduction of the profound emotions involved were not indigenous to the contemporary Russian spiritual conception. The inspiration came from outside, probably by way of the Balkans, perhaps with the appointment of a metropolitan at Kiev who used certain psychological techniques of speaking and writing to set the mind into pious excitement and who found many followers in western Russia. [--Onash.]

Transfiguration of Christ, flanked by Elijah and Moses.

Attributed to Rublev (ca. 1360/70-1430), Russian painter. The iconostasis was commissioned in 1405 and among the painters the names of Theophanes the Greeks, Rublev and Prokhoros of Gorodetz are mentioned in contemporary records. [--Dacenko, in Alpatov.]