Andrei Rublev was born
circa 1360 (presumably). According to the anonymous author of the
The Lives of Russian Saints, a book compiled in the early eighteenth
century, Andrei Rublev died on January 29, 1430, and was buried at
the Andronikov Monastery in Moscow.
Rublev's name has long
become legend. Already in the fifteenth century icons painted by
Rublev were considered worth their weight in gold and were
much-coveted collectors' items. So great was Rublev's fame, that the
Church Council, held in Moscow in 1551, thus prescribed in its
statutes the official canon for the correct representation of the
Trinity: "... to paint from ancient models, as painted by the
Greek painters and as painted by Andrei Rublev..." No wonder
numerous works were described to his brush, including such icons
that were created by other painters even many years after Rublev's
time. Twentieth century historians of art found that very few of his
works ascribed in the chronicles, The Lives of Russian Saints and
other sources to Andrei Rublev's brush have survived. Still extant
among Rublev's more or less authentic works are individual icons of
the festival tier in the iconostasis of the Annunciation
Cathedral in Moscow's Kremlin, individual icons and frescoes of
the Cathedral
of the Assumption of Vladimir
and The Old Testament Trinity from the Holy
Trinity Cathedral at the St.Sergius Trinity Monastery. Now some
of his works can be viewed in both the Tretyakov
Gallery in Moscow and the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg.
St.Sergius and his monastery.
Rublev's name is
associated with the history of the Moscow artistic school. Many of
his works, just as those of his disciples and followers, originated
in Moscow or in towns and monasteries around it. In Moscow, Rublev's
clients were Prince Dmitry Donskoy's sons Vasily and Yury, and also
the disciples and followers of St.Sergius
of Radonezh. The life of St.Sergius, the founder of the Holy
Trinity Monastery, was considered an ideal by contemporaries of
Rublev. The Monastery of the Holy Trinity was a place where ideas of
fraternity, calm, love to god and spiritual self-improvement were
expressed. As early as in the fourteenth century the popularity of
the Holy Trinity was based not only on its religious content, but
also on tragic conditions of Russian political and social life.
Those were times of constant feudal strife, which took a toll of
thousands of lives and systematically weaken Russian principalities.
The foremost thinkers of the time realized how deadly destructive
the feuds were, making Russia an easy prey to enemies. It was clear
that the nation has to put an end to internal strife and to throw
off the Mongol Yoke. Mingling facts of real life with concepts
borrowed from the Gospels and the writings of the Holy Fathers, the
medieval mentality embodied these ideas through complex and abstract
speculations in the image of the Trinity. Being undivided, the
Trinity denounced strife and called for togetherness; being
individualized, it condemned oppression and called for liberation.
The fifteenth-century
Muscovite, Epiphanius the Wise wrote in the first biography of
St.Sergius that the monastery was founded so that
"contemplation of the Holy Trinity would conquer the hateful
fear of this world's dissensions". St.Sergius
of Radonezh, who dedicated the monastery to the Holy Trinity,
did not restrict himself to mere prayer in seclusion. St.Sergius had
given every possible backing to Prince Dmitry Donskoy's policy
towards the unification of the fighting Russian principalities into
a single state and towards delivering the Russian people from the
hateful Mongol Yoke. His policy became reality following the first
significant victory of Russian army in the battle on Kulikovo Field
(September, 1380). Because the river Don flows nearby from the
Kulikovo Field, the prince Dmitry was titled Donskoy after this
battle. Obviously, much in Rublev's beliefs conformed to the beliefs
of St.Sergius. This observation leads to an understanding of the
painter's philosophy.
The Icon of the Holy Trinity.
In the medieval Russia,
all newly-painted icons were coated with a layer of a special drying
oil to protect the painting against mechanical damage and impart
greater intensity to the colors. Unfortunately, with time oil
darkened, thereby darkening the initial colors of icons and
eventually turning absolutely black. For this reason, the icon had
to be renewed, and the Trinity was painted over with fresh paints
within its faintly discernible contours. This procedure was repeated
several times. Towards the turn of the twentieth century there
remained nothing of Rublev's masterpiece apart from the rapturous
recollections of antiquity. The first attempt to remove later
accretions from the fifteenth-century icon was made in 1905. At the
end of 1918 restoration work was continued, the surround was removed
and it is only since then that the icon's appearance has become
close to the original. We say "close to" because in these
long five centuries the icon's painting turned out to be damaged:
the gold background was lost, the tree was painted anew within the
old contours, the top layers of paint were washed off, even the
ground was occasionally disturbed and cracks appeared, the outlines
of the Angels' heads were partly altered. All this notwithstanding,
even in its present state the Trinity remains one of the best extant
Russian icons.
The subject of the icon is
based on the Biblical story about the visit by three Angels to the
Prophet Abraham and his wife Sarah. According to the theological
interpretations whose authors associated the Old Testament events
with events of the New Testament, these Angels were the three
Persons of the Trinity: God the Father, God the Son and the Holy
Spirit. Though revealing direct iconographic affinity with this kind
of representations, the Trinity as painted by Rublev, has its own
features which carry a new quality and a new content. In Rublev's
icon we observe for the first time all the three Angels shown equal.
This icon alone conformed to the strict rules of the orthodox
doctrine of the Trinity.
Meantime, some historians
of art believe that Rublev expressed in the icon the need for and
benefit of love, of a union based on the trust of one individual in
another. Whereas Rublev's Trinity is void of any noticeable energy
of earthly life, of corporeality of forms and external
manifestations of love, equally absent from it is that cold soaring
of the spirit, so remote from humans. The image determines the
subtle struck balance between soul and spirit, the corporeal and the
imponderable, endless and immortal sojourn in the heavens. When
speaking of Rublev's work, different authors describe the Trinity's
Angels as quiet, gentle, anxious, sorrowful, and the mood permeating
the icon as detached, meditative, contemplative, intimate.
Depicting the Trinity as
an indivisible essence without beginning and without end, infinite
and eternal, Rublev chose repetitive light and airy movement as the
leitmotif of the composition. The Angels' attitudes and meaningful
gestures, their inclinations are amazing in their dissimilarity
while being almost identical, so that the icon leaves the clear
impression of a seemingly many-voice talk.
It is not fortuitous that
we perceive Andrei Rublev's Trinity as the highest achievement of
Russian art. Crowning a long artistic career of a single master, it
is also an embodiment of the creative thought of several
generations. Just as any other medieval artist, Rublev highly valued
tradition and collective effort. All the best features of early
fifteenth-century Russian culture merged in the Trinity: a form of
philosophical generalization, outwordly abstract, but with an
amazingly concrete content, a capacity to express through
iconographic images the national character, and artistic skills
attaining to the pinnacles of world art.
From A
RUSSIA PHOTOTRACK
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