UNKNOWN ICON PAINTER, Russian
(late 15th century in northern Russia)

Exaltation of the Cross

1490s
Egg tempera on wood, 48 x 36 cm
Ikonen-Museum, Recklinghausen

The icon was originally part of the Feast-day Tier of an iconostasis. Its theme is the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross. It commemorates the legendary "Invention" or Discovery of the True Cross by Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine, which is said to have happened in the year 320.

The Exaltation of the Cross is represented on the icon in a solemn, strictly symmetrical composition: against the background of a massive round church with "Russified" onion domes, the centre of the icon features Bishop Makarios of Jerusalem on a large, two-stage ambo (a kind of pulpit) with a semicircular rear wall. Assisted by two deacons, he holds aloft the relic of the Cross. The festival is attended by Helena and Constantine on the right-hand side, and a group of singers in characteristic full-length garments and the head-covering known as the scaranica. The depiction is in the laconic style characteristic of Novgorod, confining itself to essentials, and preferring a bright, limpid coloration, in which dark green, a luminous vermilion dominate alongside white and ochre.




© Web Gallery of Art, created by Emil Krén and Daniel Marx.