Mass Media Overview
Medieval art preserved on walls of monastery
09.08.2012 15:36
http://www.sptimes.ru/ The St. Petersburg Times
by John Varoli
Published: October 20, 2000 (Issue # 613)
VOLOGDA REGION, Northern Russia - Deep in the Russian hinterland, far from the museums of St. Petersburg and Moscow, lies one of the nation's greatest art treasures.
Some 600 kilometers northeast of Moscow, hidden within the vast forests and scores of lakes in the Vologda region, stands the Russian Orthodox Ferapontov monastery.
The small and - from the outside - unimpressive monastery is home to 16th-century frescoes in the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary.
Painted by one of Russia's greatest icon painters, Dionysius, with the help of his sons in the summers of 1502 and 1503, the frescoes cover about 300 square meters and depict scenes from the life of the Virgin Mary.
Since the early 1980s, however, most of the church's interior has been covered by scaffolding, undergoing its first restoration in 500 years.
Only earlier this year the scaffolding finally came off, and restoration is about 80 percent complete, said Marina Serebyakova, director of the Fresco Museum of Dionysius.
It is hard to say when the work will be completed, since the necessary federal financing is erratic. Restoration efforts, however, might come to naught if more money is not given for upkeep of a building that was originally built as a "summer" church, and not a "winter" one - in other words, it has no proper heating.
"The most important thing is to avoid drastic changes in temperature inside the church," said Serebyakova, who added that the museum complex still has no electricity. The only consolation is that even in the summer, the region's climate is fairly cool, and hot days are rare.
The Ferapontov frescoes are exceptional, the only ones from Russia's Middle Ages to remain in their entirety, despite the ravages of time and weather, not to mention communist repression of religion.
The condition of the art has also not been helped by the monastery's small size and relative poverty - but those factors may have helped save the frescos.
Over the centuries, the monastery lacked the means to make any changes to its interior, largely because it was overshadowed by the massive St. Kirill of Belozersk monastery, some 30 kilometers away.
Little is known about Dionysius's life. While nearly all Russian icon painters were monks, Dionysius is believed to have been Russia's first lay painter, a Moscow prince who for reasons unknown adopted a Greek name.
Some scholars, however, theorize he was, in fact, of Greek descent, a refugee from the Ottoman onslaught which captured Constantinople in 1453.
Whatever his origins, Dionysius was one of the few icon painters who signed his works, and the Ferapontov church has an inscription attributing the frescoes to Dionysius and his sons.
Another tantalizing mystery in Dionysius' life is an apparent 15-year hiatus in his artistic labors at the end of the 15th century. Some scholars surmise Dionysius may have left Russia in order to study in Italy during that time. It was precisely at the end of the 15th century that Russian-Italian relations became closer, and many Italian artists, architects and engineers came to work in Russia: A reciprocal visit by Russians is probable, some experts say.
"These frescoes are not at all typical for Russia, and certain elements are clearly not Russian in origin, but rather show strong Italian influence," said Svetlana Zharnikova, a historian from the Russian Academy of Sciences in the city of Vologda, the region's capital.
For instance, Dionysius used color effectively by combining light and soft shades with a dominant blue background, highly unusual for Russian painting of the time. And scenes from the church frescoes feature many buildings whose architecture is clearly Italian Renaissance.
Even more intriguing are the ancient rune inscriptions Dionysius left on the portal door of the Ferapontov church, as well as on a coffin depicted in one of the frescoes. No scholar has yet deciphered them, but the script is believed to be from an ancient, pre-Cyrillic language used by the tribes inhabiting Northern Russia before the arrival of Christianity in 988. Apparently, it lingered on even into the 16th century.