Icons: Windows into Eternity

Yes. Through icons, people could be closer to eternity. Looking at the images of saints they venerate, they make the connection-they feel eternity.

Saint John the Forerunner, mid 19th c. Tempera on panel

It's difficult to say. Each land, city, and even some villages have their own. We have a great quantity of saints from the Byzantine pantheon. Russians call their country the land of the Mother of God, so almost every area has its own venerated image of the Mother of God: Novgorod, Smolensk, Kazan...

It's hard to say, but in our Russian museum, I like the

It's a very pure form showing the Novogorodian understanding-and the typical features--of the image. It's very deep, very beautiful.

One of my favorite painters is Dionysius, one of the few icon painters who's ever named. He lived in the second part of the 15th century. In the Russian museum, we have icons from the Ferapont monastery (

). It's a beautiful complex; I like its icons-especially the Mother of God-very much.

Vladimir Mother of God, end of 19th c. Oil on panel, metal riza

It's a tragedy of Soviet science. When we made reproductions [of our museum icons] for posters, we were told that there should not be crosses or halos on the posters. How is it possible?

If you look at these posters, you'll find, for example, the face of an angel, but only a fragment-other parts are cut out. Only two saints, Boris and Gleb, could be shown (

).

Students didn't study iconography, so if you wanted to be a specialist you'd have to do study on your own initiative.

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