Dionysius (the icon painter). Icons of Dionysius. Creativity, biography

In numerous paintings of the Moscow Assumption Cathedral, the frescoes "Seven Sleeping Youths of Ephesus", "Adoration of the Magi", "Forty Sebastian Martyrs", "Praise to the Theotokos", as well as figures of the saints on the pre-medal wall of the cathedral, attract attention with their originality. All these works are too characteristic to be born of an icon painter, only blindly following the Byzantine canon of isography. Here the master's brush is clearly visible. Yes, the frescoes were created at a time when Rafael, Durer, Botticelli and Leonardo lived and worked in Europe, because the church art in Russia did not know the Renaissance. But Dionysius the icon-painter - the creator of the amazing murals of the Assumption Cathedral in Moscow - nevertheless broke out of the "Procrustean bed" of the canon. His figures are not deadly static, they are elegant, with an elongated silhouette, they soar. Therefore, many foreign art critics and call this isograph "Russian mannerist."

Artist and era

To fully understand the work of Dionysius, you need at least a little study of the era in which he lived. The universal aspiration and at the same time the horror of the Orthodox world of that time was the expectation of the Apocalypse. The end of the world was to come, according to the assurances of the clergy, in 1492. In the political life of Russia, great changes also took place. In 1480, a victory was won on the Ugra, which marked the fall of the Mongol yoke. The Moscow prince captured the lands of Pskov, Novgorod and Tver. Ivan III decided to create a centralized state. The court scribes began to deduce the genealogy of the royal family through Byzantine basilings of Paleologes from the Roman emperor Augustus. Therefore, the modest size and decoration of the Moscow churches no longer suited Ivan III. He started large-scale construction to turn Moscow into the "Third Rome". And in this situation architects and painters were very much in demand.

Dionysius the iconographer: biography

Unlike his great predecessors, Theophanes the Greek and Andrei Rublev, this master is well studied. Life of Dionysius is more or less known to researchers. Of course, the dates of birth and death of the master are rather vague. It is believed that he was born around 1440, and died no earlier than 1502 and no later than 1525 years. He was born in the family of a layman, but rich enough to give his son to study the art of isography. The first work of the master, known to his contemporaries, is a painting in the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin of the Pafnutyevo-Borovsky Monastery. However, he worked there as a young artist in 1467-1477 under the guidance of his teacher, a certain master Mitrofan, of whom nothing else is known. Probably, with the painting, the pupil's independent talent appeared, so in 1481 he was invited to Moscow to work in the Assumption Cathedral of the Kremlin. After completing this order, the artist received the official title of "the preemptive master." Dionysius also worked in a number of northern monasteries. He had three sons - Andrew, Vladimir and Theodosius, the last two went in the footsteps of his father and became icon painters.

Carier start

As already mentioned, Dionysius, as part of Mitrofan's creative cartel, took part in the murals of the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Most Holy Mother of God at the Pafnutyevo-Borovsky Monastery near Kaluga. Art historians see in these works the continuation and development of the heritage of Andrei Rublev. The same floating figures, pure, harmonious composition, joyful mood and bright saturated colors. The Moscow prince Ivan Vasilievich, after seeing the frescoes of the "monks of Dionysius and Mitrofan," invited a young painter to Moscow to work on the murals of the Assumption Cathedral. So, on the move talent was seen and rewarded by the highest authorities.

Moscow period

After the annexation of foreign lands, Prince Ivan III begins the construction of cathedrals to give his Kremlin a metropolitan size. But the Church of the Assumption was not asked: it was built by the Pskov architects Myshkin and Krivtsov, but, as we often do, high-quality building materials were stolen, which caused the almost complete construction to collapse. The king decided to invite foreign architects, and he ordered from Italy the famous Bolognese architect Aristotle Fiorovanti. He started work in 1475. The cartoons of Dionysius, which included, in addition to the master himself, certain "Konya, Yarets and Pop Timofey", allotted 100 rubles in advance. When the frescoes were painted and the king came with the boyars to take work, then, as the chronicler writes in a mean for the poetic comparison, they "imagined themselves to be multi-colored paintings, aki in neobyasy standing ...".

The iconostasis of the Assumption Monastery in the Kremlin

The cooperation of the art cartel under the leadership of Dionysius and the Moscow authorities did not end there. In 1481, at the invitation of Metropolitan Vassian, the artists began work on the iconostasis in the same cathedral. Like the frescoes of Dionysius, his work on a wooden board with oil surprises the viewer with coloristic harmony. But if in the painting on a damp plaster the color palette looks surprisingly soft, translucent, resembling watercolor, then in icons the artist resorts to the innovative technique of "color enhancement", which is his own "know-how". He puts a stroke of one tone over the other, which makes the image become voluminous, convex. In the altar doors, Dionysius the icon-painter fulfilled the most important part - the Deesis tier. Two works - the lives of Metropolitan Peter and Alexis - are vivid examples of his work. In 1482, the artist also "restored" the Byzantine icon of Our Lady "Odigitriya", damaged during the fire, for the Ascension Monastery in Moscow.

The surviving works of Dionysius in the capital

If the master's icons, in the main, are transferred from the Assumption Cathedral in the museum exposition, then the frescoes can still be seen on the walls of this Kremlin church. More than twenty wall images of the master survived. Among the "Adoration of the Magi" mentioned above, "Praises to the Theotokos" and other works, one should pay attention to the fresco "Alexis, the Man of God." Researchers believe that this image is a self-portrait of the artist. You can not pass by the icon of Dionysius, depicting the Last Judgment. Written in the atmosphere of eschatological expectations of 1492, this picture is full of inner tension. But the multilevel composition, despite the complexity and overload of the inscriptions, looks easy and elegant. The horror gives way to glee: the translucent images of the angels trample on the black figures of demons.

Work in the northern monasteries

After the success in Moscow, Dionysius the icon-painter received the nickname of "the preemptive master." And in Paterik Volokolamsky monastery he is mentioned under the title "Wise". And other written sources are full of laudatory references to his talent and mind. Apparently, it is he who dedicates his treatise to the prominent public figure of that time, the writer Joseph Volotsky. After 1486, the master, perhaps with the same comrades in the artel, painted the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin in the Joseph-Volokolamsky Monastery near Moscow. But the most vivid creativity of Dionysius was manifested after 1500, when he worked in the northern and zavolzhskih monasteries. At the end of life, the master worked with his two sons and, possibly, with his other students. Unfortunately, many works of Dionysius are told to us only by the annals. He painted Pavlo-Obnovorskiy, Spaso-Prilutsky, Cyril-Belozersky monasteries. It is also known that the master painted the iconostasis of the Savior-Stone Monastery near Vologda.

Ferapontov Monastery

This modest monastery, located in the Vologda region (Kirillov district), should be mentioned separately. Here, in the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin, Dionysius the iconographer worked with his sons in 1502. The master created a unique in beauty and technology ensemble of icons and frescoes. This is a real hymn to the Virgin in colors - solemn, but at the same time joyful and bright. White, golden and greenish colors predominate, gentle halftones. In general, images create a festive mood, bear the hope of forgiveness of God and the coming Kingdom of Heaven. What is so remarkable about the paintings of the Ferapontov Monastery? The monastery subsequently never had enough money to rewrite the frescoes to please the new fashion. Therefore, only here we can see the work of the master in a genuine, unchanged form.

The Significance of Dionysius for Russian Iconography

UNESCO dedicated 2002 to Dionysius the icon-painter. The value of this master's work can not be overestimated. He developed the ideas of his famous predecessor, Andrei Rublev, and at the same time brought many features characteristic of him only. For example, the color intensification and abundant use of white after Dionysius began to be used by other masters. Remarkable is also his manner of depicting figures with deliberately elongated limbs, which the art historians brought to him the glory of the mannerist. Frescos and icons of Dionysius surprise with a confident drawing, translucent color, plasticity and perfection of compositions.