THEOLOGY OF IMAGES: “ANNUNCIATION” AND “CHRISTMAS” AS SUBJECTS OF ICONS AND PICTURES
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УДК 008
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Information about authors: Kasatkina Tatyana Aleksandrovna, Dr of Philological Sciences, Head of Department of Theory of Literature, A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow, Russian Federation). E-mail: t-kasatkina@yandex.ru
Annotation: Outstanding icon painters and European painters, when creating the icons and paintings, don’t illustrate Christian theological ideas, following the verbal formulas that precede the artist’s activity, but for the first time incarnate them with the means of their own art, which enable them to express in a powerful, bright and concentrated way, in the image system the ideas which are almost ineffable in the word with such boldness, obviousness and laconicism. The article deals with two initial episodes of the Christian history of salvation: Annunciation and Christmas, and it is shown in it, how the same fundamental ideas are expressed by icon painters and painters by using various means, which spreading from the symbolic realism (when the elements, a key to a given scene, are taken historically and infinitely deepened) to allegory (when the central thought is depicted by using of an accidental and third-party detail for the scene). It is shown how the idea of the active freedom of the creature in relation to the Creator emerges to the forefront in the story of the Annunciation as in the icon so as in the picture, and how the “Christmas” story turns out to be inextricably linked with the iconic plot of putting the Christ in the coffin, and with the plot of many European pictures “The Dead Christ in the Tomb.” Taking into account this connection, it is possible to understand the main idea of the painting “Lamentation over the Dead Christ” by Andrea Mantegna in a completely different way than it was traditionally explained in the Russian art history investigations.
Keywords: icon, painting, theological images, Annunciation, Christmas, the iconic plot of putting the Christ in the coffin, Mantegna “Lamentation over the Dead Christ”.
DOI:
Article ID in the RSCI:
Article file: Download
Information about authors: Kasatkina Tatyana Aleksandrovna, Dr of Philological Sciences, Head of Department of Theory of Literature, A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow, Russian Federation). E-mail: t-kasatkina@yandex.ru
Annotation: Outstanding icon painters and European painters, when creating the icons and paintings, don’t illustrate Christian theological ideas, following the verbal formulas that precede the artist’s activity, but for the first time incarnate them with the means of their own art, which enable them to express in a powerful, bright and concentrated way, in the image system the ideas which are almost ineffable in the word with such boldness, obviousness and laconicism. The article deals with two initial episodes of the Christian history of salvation: Annunciation and Christmas, and it is shown in it, how the same fundamental ideas are expressed by icon painters and painters by using various means, which spreading from the symbolic realism (when the elements, a key to a given scene, are taken historically and infinitely deepened) to allegory (when the central thought is depicted by using of an accidental and third-party detail for the scene). It is shown how the idea of the active freedom of the creature in relation to the Creator emerges to the forefront in the story of the Annunciation as in the icon so as in the picture, and how the “Christmas” story turns out to be inextricably linked with the iconic plot of putting the Christ in the coffin, and with the plot of many European pictures “The Dead Christ in the Tomb.” Taking into account this connection, it is possible to understand the main idea of the painting “Lamentation over the Dead Christ” by Andrea Mantegna in a completely different way than it was traditionally explained in the Russian art history investigations.
Keywords: icon, painting, theological images, Annunciation, Christmas, the iconic plot of putting the Christ in the coffin, Mantegna “Lamentation over the Dead Christ”.
