"Icons of Kargopol. Revival" Automatic translate

Unique exhibition “Icons of Kargopol. Renaissance ”- a joint project of the State Museum Association“ The Artistic Culture of the Russian North ”(Arkhangelsk), the All-Russian Academician I.E. Grabar and the Russian Academy of Arts. The exhibition continues a series of projects dedicated to the Christian culture of the Russian North, the purpose of which is to collect, preserve and present to the wide audience rarities of little-known museum collections in Northern Russia. The project will be shown in the anniversary for VHNRTS them. I.E. Grabar year - the 100th anniversary of the creation. Most of the works presented at the Museum and Exhibition Complex of the Russian Academy of Arts will be shown for the first time.

The focus of the exposition is the result of many years of restoration practice and research work in order to preserve the heritage of Kargopol, one of the main art centers of the Russian North. Among the whole variety of paintings representing the "northern letters", the art of Kargopol masters occupies a special place. The exhibition shows how the leading restorers of the country, together with the staff of the Arkhangelsk Museum, collected, preserved, restored and studied the Kargopol icons from year to year. As a result, 150 works of icon painting and wooden plastics of Kargopolya of the 15th – 19th centuries were prepared for exhibiting. The exhibition is built according to the chronological principle with the allocation of several thematic complexes: “The most ancient icons of Kargopol”, “Kargopol masters”, “Icons of the village of Oshevenskoye”, “Wooden carved icons”, “Old Believer icons”.

Kargopolie in antiquity is a large region located along the course of the Onega River, starting from its source from Lake Lache to the White Sea. According to modern territorial division, these lands include Kargopol, Onega and part of the Plesetsk district of the Arkhangelsk region. The Onega River, an important northern waterway that opens the way to the ancient Zavolochye, attracted Russian immigrants as early as the 12th and 13th centuries. The first way to the North, to the lower reaches of the Onega, began to explore the Novgorodians, followed by the envoys of the Rostov-Suzdal princes. Posadas arose on the river, the most significant of them was Kargopol.

The culture of Kargopol is many-sided and diverse, as well as the amazing nature of this region. Far from large cities, large construction sites and railways, the Kargopol land was able to maintain its unique, nostalgic attractive appearance. Christian monuments are the most famous and significant part of the Kargopol heritage. The heyday of northern icon painting dates back to the 16th - 18th centuries. Kargopol masters are mentioned in documents from the 16th century. They worked in different types of art: wall painting, icon painting, book miniature, carving and wood painting.

The range of surviving works of Kargopol masters is quite extensive. In the 1950-1980s, numerous expeditions to collect ancient monuments were organized in the Kargopol, Onega and Plesetsk regions of the Arkhangelsk region. The most significant of them are Onega expeditions of the State Central Art and Restoration Workshop led by N.N. Pomerantseva in the period from 1958 to 1971. In difficult expeditionary conditions, restorers and employees of the Arkhangelsk Museum tried to preserve the church heritage of Kargopol. Unfortunately, not everything was saved, much remained only in the photographs.

The collection of the State Museum Association "Artistic Culture of the Russian North" contains a significant collection of Kargopol icons and wooden sculptures of the sixteenth and early twentieth centuries. It represents the heritage not only of the city of Kargopol, but also of the villages located in its vicinity: Oshevenskoye, Saunino, Lyadiny, Archangelo. The pearl of the exhibition is the icon “Our Lady and Child and the Prophet Elijah” from the Nikolsky chapel in Bukhalovo village on Kenozero, created in the second half of the 15th century. It belonged to the first Orthodox immigrants who came to Onega from Veliky Novgorod.

Among the earliest icons is the Deesis rank of the late XV — the beginning of the 16th century, which was literally saved by the restorers of the Central Art Museum from the ruins of the falling St. Nicholas Church s. Astafyevo. Noteworthy is the icon “Our Lady of Hodegetria with St. Basil the Great” of 1527, placed “for the worship of all Christians” in the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin in the village of Berezhnaya Dubrava. Accurate dates and historical inscriptions are very rare on the icons.

The works of Kargopol carvers are original and rare monuments of medieval art. The masters developed a special type of image of St. Nicholas (Mozhaisk). He became a symbol of the Russian army, especially after the Polish-Lithuanian invasion and the ruin of the region in 1612 - 1614. A wooden sculpture of St. Nicholas was placed in a cot with alignments, then it was painted. This type of joint work of carvers and icon painters flourished in Kargopol. Carvings stood in many churches and chapels along the Onega River.

Kargopolie is an epic and song land. It was here that the artists I.Ya. went in search of rare ethnographic types and characteristic northern landscapes with ancient churches. Bilibin and I.E. Grabar. The exhibition is complemented by rare species photographs of the twentieth century, with lost temples and church interiors.