Biblical subjects in the paintings of Leonardo da Vinci, as well as in the paintings of other artists of his time, occupy a significant place.
First painting, attributed to Leonardo, is “The Annunciation,” although its authorship is disputed by many experts. However, this does not apply to the painting “The Annunciation” alone. Unfortunately, the unknown author made later corrections, which significantly worsened the quality of the master’s work.
Leonardo da Vinci "The Annunciation" (1472-1475)
Board, oil. 98x217 cm. Uffizi (Florence)
Picture from Wikipedia
The plot of “The Annunciation” is from the Gospel; it tells the story of the Archangel Gabriel’s announcement to the Virgin Mary about the future birth of Jesus Christ.
Gabriel reveals the secret knowledge of God. According to the Gospel of Luke, Gabriel was sent by God to Nazareth to the Virgin Mary to tell her the good news about the future birth according to the flesh of Jesus Christ from her: “The angel came to Her and said: Rejoice, full of grace! The Lord is with You; Blessed are You among women. She, seeing him, was embarrassed by his words and wondered what kind of greeting this would be. And the Angel said to Her: Do not be afraid, Mary, for You have found favor with God; and behold, you will conceive in your womb and give birth to a Son, and you will call His name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will have no end” (Gospel of Luke, 1, 28-33).
Description of the painting
Archangel Gabriel is depicted kneeling with a white lily in his left hand (a symbol of the purity of the Virgin Mary). Right hand he blesses Mary sitting near his house.
The Virgin Mary is depicted with the Bible (a tribute to tradition).
The realism of the picture ends there. The rich house, towers and walls of the port city in the background evoke in our imagination big city. But there are no mentions of Nazareth in historical texts of the first centuries, which suggests that it was a very small town or a village.
The city of Nazareth is located in the lower Galilee - in a beautiful valley surrounded by mountains.
Nazareth. Contemporary photography
Author: StateofIsrael – Nazareth, from Wikipedia
But the mountain peaks shrouded in a pale blue haze are still the same...
A. Verrocchio “The Baptism of Christ” (1475)
Wood, oil. 177x151 cm. Uffizi (Florence)
Andrea del Verrocchio(1435-1488) - Italian sculptor and painter of the Renaissance, one of the teachers of Leonardo da Vinci. Verrocchio was more involved in sculpture, but sometimes turned to painting. He educated, in addition to Leonardo da Vinci, other geniuses of the Renaissance: Pietro Perugino and Sandro Botticelli.
In this painting, some elements of the landscape and the blonde angel on the left are painted by Leonardo. The famous legend about the “defeated teacher” is connected with this circumstance: Verrocchio was so shocked by the skill of his student that after that he abandoned his brush.
Leonardo da Vinci "The Last Supper" (1495-1498)
460x880 cm. Santa Maria delle Grazie (Milan)
This monumental painting was made for the Dominican monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan.
Santa Maria delle Grazie
Author: Abelson from English Wikipedia
Last Supper - event last days the earthly life of Jesus Christ, about whom all four Gospels narrate, as well as the 1st letter of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians.
Jesus sent two disciples, Peter and John, to Jerusalem to prepare the Passover meal, and they prepared it. Jesus sat down with twelve disciples for a meal, during which He predicted the betrayal of one of them. At the Last Supper, Christ established the main sacrament of the Christian faith - the Eucharist, which translated from Greek means “thanksgiving.” The events of the Last Supper are constantly remembered during the liturgy, before Communion.
The Last Supper is the subject of many icons and paintings, of which the most famous is “The Last Supper” by Leonardo da Vinci.
This image is located in the refectory of the monastery, on the back wall. This painting became a masterpiece of the Renaissance thanks to technical method Leonardo: it correctly reproduces the depth of perspective. It was the painting “The Last Supper” by Leonardo da Vinci that changed the direction of the development of Western painting.
Leonardo's painting cannot in the full sense of the word be called a fresco, because the fresco is created on wet plaster, and Leonardo da Vinci painted “The Last Supper” on a dry wall. The fresco cannot be changed during work, and Leonardo decided to cover stone wall a layer of resin, gabs and mastic, and then write on this layer tempera(water-based paints prepared on the basis of dry powder pigments. The binder for tempera paints are emulsions: natural (yolk diluted with water chicken egg or whole egg) or artificial (drying oils in an aqueous solution of glue, polymers).
In the center of the image is Jesus Christ. Around Him are depicted the apostles sitting in groups (from left to right): Bartholomew, Jacob Alpheus and Andrew; Judas Iscariot (clothed in green and blue), Peter and John; Thomas, James Zebedee and Philip; Matthew, Judas Thaddeus and Simon.
The moment is depicted when Jesus utters the words that one of the apostles will betray him, and the reaction of each of them to these words.
Judas has a small pouch in his hand, perhaps containing the silver he received for betraying Jesus, or simply identifying him as treasurer.
The figure of Jesus is positioned and illuminated so that the viewer's attention is drawn to Him. The light illuminating the entire scene does not come from the windows painted behind, but comes from the left.
Already in 1517, the paint of the painting began to peel off due to moisture, so repeated restorations were carried out. From 1978 to 1999 under the leadership of Pinin Brambilla Barchilon, a large-scale restoration was carried out.
Leonardo da Vinci "Salvator Mundi" (circa 1499)
Wooden panel, oil. 66x47 cm. Private collection(New York)
The authorship of this painting, like other works by Leonardo da Vinci, has long been questioned. In 2004, at one of the auctions, this work was purchased by Robert Simon, a specialist in old masters, and sent for restoration. After this, “Savior” was examined in several museums in Europe and the USA.
Attention is drawn to the high craftsmanship of glass powers(symbol state power monarch, which was a golden ball with a crown or cross), the airy lightness of blue robes, the use sfumato(a technique developed by Leonardo da Vinci to soften the outlines of figures and objects), full correspondence of the pigments of the New York “Savior” and Leonardo’s “Madonna of the Rocks”. And still the same light, wandering Leonardo smile...
In 2013, this painting was bought by Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev.
Leonardo da Vinci "John the Baptist" (1514-1516)
Wood, oil. 57x69 cm. Louvre (Paris)
This work belongs to the late period of the artist’s work.
The viewer's attention is completely concentrated on the depicted figure due to the absence of any landscape or interior. The reception is clearly expressed sfumato, brought to perfection in this picture.
Formally, all the paraphernalia associated with John the Baptist is present: a thin reed cross, long hair, wool clothing. But...
John the Baptist was an ascetic. In the Gospel of Matthew, he is described as follows: “John himself had a robe of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey” (Matthew 3:4).
The painting by Leonardo da Vinci depicts a pampered, effeminate young man, whose image does not fit in with the ascetic John, who ate locusts. Classic style Leonardo is absent in this painting; the image of John the Baptist was created in the style of Mannerism, although this style arose much later. But Leonardo is the founder here too.
In A. Ivanov’s painting we see a completely different image of John the Baptist, more similar to the description of the evangelists.
A. Ivanov “The Appearance of Christ to the People” (1837-1857)
Oil on canvas. 540x750 cm. State Tretyakov Gallery(Moscow)
The figure of John the Baptist is in the center of the picture. He baptizes the people in the Jordan River and points to the approaching Jesus. The attributes of John are the same as those of Leonardo: a thin reed cross, long hair, wool clothing, but the ascetic image corresponds to the gospel description.
Russian artist, musician and theater figure Vasily Polenov for a long time did not dare to turn to Biblical theme. Until something terrible happened: his beloved sister became seriously ill and before her death she made her brother promise that he would start “writing big picture on the long-planned topic “Christ and the Sinner”.
And he kept his word. After creating this painting, Polenov began creating a whole series of paintings called “From the Life of Christ,” to which he devotes several decades of tireless creative and spiritual search. For this, Polenov even travels through Constantinople, Athens, Smyrna, Cairo and Port Said to Jerusalem.
Henryk Semiradsky
The outstanding portrait artist Henryk Semiradsky, although he was Polish by origin, felt an organic connection with Russian culture from his youth. Perhaps this was facilitated by studying at the Kharkov gymnasium, where drawing was taught by Karl Bryullov’s student Dmitry Bezperchiy.
Semiradsky brought picturesqueness to his canvases on biblical subjects, which made them bright, memorable, and lively.
Detail: Took part in the painting of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.
Alexander Ivanov
"He left only the divine Raphael as his teacher. With a high inner instinct he sensed true meaning words: history painting. AND inner feeling turned his brush to Christian subjects, the highest and last degree of the high,” he wrote about famous painter Nikolai Gogol.
Alexander Ivanov is the author of the painting “The Appearance of Christ to the People,” which cost him 20 years of real work and creative devotion. Ivanov also did watercolor sketches to the paintings of the "Temple of Humanity", but showed them to almost no one. Only after the artist's death these drawings became known. This cycle entered the history of art under the name “biblical sketches”. These sketches were published more than 100 years ago in Berlin and have not been reprinted since then.
Nikolay Ge
Ge's painting last supper“shocked Russia, just as Karl Bryullov’s “The Last Day of Pompeii” once did. The newspaper “St. Petersburg Vedomosti” reported: “The Last Supper” amazes with its originality against the general background of dry fruits of academic bearing,” and members of the Academy of Arts, on the contrary, could not for a long time make up your mind.
In "The Last Supper" Ge interprets the traditional religious plot as a tragic confrontation between a hero who sacrifices himself for the good of humanity, and his student, who forever renounces the precepts of his teacher. In Ge’s image of Judas there is nothing private, only general. Judas – collective image, a man "without a face".
Detail: Nikolai Ge first turned to gospel stories under the influence of Alexander Ivanov
Ilya Repin
It is believed that none of the Russian artists, except Karl Bryullov, enjoyed such fame during their lifetime as Ilya Repin. Contemporaries admired the masterfully executed multi-figure genre compositions and seemingly “living” portraits.
Ilya Repin repeatedly turned to the gospel theme in his work. He even went as a pilgrim to the Holy Land to see for himself the places where Christ walked and preached. “I wrote almost nothing there - there was no time, I wanted to see more... I painted an image of the Russian church - the head of the Savior. I wanted to put my contribution to Jerusalem...” Later he said: “there is a living Bible everywhere,” “so grandiosely I felt the living God ", "God! How wonderfully you feel your insignificance to the point of non-existence."
Ivan Kramskoy
Ivan Kramskoy pondered his painting “The Resurrection of Jairus’s Daughter” for a whole decade. At the beginning of 1860, he made the first sketch, and only in 1867 did he make the first version of the painting, which did not satisfy him. To see everything that has been done in this way, Kramskoy travels around Europe with a mandatory visit best museums peace. leaves for Germany. He walks around art galleries Vienna, Antwerp and Paris, gets acquainted with new art, and later makes a trip to Crimea - to the areas of Bakhchisarai and Chufui-Kale, so similar to the Palestinian desert.
Marc Chagall
The author of the famous “Biblical Message,” Marc Chagall, loved the Bible since childhood, considering it an extraordinary source of poetry. Since he came from a Jewish family, he began to learn the basics of education quite early at the school at the synagogue. Many years later, already an adult, Chagall in his work tried to comprehend not only the Old, but also New Testament, tends to understand the figure of Christ.
Biblical scenes in painting
Completed by a 6th grade student
gymnasium No. 587
Nikitin A. A.
Saint Petersburg
For two thousand years, the whole world has been brought up on fairy tales and legends, songs and parables taken from the Bible.
The Bible has reached us through the centuries. They banned her and burned her, but she survived. It took 18 centuries to compile the Bible. Over 30 authors worked on it. 66 books of the Bible were written on different languages people who lived at different times.
Great artists of the world depicted biblical scenes in their paintings.
In the history of fine art of past centuries, the brilliant Dutch artist Rembrandt, perhaps more than anyone else, was able to deeply moving, truthfully reveal the inexhaustible wealth inner world person.
Dutch painters were the first to see a person as he is in life, and reflected in art various aspects of his everyday existence. Some of them approached the solution of a more complex task - to reflect the beauty and significance of spiritual world ordinary person
It would seem, turning to the biblical and gospel themes, Rembrandt moves away from depicting the society of his time. In fact, his biblical and evangelical heroes are in many ways reminiscent of his contemporary ordinary people, invariably attracting the sympathy of the artist. In his mind, biblical heroes serve as vivid personifications of the beautiful human qualities. The artist sees in them spiritual greatness, internal integrity, stern simplicity, and great nobility. They are not at all like the petty, self-satisfied burghers of his contemporaries. Genuine human passions are increasingly reflected in the artist’s canvases, increasingly theatrical drama, the “terrible” event will be replaced by the true drama of life.
These new features clearly appear in the Hermitage painting “The Descent from the Cross,” painted in 1634.
Night. Mournful silence. A silent crowd of people surrounded the huge cross on which Christ was crucified. They came to Golgotha to pay their last respects to their teacher. In the cold light of torches, they remove his dead body from the cross.
One of the men, climbing the ladder, pulls out the nails with the help of which Christ was crucified on the crossbar; others take his sliding body into their arms; women prepare a bed for the remains by spreading a large heavy cloth on the ground. Everything is done slowly, in respectful and sad silence. The experiences of those gathered are different: some faces express bitter despair, others express courageous grief, others express reverent horror, but each of the people present is deeply imbued with the significance of the event. The sorrow of the old man who accepts the dead Christ is boundless. He holds it with noticeable effort, but very carefully, cautiously, touchingly touching his cheek to the lifeless body. Maria is exhausted from grief. She is unable to stand, loses consciousness, falls into the arms of the people who carefully surrounded her. Her emaciated face was deathly pale, her eyelids were closed, her weakened hand, outstretched forward, drooped helplessly.
The picture captivates with deep penetration and life truth. Only the exaggeration of some movements and gestures reminds us of Rembrandt's baroque hobbies.
Throughout the 40s, Rembrandt several times addressed the theme of the holy family. One of the best solutions to this theme is the Hermitage painting “The Holy Family”, created by the artist in 1645. The gospel scene gives the viewer many associations with everyday folk life contemporary with Rembrandt. Silence and peace are disturbed only by the usual sounds of life at home. Burning wood crackles, and the quiet, monotonous sound of a carpenter's ax is heard. The room is shrouded in gentle twilight; Light gently pours in from different sources, tremblingly sliding across Mary’s face, illuminating the cradle, giving the image a touch of spirituality. The baby moved slightly, and the woman, obeying the subtle maternal instinct, breaks away from her lecture, lifts the curtain and looks at the baby with concern. She is the very sensitivity, the very alertness. Essentially, the great humanity and soulfulness of the picture is created with just one glance. The bright sublimity of the captured moment is also reflected in the fact that angels silently descend to the mother and boy.
In 1660 Rembrandt creates famous painting"Assur, Haman and Esther." The plot of the film was a biblical myth known as “The Feast of Esther.” Haman, the first vizier and friend of the Persian king Assur, cruelly slandered the Jews before the king, hoping to achieve their extermination. Then Queen Esther, who came from Judea, stood up for her people. Having invited Assur and Haman to the feast, she told about the vizier’s slander, and the treacherous face of the man whom he considered his friend was revealed to the king.
The artist depicts the moment of the feast when Esther finished the story and a deep, painful silence reigned. Sad beautiful eyes queen. Without looking at her hands, Esther mechanically wrinkles her handkerchief. She is still completely at the mercy of what she has experienced. It was painfully difficult for her to utter words of reproof; like the king, she believed the vizier and treated him as a friend. Assur was shocked by what he heard and bitterly disappointed. His big eyes fill with tears. At the same time, noble anger awakens in him, and he powerfully clutches the scepter.
Haman is depicted in deep shadow and alone. An invisible abyss separated him from the king and queen. The consciousness of doom presses him like an unbearable burden: he sits hunched over, head down, eyes closed; the hand holding the cup lies powerless on the table. He is oppressed not even by the fear of death, but by the grave consciousness of moral loneliness. He understands that Assur and Esther will never forgive him, no matter how hard it is for them to condemn their friend.
If in paintings dedicated to the history of Haman, the result of the conflict is irreconcilable condemnation, no matter how difficult it may be for those who pass the sentence, then humane forgiveness and deep repentance of a person who has made a bitter mistake are told famous work Rembrandt “The Return of the Prodigal Son”. The work was written by Rembrandt in the year of his death. Forgotten by his contemporaries, completely alone, he creates his last brilliant creation.
Again a great human tragedy. After long wanderings in a hostile, uncomfortable world, he comes to his abandoned father with a plea for forgiveness. prodigal son. Full of shame and repentance, he is on his knees, ragged, with a convict’s shaved head, trampled sandals, showing the viewer his rough heels. For the first time in many years, feeling the warmth of human affection, he clung to his father, hid his face in his chest, trying to lose himself in his father’s arms. The old man expresses neither surprise nor indignation; He forgave his son a long time ago and had been waiting for this meeting for a long time. In the look of his downcast eyes one can read both silent reproach and sorrowful humility. He gently bent over his son, placing his weak, senile hands on his back. Again Rembrandt embodies his idea that the harsh trials of fate bring people together. Above delusions, insults, and vanity are love, trust, and mutual understanding.
But still, in this meeting there is more grief than joy: the tragic mistake of the son left too deep a mark in the lives of both. Not only the son is broken, but also the father. It is enough to pay attention to the facial expression, the sadly bowed head, the hunched figure, the drooping senile shoulders to feel it
“The Return of the Prodigal Son” is, as it were, the result of Rembrandt’s wise thoughts about the world and people. His pessimistic attitude to reality in the last years of his life, on the one hand, and his unbroken faith in man and his moral height, on the other hand, resonate with equal force in last work genius artist.
There are few personalities in the history of art as mysterious and controversial as Bruegel. He did not write articles or treatises, left no correspondence and, with the exception of two or three close-minded people, did not know any friends. Bruegel left no portraits of his wife, children, or friends. It is believed that he sometimes portrayed himself among his own characters - but there is no evidence of this. His portraits, engraved by his friends, bear no resemblance to each other.
Renaissance concept of importance human personality did not fit into Bruegel’s artistic concepts. In his drawings and paintings, he often hides faces altogether, depriving the figures of any individuality. A similar trend can be seen in the depiction of biblical characters. He moves them somewhere to the side, hiding them among ordinary people. This is how we see Mary and the Lord in the village square, John the Baptist with Christ in the crowd of people, and the “Adoration of the Magi” is generally hidden behind a curtain of snowfall.
Bruegel's man has freedom of choice and bears responsibility for his own misfortunes. A person is forced to make the choice between good and evil, between faith and unbelief constantly, throughout his life - just as his ancestors were forced to make this choice, as many other people do today. Hence - another feature of Bruegel's works, which makes them similar to icons, but is very rarely found in modern art - the combination of temporal and spatial layers. In such paintings as “Procession to Golgotha”, “Census in Bethlehem”, “Massacre of the Innocents”, “Sermon of John the Baptist”, “Conversion of Paul”, “Nativity”, the engraving “Assumption of Our Lady”, biblical characters are present among Bruegel’s contemporaries going about their daily lives. normal life, biblical scenes are played out against the backdrop of Flemish urban and rural landscapes. For example, the figure of the Savior bent under the weight of the cross is almost lost among the many other impressions of any of the people depicted in the picture, and these people make their moral choice, not realizing that they see God in front of them.
The years of Bruegel's creative maturity pass during a period of aggravation of contradictions between the Netherlands and the monarchy of Philip II, in the conditions of a menacingly growing revolutionary situation. The anti-feudal movement merges with the national liberation struggle against the rule of Spain. In 1561-1562, Bruegel created paintings united by a premonition of impending historical cataclysms, “The Triumph of Death” (Madrid), “The Fall of the Rebel Angels” (Brussels), “Mad Greta”, “The Battle of the Israelites with the Philistines”.
During his life, Bruegel was a resident of two very rich cities - first Antwerp, and later Brussels.
Antwerp's growth rate was equal in Europe; it became the new financial and economic center of the Western world. About a thousand foreigners lived in this “bazaar” city with the largest seaport; they were treated with suspicion. In a situation where people were not united by either faith or a single church, when Catholics, Protestants, Lutherans and Anabaptists lived next door, a general feeling of insecurity and anxiety grew. This is how a “multicultural society” was formed, where problems of communication arose especially acutely, primarily on religious grounds.
Antwerp was a symbol of peace. A tower that casts a shadow - contrary to all the laws of nature - not on the ground, but on the sky.
Bruegel painted The Tower of Babel at least three times. The Tower of Babel (1563) and the “Small” Tower of Babel (c. 1563) have survived. The gigantic structure was captured twice. Never before have artists been able to convey so vividly the monstrous size of the tower, the scope of construction, surpassing everything previously known to man.
In Bruegel's later works, the mood of pessimistic reflection deepens. In the famous “The Blind” (1568), the gospel parable is used to embody the idea of blind humanity, having lost the will to fight and passively following fate. The leader, leading the chain of blind cripples, falls, the rest, stumbling, uncontrollably follow him; their helpless gestures are convulsive, the stamp of destructive passions and vices sharply appears on their faces, frozen with horror, turning them into deathly masks. The intermittent and uneven rhythm of movement of the figures develops the theme of imminent death. However, as before, the serenely harmonious nature of the background appears as a contrasting alternative to human vanity, with its idyllic peace as if suggesting a way out of the tragic impasse.
The paintings of Caravaggio (1573-1610) caused heated debate, as they were striking in their unusualness. The character of this artist was also extraordinary - impudent, mocking, arrogant.
Among Caravaggio’s paintings there are no festive scenes - such as “The Annunciation”, “Betrothal”, “Introduction to the Temple”, which the Renaissance masters loved so much. He is attracted to tragic themes. On his canvases people suffer and experience cruel torture. Caravaggio observed these hardships of life. In the painting “The Crucifixion of St. Peter” we see the execution of the apostle, who was crucified on the cross upside down. “The Conversion of Saul” shows the merciless persecution of Christians, their death under the heel of a horse and Saul’s moment of insight. On the way to Damascus, he was suddenly blinded by a heavenly ray, and, falling from his horse, he heard the voice of Christ: “Saul, why are you persecuting me?” After his epiphany, Saul becomes one of the most devoted disciples of Christ - the Apostle Paul.
Caravaggio shows the scene of the “Entombment” as a folk drama. The lifeless body of Christ is carefully supported by the disciples. The frozen hand of the Savior hangs from the gravestone above the black space of the grave.
In Caravaggio's paintings on gospel subjects, the everyday appearance of the characters is striking. In the gospel scenes, he shows life common people. Caravaggio's contemporaries testify: he despised everything that was not copied from life. The artist called such paintings trinkets, children's and doll's things.
Icon painting appeared in Rus' in the 10th century, after in 988 Rus' adopted the Byzantine religion - Christianity. By this time, in Byzantium itself, icon painting had finally turned into a strictly legalized, recognized canonical system of images. Worship of the icon has become an integral part of Christian doctrine and worship. Thus, Rus' received the icon as one of the “foundations” of the new religion.
For centuries, icons were the only objects of painting in Rus'. The common people were introduced to art through them.
Depicting events from the life of Christ, Mary, the apostles, icon painters
They found motives that touched the soul of every person, tried to express their ideas about good and evil.
The icon painter followed certain rules in his work, for example, he could not come up with a plot himself. But this does not mean that the painter was deprived of the opportunity to create. He could add some details, “read” the church plot in his own way, and choose color combinations. By these details one can distinguish the style of Andrei Rublev from the style of Theophanes the Greek or Dionysius.
The question of whether this or that work belongs to Rublev is now the subject of lively scientific discussions. The only reliable work of the artist is the Trinity icon. All other works are more or less likely attributed to the famous master.
According to Christian doctrine, God, being one in essence, has three persons. The first person of the Trinity is God the Father, who created heaven and earth, everything visible and invisible. Its second person is God the Son, Jesus Christ, who took human form and descended from heaven to earth for the salvation of people. The third person is God the Holy Spirit, who gives life to all things. It is incomprehensible to the human mind how one exists in three persons, therefore the doctrine of the Trinity is one of the main tenets of Christian religions and as such is an object of faith, but not a subject of comprehension.
The true appearance of the deity is unknown to man - “no one has seen God” (John 1:18). However, sometimes, as Christian tradition says, God appeared to people, taking on a form accessible to man. The first person to see God was the righteous old man Abraham. God appeared to him in the form of three angels. Abraham guessed that, under the guise of three wanderers, he assumed the three faces of the Trinity. Filled with joy, he sat them down under the shade of the Mamre oak tree, ordered his wife Sarah to bake unleavened bread from the best flour, and ordered the servant boy to slaughter the tender calf.
It was this biblical story that formed the basis for the iconography of the Trinity. She is depicted as three angels with wandering staffs in their hands. Angels sit solemnly at a table laden with dishes. In the distance you can see the Chambers of Abraham and the legendary Oak of Mamre. Pious Abraham and Sarah offer refreshments to the winged strangers.
Vikon Rublev is struck by the extraordinary simplicity, the “laconicity” with which the biblical event is reproduced. From the Old Testament story, the artist chose only those details that give an idea of where and how the action took place - the mountain (symbol of the desert), the chambers of Abraham and the Oak of Mamre. It is in vain to look for such boldness in approaching the sacred text in earlier icons. Ancient Russian painting, which previously followed the sacred text without reasoning, setting as its task to give a visible image of everything that the Bible and the Gospel tell about, in the person of Rublev, neglected the letter of the Holy Scripture and tried to reveal it philosophical meaning. From an illustrative art, icon painting has turned into a cognitive art.
In Russia in the 14th - 15th centuries, the doctrine of a trinity deity, representing “one force, one power, one dominion,” became a religious symbol of the political unity of the country. It is no coincidence that the motto of Moscow at the turn of the century was: “We live in Trinity, we move and we are.” Rublev’s “Trinity” is also imbued with the same idea, which has become, as it were, a moral symbol of the new Rus'.
So, despite the fact that biblical stories tell about days long past, artists turn to them in order to reflect contemporary reality through well-known plots.
List of used literature:
1.
Rose-Marie Hagen R. “Pieter Bruegel the Elder.” – “Art Spring”, 2000
2.
Andronov S. A. “Rembrandt. ABOUT social essence artist" - Moscow, "Knowledge" 1978
3.
Platonova N.I. “Art. Encyclopedia” - “Rosman-Press”, 2002