On folk icons

Pravmir has a wonderful post up on folk icons with plentiful examples from a recent exposition in Moscow. In addition there's some informative background on their history and common hallmarks. Do go visit here.

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(Pravmir.com) - An unusual exhibition has opened at the Zurab Tsereteli Art Gallery in Moscow: “Folk Icons,” at which items from both museum and private collections are on display. Folk iconography, not always observant of the canons of either church or secular painting, is candid and enigmatic. Correspondents from PRAVMIR visited the opening.

I remember visiting someone’s house while still a child and standing for a long time before the kitchen’s icon corner. There were mainly icon prints glued onto wood: Rublev’s Trinity, the Vladimir Icon, St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, St. Seraphim of Sarov. But it was not these that attracted me.

All of my childish attention was directed to an image of St. George the Trophy-Bearer, warped with time. It was hand-painted, as I now recall, and fairly hopeless in its artistic execution: the horse under St. George was the size of a dog, so it was unclear where it got the strength to carry a rider in heavy military accouterments. The serpent (which, as we recall, devoured people) looked very much like a miserable worm, the defeat of which would not have required the trouble of putting on armor and wielding a spear: stepping on it with his boot would have been quite enough...

Complete article here.