The Icon and the Axe

by James Billington

  Pre-Christian tribes of the region frequently used axes for money and buried them with their owners. The axe was popularly called the "thunderbolt," and stones found near a tree felled by lightning were revered as part of the axehead used by the god of thunder.

  The baptized Muscovite was no less reverential to the axe. He used it to cut up, plane, and even carve wood. Not until relatively recent times were nails-let alone saws and planes-widely used in building.47 Axes were used for close-range fighting, neutralizing the advantages that might otherwise be enjoyed by wolves, armored Teutonic swordsmen, or Mongol

  cavalry.

  One of the very few surviving jeweled works from the twelfth-century Russian north is, appropriately, the initialed hatchet of the prince most responsible for the transfer of power from Kiev to the north: Andrew Bogoliubsky.48

  The axe played a central role in consolidating the new civilization of the upper Volga region. With it, Russians eventually cuTofflrthe zasechnaia cherta-long clearings lined by sharpened stumps and cross-felled trees- as a defense against invasion, fire, and plague.4" The axe was the standard ins^furnejF^[J^mary_execution, and became an abiding symbol of the hard and primitive life on Europe's exposed eastern frontier. There is a certain suppressed bitterness toward more sheltered peoples in the proverb "To drink tea is not to hew wood." The Russian version of "The pen is mightier than the sword" is "What is written with the pen cannot be hacked away with an axe."50

  More than the rifles from the west and the daggers from the east, the axe of tte-notth~Temained--^^????-^??????"1^~19^??^?6:??^7 EverflTiougiriheir nameTiterally meant "shooters," the ,srretoy,~Russia*s first permanent infantry force of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, drilled with axes and carried thern in processions. The axejvas the principal weapon used by the tsars for putting down the urban rebellions of the seventeenth century, ~andby"tEe~ peasants for terrorizing Jhe_groyincial nobility andJJm^alrcracy during their lumsingjTLeaders of these revolts were publicly executed by a great axe in Red Square in the ritual of

  quartering. One stroke was used to sever each arm, one for the legs, and a final stroke for the head. Lesser figures merely had their hands, feet, or tongues chopped off.

  Though anachrojnistic_jisjJ amp;£ap‹M.Ja^the axe

  lived on as a symbol of rebellion. The radical intellectuals were accused by moderate liberals as early as the 1850's of "seeking out lovers of the axe" and inviting Russians "to sharpen their axes."51 Nicholas Dobroliubov, the radical journalist of the early 1860's, summarized the Utopian socialist program of his friend Chernyshevsky's What Is To Be Done? as "Calling Russia to Axes." The first call inside Russia for a Jacobin revolution, the proclamation "Young Russia" on Easter Monday of the same 1862, proclaimed prophetically that Russia will become "the first country to realize the great cause of Socialism," and announced "we will cry 'To your axes' and strike the imperial party without sparing blows just as they do not spare theirs against us."52 By the late 1860's, the notorious Nechaev had set up a secret "society of the axe" and young Russia had begun to develop-a conspiratorial tradition of revolutionary organization that was to help inspire Lenin's own What Is To Be Done? of 1902: the first manifesto of Bolshevism. The sound of an axe offstage at the end of Chekhov's last play^ ^ The Cherry Orchard, announced the coming end of Imperial Russia. The terrifying purges of the 1930's, which brought to an end the hopes of the original visionary revolutionaries, finally played themselves out in distant Mexico in 1940 with the sinking of jmjice axe into the most fertile and prophetic brain of the Revolution: that of Leon Trotsky.

  Thojejjdioopposed revolution as the answeTlo Russia's problems often did so by playing back the old theme of the ravished forest eventually triumphing over the axes of men. The felled tree goes to its death more gracefully than dying man in Tolstoy's Three Deaths; and a fresh green sapling was planted over his grave by his request. Leonov's powerful novel of the mid-fifties, The Russian Forest, indicates that the Soviet regimelVjf played a key role in cutting down the forest, which becomes a symBolnoTT)I‹r " Russian culture. If Leonov leaves the reader uncertain whether he stands on the side of the axe or the fallen trees, the political custodians of the Revolution made it clear that they stood behind the axe. Khrushchev publicly reminded Leonov that "not all trees are useful . . . from time to time the forest must be thinned." But Khrushchev himself was felled by political fortune in 1964; while Leonov, still standing, reminded his successors in power that "an iron object-that is, an axe-without the application of intelligence can do a great deal of mischief in centralized state use."5'1 Returning to the primitive forest hut of the early Russian peasant, one

  finds that there was one object which invariably hung next to the axe on the crude interior wall: areligious painting_on_wood. knowrno~fhe"Russians as a "form"Jofrraz), but better known by the original Greek word for picture or ?-likeness: eikon. Icons were found wherever people lived and gatheredjn ‹5› Russia-omnipresent remindersof the7aTfh\?rTgave the frojitijranan_of the east^a sense ofhigher purpose.

  The_history_of_ijcons_reyeals both the underlying continuity with Byzantium and the originality^rTRu^ian~cultural development. Thougli. there is probably a continuous history back to the facial death portraits of early Egypt and Syria, holy pictures first became. objecls_of systematic veneration and religious instruction in sixth- and seventh-century Byzantium at the time of a great growth in monasticism.54 In the eighth century, the original iconoclasts led a movement to reduce the power of monks and destroy all icons. After a long struggle, they were defeated and icon veneration was officially endorsed at the second Council of Nicaea in 787: the last of the seven councils recognized as universally binding by the Orthodox world.

  The Slays were.cjM}yerted_in the wake of this "triumph of Orthodoxy" -as the council was popularly called-ajnd inherited the rediscovered Byzantine enthusiasm for religious painting. A sixth-century legendTEaFtHe first icon was miraculously printed by Christ himself out of compassion for the leper king of Edessa became the basis forjTiost^f Russian tales^about icons "not ??????? by hands." The triumphal carrying of-this icon from EdesslTtoTS^tantfnople on August 16, 944, became a feast day in Russia, and provided a model for the many icon-bearing processions which became so important in Russian church ritual.55

  "If Byzantium was preeminent in giving the world theology expressed in words, theology expressed in images was given preeminently by Russia."56 Of all the methods of depicting the feasts and mysteries of the faith, the painting of wooden icons soon came to predominate in Muscovy. Mosaic art declined as Russian culture lost its intimate links with Mediterranean craftsmanship. Fresco painting became relatively less important with the increasing dependence on wooden construction. Using the rich tempera paints whicnJtad_re^JiC£dJhe encaustic wax paints of the pre-iconoclastic era, Russian artists carried on_and amplified the tendencies which were already noticeable in eleventh- and twelfth^wmtury Byzantine painting: (1) to dematerialize the figures in icons, presenting each saint in a prescribed and styhred~toTn7;"ara^04O]tatroduce new richness of detail, coloring, and controlled emotional intensity. The Russian artist stenciled his basic design from an earlier, Byzantine model onto a carefully prepared and seasoned

  panel, and then painted in color and detail. He gradually substituted pine for the cypress and lime of Byzantine icons, and developed new methods for brightening and layering his colors.

  Although it is impossible to apply to icon painting those precise techniques of dating and classification familiar to Western art historians, certain regional characteristics had clearly emerged by the late fourteenth century. Novgorod used vigorous compositions with angular lines and unmixed bright colors. Tver had a characteristic light blue, Novgorod a distinctive bright red. Pskov, the nearby "younger brother" of Novgorod, introduced gold highlighting into robes. Distant Yaroslavl specialized in supple and elongated figures, sharing the general preference of the "northern school" for more simple and stylized design. Between Novgorod and Yaroslavl there gradually e
merged in the Vladimir-Suzdal region a new style which surpassed the style of either, and produced some of the finest icons in the long history of the art. The paintings of this Moscow school broke decisively with the severity of the later Byzantine tradition and achieved even richer colors than Novgorod and more graceful figures than Yaroslavl. One recent critic has seen in the luminous colors of Andrew Rublev, the supreme master of the Moscow school, inner links with the beauties of the surrounding northern forest:

  N

  He takes the colors for his palette not from the traditional canons of

  color, but from Russian nature around him, the beauty of which he acutely /"

  sensed. His marvelous deep blue is suggested by the blue of the spring sky; ?*

  his whites recall the birches so dear to a Russian; his green is close to the

  color of unripe rye; his golden ochre summons up memories of fallen

  autumn leaves; in his dark green colors there is something of the twilight

  shadows of the dense pine forest. He translated the colors of Russian na

  ture into the lofty language of art.57-¦*

  ? ¦ ¦' '

  Nowhere is Rublev's artistic language more lofty than in his most famous masterpiece, "The Old Testament Trinity," with its ethereal curvatures and luminous patches of yellow and blue. The subject illustrates how Russian iconography continued to reflect the attitudes and doctrines of the church. Since the Trinity was a mystery beyond man's power to visualize, it was represented only in its symbolic or anticipatory form of the three angels' appearance to Sarah and Abraham in the Old Testament. God the Father was never depicted, for no man had ever seen Him face to face. The Holy Spirit was also not represented in early iconography; and when the symbol of a white dove later entered from the West, pigeons came to be regarded as forbidden food and objects of reverence.

  Naturalistic portraiture was even more rigorously rejected in Russia

  than in late Byzantium; and the break with classical art was even more complete. The suggestive qualities of statuary made this art form virtually unknown in Muscovy; and a promising tradition of bas-relief craftsmanship in Kievan times vanished altogether in the desire to achieve a more spiritualized representation of holy figures.58 The flat, two-dimensional plane was religiously respected. Not only was there no perspective in an icon, there was often a._c_OTS£iojjs^ffgrt_,through so-called mverse pejrsjp^cJiwJo_kee£jhe_ viewer from entering into the composition of a holy picture. Imaginative physical imagery of Western Christendom (such as the stigmata or sacred hearty was foreign to Orthodoxy and finds no representation in Russian art. Fanciful figures of classical antiquity were much less common in RuisiarT than in Byzantine paintingTand many were expressly excluded from Russian icons.

  TEe extraordinary development of icon ^amtin^^d.-V-eneration in thirteenth-"and fo"urteenth^cenfury Russia-like the original developlmelatTn seventh-century Byzantium-occurred during a period of weakened political "authority. In both cases, iconolatry accompanied a growth in monas-ticism.59 The ommpresent holy pictures provided an image of higher authority that helped compensate for the diminished stature of temporal princes. In Russia, the icon often came to represent in effect the supreme communal authority before which one swore oaths, resolved disputes^jjBd marched into baffle""

  But if the icon gave divine sanction to human authorit^_it_dso served to humanize divine authority. ThFbasic icon for the all-important Easter feast is that of a very human Jesus breaking down the gates of hell and emerging from the fires into which he had been plunged since Good Friday -a scene rarely depicted injhe Easter iconography_of_the West, where the emphasis was on the divine mystery oFresurrection from an Ijnipty tomb. The"^arT^-church had strenuously opposed the "Apollinarian" attempt to deny the reality of Christ's human nature, beating down this heresy at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. Partly because there had been support for Apollinaris' ideas in the Western Roman Empire, Christians of the Eastern Empire came to equate the fall of Rome with acceptance of this heresy. Byzantium came to view sacred pictures as emblems of a Christendom still resplendent in the "new Rome" of Constantinople at a time when the West had plunged into barbarism and darkness. At the same time, the victory over the iconoclasts represented a triumph over indigenous Eastern inclinations (derived largely from Jewish and Moslem teachings) to view as blasphemous all human images of the divine. Byzantium brought the unifying force of ideology into its multi-national empire by rejecting the idea common to many Oriental religions and Christian heresies that human

  salvation involved transforming one's humanity into something altogether different.60

  The humanizing tendency of icon painting is noticeable in the images of the Virgin, which in twelfth-century Byzantium began to turn toward the infant Christ and to suggest maternity as well as divinity. Qne such icon, in which_a largeand composed Virgin presses her face_down_against tnat^OS§JiSi_b££ame tne most reveredoF all lcbnTlrTRussia;the_ Vladjmir Mother of God, or Our Lady of Kazan."1 The migration of this twelfth-century masterpiece from Constantinople to Kiev and thence to Suzdal and Vladynir even before the fall of Kiev symbolizes the northward movement of Russian culture. The cult of the Mother of God was considerably more intense in the North. The transfer of this icon to the Cathedral of the Assumption inside the Moscow Kremlin in the late fourteenth century enabled it to become a symbol of national unity long before such unity became a political fact. She was the supreme mother image of old Russia: at peace with God, yet compassionately inclined toward her infant son. Generation after generation prayed for her intercession within the cathedral dedicated to her entrance into heaven.

  The history of this icon demonstrates the close collaboration between faith and "fighting, art and armament, in medieval Russia. Brought north by the warrior jrince Andrew Bogoliubsky, the icon was transferred to Moscow in 1395 expressly for the purpose of inspiring the defenders of the city against an expected seige byJTamerlane in the late fourteenth century. The name "Kazan" for the icon derives from the popular belief that Ivan the Terrible's later victory over the Tatars at Kazan was the result of its miraculous powers. Victory over the Poles during the "Time of Troubles" in the early seventeenth century was also attributed to it. Many believed that Mary had pleaded with Jesus to spare Russia further humiliation, and that he had promised to do so if Russia would repent and turn again to God. Four separate yearly processions in honor of the icon were established by 1520, moving within a few decades out of the Cathedral of the Assumption in the Kremlin across Red Square to St. Basil's (also called "Kazan") cathedral. This icon was also often used to sanctify troops setting off to battle, and "to meet" other icons or dignitaries coming to Moscow."2

  In addition to the cult that dgxejoged around this^ icon, new poses of the Madonna began to appear in bewildering profusion. Most models were Byzantine; but there were uniquely Russian variations of this general type of "Our Lady of Tenderness^' in some of which the_Virgin bends her ~neck_ down beyond the point of anatomical possibility to embrace the Christ child. Some_fmr£Jmnd?M separate styles of representing the Virgin have been counted in Russian icons.63 Some of the most popular and original resulted

  from a growing tendency to translate hymns of the church into visual form. The interdependence of sight, sound and smell had long been important in the liturgy of the Eastern Church; and beginning in the twelfth century, there was an increasing tendency to use sacred art as a direct illustration of the sung liturgy and seasonal hymns of the church.64 Already in the fourteenth-century Russian north, new church murals were becoming, in effect, musical illustrations.65 The Russian Christmas icon-"The Assembly of the Pre-sanctified Mother of God," illustrating all creation coming in adoration before the Virgin-is a direct transposition of the Christmas hymn. Increasingly popular in Russia also were icons of the Virgin surrounded by a variety of scenes taken from the set of twenty-four Lenten hymns of praise known as akathistoi.ss Individual icons were also drawn from this series, such as the "Virgin of the Indes
tructible Wall," which perpetuated in almost every Russian city and monastery the Byzantine image of the Virgin strengthening the battlements of Constantinople against infidel assault. So great was the preoccupation with battle that semi-legendary warriors and contemporary battle scenes soon became incorporated into these holy pictures, making them an important source for the history of weaponry as well as piety.67

  Hardly less dramatic than the broadening of subject matter and refinement of technique was the development of the iconostasis, or icon screen, Russia's most distinctive contribution to the use of icons. In Byzantium and Kiev, illustrated cloths and icons had often been placed on the central or "royal" doors that connected the sanctuary with the nave of the church and on the screen separating the two. Holy pictures had been painted and carved on the beam above the screen.68 But it is only in Muscovy that one finds the systematic introduction of a continuous screen of icons extending high above the sanctuary screen, representing a kind of pictorial encyclopedia of Christian belief. From at least the end of the fourteenth century, when Rublev and two others designed the beautiful three-tiered iconostasis for the Archangel Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin-the earliest surviving iconostasis-these illustrated screens began to be a regular feature of Russian churches. Beyond the many icons at eye level on the sanctuary screen were added up to six higher rows of icons, often reaching up to the ceilings of new churches.69