The painting closed and the painting revived
The painting closed and the painting revived
Myrrh-bearing wives near the Holy Sepulcher. Oil. Mid-19th century.
The northern part of the transept of Sophia of Kyiv; eastern slope of the vault.
View before the restoration of 1954 – 1956
On the contrary, on the western slope of the same vault – “Apostles Peter and John at the Holy Sepulcher.”
Myrrh-bearing wives near the Holy Sepulcher. Oil. Mid-19th century.
The northern part of the transept of Sophia of Kyiv; eastern slope of the vault.
View before the restoration of 1954 – 1956
On the contrary, on the western slope of the same vault – “Apostles Peter and John at the Holy Sepulcher.”
Apostles Peter and John at the Holy Sepulcher. Oil. Mid-19th century.
The northern part of the transept of Sophia of Kyiv; western slope of the vault.
View during the restoration of 1954
Large-scale Resurrection scenes, each with an area of about 30 square meters, made in mid-19th century, are waiting for the revival.
Until recently, all the vaults of the transept and the central nave of Sophia of Kyiv looked gloomy. Painted in grayish-olive and yellowish colors, they hid the oil paintings of later eras. Large-scale compositions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were deliberately closed by the restorers in 1956, because, according to the heads of restoration works, they had neither artistic nor historical value and violated, prevented the perception of a clear system of frescoes of the cathedral of the 11th century.
Interesting murals have been erased from the history of the monument. Information about the hidden painting, fragmentary, incomplete and distorted, was included only in the restoration documentation, and has not been made public since then. It took a short period of time, only half a century, for the gray vaults of Sophia to be perceived as natural and for the idea to take root that nothing had survived on those vaults.
The presence of a later painting, hidden under neutral paints on the vaults of the central nave and the main transept of Sophia of Kyiv, was established by us in 2007 in the process of working with the materials of the scientific archive of the National Conservation Area “St. Sophia of Kyiv”. We managed to trace the fate of this painting, the stages of restoration, to notice the state of preservation and the problem of attribution. The names of most of these compositions were not mentioned in the documents, some received erroneous definitions. Attributions of painting that “is not valuable” were not given any importance, because the restoration documentation insisted that it is a painting of very low quality, ugly and allegedly distracts from the ancient mosaics and frescoes.
The names of the hidden compositions were determined by us from photographs and cartograms, partial descriptions of the characters of the plots in the restoration reports.
Much of the unjustly forgotten painting is now available for viewing. In recent years, compositions of the southern vault of the transept (2018) and two vaults of the central nave (2020) have been unveiled in Sophia of Kyiv. The works were carried out under the direction of Anatolii Ostapchuk, the head of the monument restoration workshop.
In large areas of the northern and southern vaults of the transept in mid-19th century according to the drawings of Academician Fedir Solntsev, artistic compositions were performed – four Sunday scenes.
To date, two of them have been opened.
On the western slope of the southern vault of the transept in front of the altar dedicated to Sts. Joachim and Anne (in front of the deacon) the composition “The Way to Emmaus” is placed.
Opposite, on the eastern slope of the same vault – “The Supper at Emmaus”.
The Supper at Emmaus. Oil. Mid-19th century.
The southern part of the transept of Sophia of Kyiv, the eastern slope of the vault. Modern look.
Photo by Dorat Kaporikov
All four Resurrection scenes, two of which are still closed (we first talked about them), together with the 11th century frescoes preserved on the walls of the transept, are a consistent illustration of the Gospel story from the Resurrection of Christ to the Descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles.
The ancient frescoes “Descent into Hell”, “The Appearance of Christ to Myrrh-Bearing Wives” are chronologically supplemented by images of the Apostles Peter and John at the Holy Sepulcher and myrrh-bearing wives listening to the Angel. Then, in the southern part of the transept, the story is continued by the scenes “The Way to Emmaus” and “The Supper at Emmaus”, they precede the ancient frescoes depicting the appearance of Christ to the disciples with Thomas – “The Doubting Thomas”, the appearance of Christ before the Ascension – “”Sending Disciples to Preach“ and “The Descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles.”
According to the style and technique of execution, oil compositions on the slopes of the transept, in fact, dissonant with the ancient frescoes of the Christological cycle. This is explained by the fact that according to the plan of F. Solntsev they were to be made “in the taste of painting of the last century, as… they are in one connection with… the approved universal councils and councils of the Apostles and Church Fathers”, i.e., it was necessary to imitate baroque paintings of the 18th century to combine stylistically new images with compositions on the vaults of the central nave. It is worth noting that this task was not completely accomplished by the artists – all four works are largely marked by the influence of the traditions of academic painting. However, the themes of these new paintings are organically combined with the frescoes of the Christological cycle.
Baroque compositions of the 18th century on the vaults of the central nave were significantly renewed and supplemented during the restoration of F. Solntsev, restored and closed in 1956 and finally opened in 2020.
At present, the vaults of Sophia of Kyiv have “come to life”.
In the central nave, on a shining golden background, the “Earthly Sky” seemed to open.
The vault of the central nave of Sophia of Kyiv. Modern look. Photo by Dorat Kaporikov.
On the first to the west of the central dome torispherical vault, above the surviving parts of the prince’s group portrait is a composition consisting of several registers. At the zenith on a gold background in a triangle a dove is depicted – a symbol of the Holy Spirit; below, on the southern and northern slopes of the vault, are the twelve Apostles: six figures on each slope. This image of the Descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles, peculiar in the iconographic solution, due to the need to take into account the peculiarities of the architectural surface of the vaults and divide the Apostles into two distant groups, to some extent replaced the corresponding ancient fresco composition on the west wall of the south transept. Images of the plots of the twelfth holidays are one of the main, mandatory in the Orthodox Church, and at that time the fresco “Descent of the Holy Spirit” of the 11th century was covered with oil paintings.
In the lower parts of the slopes of this vault, directly above the southern and northern parts of the prince’s group portrait, there are images of two more groups of Apostles from among the 70: 35 Apostles in each group.
The lower groups of the Apostles (those of 35 faces) are separated from the upper ones (those of 6 faces) by inscriptions on the ribbons.
Next, on the second from the central dome western vault of the central nave at the zenith on a golden background is the image of Christ the Great Archiereus standing in the clouds and blessing with both hands. Near the clouds – the heads of angels.
Below, on the northern slope of this vault, are two compositions, located one above the other – the image of the councils of saints (all the compositions on both vaults of the central nave are called like this by Archpriest P. Lebedyntsev; another definition: “Councils of the Apostles and Church Fathers”).
On the southern slope, the upper composition is preserved – the image of one of the councils of saints, the lower, also “Cathedral of Saints”, is lost: at the time of restoration work in the mid-20th century its base and paint layer were in very poor condition, so the old damaged plaster was replaced with a new one. Above the upper “Councils of Saints”, located directly below the image of Christ the Great Archiereus (on both sides of Him, on the slopes), there are ribbons with inscriptions.
The paintings of the vaults of the central nave are organically combined with the design of the central part of the western choirs – the composition of the 18th century “Praise to the Blessed Virgin” (“I rejoice in you”), significantly renewed and supplemented in the mid-19th century. Undoubtedly, they were performed according to a single compositional plan.
The images placed on the two vaults of the central nave significantly complement the picture of the mural ensemble of Sophia of the Kyiv Baroque period, as they preserve the plots of the compositions that appeared here in the first half of the18th century. Together with the composition of the central dome, which was made on top of ancient mosaics and later described in detail by Metropolitan Euhenii (Bolkhovitinov) and with paintings on the central vault of the western choirs, together with images of seven Ecumenical Councils encircling the ground floor of the central nave and transept they formed the core of the mural program of the 18th century, which we can now reconstruct.
Despite later updates, some changes, significant additions and artistic toning, the revealed painting retains the compositional scheme of the painting of Sophia of Kyiv in the 18th century.
In the early 1950s, all the compositions on the vaults of the central nave and transept were defined as “ugly in their artistic qualities” and “rough, artisan-church in both pattern and color.”
A few years later (1956-1958), during the restoration of the frescoes in the altar and the deaconry, the assessment of the late painting, which was there and was also subject to closure, was much softer. For example, regarding the closed compositions “Assumption of the Virgin” and “Resurrection of Tavifa” in the chapel of St. Peter the Apostle in the restoration documents states only that the painting of the 19th century does not matter much in artistic terms.
Resurrection of Tavifa. Oil. Mid-19th century.
Altar of St. Apostle Peter Sophia of Kyiv, apse; south wall.
The composition is covered with solid layers of neutral paint.
The decision to paint was applied to the later painting of the Apostolic Chapel, as well as to two oil compositions of 1894 – “Baptism of the Lord” and “Meeting” (Revealed in 2009).
The compositions discovered in recent years testify to the historical and cultural value of the later mural of Sophia of Kyiv.
The painting, which remains hidden, is awaiting disclosure.
Numerous mural compositions of Sophia of Kyiv of the 18th and 19th centuries, which were made in places of loss of ancient frescoes on new soil and occupied large areas, as a result of the restoration of the mid-20th century disappeared: some were destroyed without the necessary documentation, others remain hidden.
They are an integral part of the multifaceted history of Sophia of Kyiv and need careful study, as they are important as monuments of fine arts (as examples of monumental art that reflect the peculiarities of church painting of specific historical epochs) and as historical monuments.
Prepared by Tamara RIASNAIA