On May 19th, the National Library hosted a presentation of the hand-written Gospel of Mark with etchings and opening of the exhibition of engravings by artist Apollinaria Mishina (St.-Petersburg).
Artist Apollinaria Mishina has performed a unique project which unites historical traditions of book designing and modern arts. The calligraphic book The Gospel of Mark represents an inseparable connection between verbal and graphic lines – images are created from the text, and figures are laid out with letters.
The manuscript features 104 miniatures created in a complex technique of color etching and illuminated with gold leafs. Texts stream around images closely as if a kiot for an icon. Leaves with miniatures follow one after one interleaved at times with whole pages of texts. Sometimes miniatures take the whole leaf.
Texts of the Gospel are written in 155 pages in a specially conceived font on the basis of the Half-Ustav. Texts in the pages are divided into two columns – those written in the Church Slavic and the Pre-Reform Russian. The hand-written part of the Gospel is performed in the technique of silk template print.
This art project was reprinted by the publishing house Vita Nova (St.-Petersburg) in 2014. One of its first presentations took place in Minsk within the bounds of the opening of a book exhibition “The Gospel of Mark. The XXI century”.
The work by artist-calligrapher Apollinaria Mishina has been highly appreciated by the Russian Orthodox Church.
Apollinaria Mishina is engaged in the creation of authors’ books with original design, binding, fonts and illustrations. He is the author of the hand-written Gospel of Matthew, illustrations to the calligraphic book by Iosif Brodsky Letters to the roman Friend and the story by Ilya Knabengof (leader of the rock band Pilot) and other unique books.
The exhibition of engravings by Apollinaria Mishina runs in the gallery “Labyrinth” (on the 3rd floor), and her unique Gospel of Mark is on display at the Book Museum (room 348).
The event is arranged by the National Library of Belarus and the graphic gallery Knizhny salon.
Contact telephone: (+375 17) 293 27 56.
Е-mail: pr@nlb.by
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