On June 11th, the National Library hosted the opening of the exhibition “The spirit of religious traditions and printed icons” from the stocks of the Belarusian State Museum of Folk Architecture and Rural Lifestyle and Fr. J.K. Kluk Museum of Agriculture (Ciechanowiec, Poland).
This is the first exhibition project prepared by two museums within the bounds of the international cooperation. The purpose of the exposition is to show two particular collections of old color print icons as a complete artistic phenomenon which existed in the regions with strong ethnic, confessional and historical connections.
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Poland to the Republic of Belarus Leszek Szerepka, director of the National Library of Belarus Roman Motulsky, director of the Belarusian State Museum of Folk Architecture and Rural Lifestyle Eduard Bogdanovich and director of Fr. J.K. Kluk Museum of Agriculture Dorota Lapiak took part in the exhibition opening.
The offered exposition features over 70 exhibits – icons printed in the late XIX – early XX centuries in European printing-houses in a complex and very laborious technique of chromolithograph. A collection of books from the stocks of the National Library of Belarus presented at a special exhibition section id about the history and methods of this multistage technology.
Chromolithography appeared in the early XIX century and unlike lithography it allowed to get color images. A master engraver performs a set of single drawings (from 3 to 6) on a special stone. Each stone has an engraved image corresponding to one color which by means of a press leaves on paper a corresponding figure and color. Then another stone with another color is applied to the same image and so on until a color picture comes out. The aforementioned method of color separation is demanded in modern typographical business with the only difference that this work is made by computer.
Owning to chromolithography in the XIX century which not only reproduced all the colors of an original but allowed to publish quality print icons commercially. Print copies of known wonder-working icons, very cheap and affordable, were in good request, especially among common people who purchased them at merchants and in temples, and often such print icons became part of marriage portion. At times pilgrims brought them from the Holy Land, and copies of wonder-working icons and even masterpieces of Tiziano, Raphael and Leonardo Da Vinci were found under straw roofs of Belarusian huts.
Mass manufacturing of color print icons reached its peak in the last quarter of the XIX century. Specialized factories were leaders in print icons manufacture, although private and monastic printing houses were engaged in icon replicating as well. Among Orthodox icons presented at the exhibition there are highly artistic chromolithographs by E.I. Fesenko, the publisher from Odessa who won the first prize at the Milan World Expo for his works, and also chromolithographs on plates by known businessman and enlightener I.D. Sytin. The book collection of the National Library of Belarus acquaints with editions on the history of some chromolithography companies and catalogs of print icons of Fesenko’s, Sytin’s, Pliushsheev’s, Chokolov’s and other printing-houses.
The exhibition “The spirit of religious traditions and print icons” presents as well a set of rare exhibits. The icon of Our Lady of Czestochowa is the rarest and most interesting of Catholic icons. Its originality is that when changing the foreshortening before the spectator three images open unexpectedly, like a wonder: St. Antony of Padua, the Guardian Angel and Our Lady. This icons “with the secret” first appeared in the ХVIII which was rich in theatrical effects and transformations.
The printed icons closely connected with folk piety can be considered as true works of art. This is a short but extraordinary bright phenomenon in the history of iconography. The beauty of an old color icon still impresses and surprises spectators.
The exhibition “The spirit of religious traditions and print icons” runs in the gallery “Labyrinth” (on the 3rd floor) till 27 August, 2015.
Contact telephone: (+375 17) 93 27 56.
Е-mail: pr@nlb.by
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