Culture

N. Gogelia

Literary Sources of Annual Icons

Annual icons are an illustration of common and liturgical calendar menologies in Eastern Orthodox countries. Their iconographic and artistic style is not sufficiently studied. Liturgical icons originates in X century (Byzantium) where the Life of Saints was reviewed and their iconographic style was introduced and canonized. Svimeon Metaphrast and Ioane Xiphilinos edited the Life of Saints in X-XI centuries. The Saint Ephtvime and the Saint Giorgi Mtatsmindeli translated it on which the menologies was based. The record Cod hist gras 6 kept at National Library of Vienna dates back to this period. The first page of this record contains the images of 36 saints. K. Veitsman considers that this miniature marked the beginning of icons showing the Life of Saints. I fully share the author's opinion. And this served as the basis not only for icons depicting the Life of Saints but the menological icons as well. The ancient Georgian menological icons are kept at Saint Katherine Monastery (XI century). Very few Georgian menologies (including the icons of the new Shuamta Monastery from the State Museum of Art) reached our times. These icons date back to the turn of XVIII-XIX centuries due to their stylistic features. The images of the world and Russian saints are depicted together with the scenes of festivities where one can feel the ideology and style of the epoch when the Russian culture rich with elements of West European Art merges with the Georgian art and iconography to form an absolutely new style of the local Georgian Art and Origin.

 

Sh. Amiranashvili State Museum of Art
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