Old Believers and Early Icons

It is interesting to read about the role of Old Believers and the discovery of early Russian art. They were great collectors of Russian icons and stimulated an interest in Russian art when no one else was remotely interested. On the other hand their preferences for a certain style of icon seemed to unintentionally inhibit the discovery of the earliest of icons as 18th and 19th century restorers often fixed up the earliest icons to look a little more like the popular Stroganov icons that the Old Believer's preferred.

"This interest in early Russian painting, at a time when its artistic value had not yet been completely brought to light, was constantly stimulated by the use of collections of icons, widely spread among "Old Believers". These Old Believers, firmly attached to the faith of their ancestors, used to collect ancient icons either as sacred objects or as rare and precious pieces. The icons of the Stroganov school were their favorites in comparison to other examples of iconographic art because of their obvious "preciousness." ... The taste inherited from the seventeenth century was conductive to acquiring small icons in particular; besides, the great Novgorodian icons were too cumbersome for a small house chapel. ... It is interesting to note that apart from the patient and assiduous work of a few Old Believers who were very fond of icons, state and ecclesial institutions were completely indifferent to early Russian art.

... In 1905, something of great importance took place: the Old Believers were forbidden to open their churches or to build new ones. This event had a totally unexpected impact on the study of Russian iconography. Suddenly there was a request for larger icons, which had been rejected by collectors of the previous century. This time, the new wave of antiques which came to Moscow from the North brought with it many very large icons from Novgorod. The dirt, soot, and blackened olifa [drying oil] began to be removed from the icons in the same way it was usually done with the icons of the Stroganovs. But the cleaning did not stop there. While the icons of the Stroganovs came to collectors in their original forms without alterations because, for a long time, their art was the ideal of iconographers - not only those from the eighteenth century, but also from the nineteenth century - the attitude was quite different towards the earliest icons. In the seventeenth century, artistic taste suddenly changed and all the early icons were inexorably touched up. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, early works were not protected by anyone, and when they were not destroyed, they were at the very least "restored" by superimposing yet another layer of paint over the original one. 

In the early twentieth century restorers began to remove not only the dirt and grime but also the newer layers of paint.

"When early icons began to be rid of the late renovations which altered them, it became evident that the old paint had been permanently preserved under countless successive layers and that it had acquired the hardness and the consistency of ivory."

Needless to say, once the early icons were properly restored they quickly gained in popularity, even being admired by the famous artist Matisse. 

"On account of his own sensitivity, Matisse was the sort of person instinctively attracted to primitive art and in particular to early Russian icons, which fascinated him not only because of the naturalness of their colors but also because of their expressive spontaniety and emotional intensity."

 - from The Russian Icon from its Origins to the Sixteenth Century by Viktor Nikitich Lazarev.

Icon: Boris and Gleb, who were the first Russian saints. This icon is from the early 14th century, Moscow school.